(A Sense of) Safety First - 3-Minute Video with Transcript, Discussion Questions, and Selected References

Episode 1: (A Sense of) Safety First

Discussion Questions

1. What do you need to feel safe (upon return)?

2. How has your sense of safety been disrupted since COVID-19?

3. What will the students need to feel safe (and are they the same needs as you have)?

YouTube link

Transcript

1^st Frame:

Hello! I’m Julie McDaniel-Muldoon, Safety and Well-Being Consultant at Oakland Schools. I created the Supportive Strategies Series with 3-minute episodes of strategies I think might be helpful to you, especially during this extraordinary time. These short and sweet episodes are based on research and best practice. Episode 1: (A Sense of) Safety First. Let’s begin.

2^nd Frame:

The most important function of the brain is determining our level of safety. The self-preservation center of the brain asks, “Am I safe?” With an affirmative answer, the brain signals the body that all is well. The Limbic System, the social emotional part of the brain, then asks, “Am I loved? Do I belong?” At this point the executive functioning part of the brain lights up. At this point, we are able to control impulses, can reason and learn, and make good judgments.

  

 3^rd Frame:

Stephen Porges has helped us understand safety as a neurobiological process. When the brain feels safe, the mind is fully present, there is a sense of physical safety, and we are connected to each other. There is a decrease in heart rate and defense mechanisms. There is an increase in immune response and metabolism. We rest and recuperate more easily. Natural oxytocin is released. Our digestion is efficient and effective and so much more. We are curious, joyful, grounded, compassionate, and mindful.

4^th Frame:

In uncertain times such as these, our brains are quick to retreat into survival mode. The self-preservation center of the brain is the key to our social-emotional health and to learning. Restoring a sense of priority is our first priority.

5^th Frame:

Helping others is often done naturally. When we are face to face with students, we can do this more easily with tone of voice, body language and eye contact. But we also establish safety with clear routines and expectations, consistent scheduling, and clear directions. Online, we can do this the same way. We provide predictability, flexibility, routines, and choice. We connect with students and explicitly tell them how much we value them.

Final Frame:

All of this content is based on solid research and best practice. Please contact me for references, more resources, and suggested topics for future episodes. You can reach me at julie.mcdaniel@oakland.k12.mi.us.

Selected Resources

Integrated Listening Systems (2019). Stephen Porges on the Link between Feeling Safe and Making Changes. Retrieved from https://integratedlistening.com/blog/2019/09/24/stephen-porges-on-the-link-between-feeling-safe-and-making-change/

McDaniel-Muldoon, JE (2019, July 23). (A Sense of) Safety First. International Bullying Prevention Association Blog and News. https://ibpaworld.org/blog/a-sense-of-safety-first/.  

Porges, S. W. (2017). The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The

Transformative Power of Feeling Safe. New York: W. W. Norton and

Company.

Siegel, D. J. (2015). Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin.

Simon-Thomas, ER (2015). Measuring compassion in the body. Greater Good

Magazine. Retrieved from

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/measuring_compassion_in_the_ 

body.

(A Sense of) Safety First

First appeared as a blog post for the International Bullying Prevention Association on July 30, 2019

Since the 1950s, American schools have been engaging in safety preparedness, beginning with fire drills, evolving into additional emergency protocols, and finally with active shooter training. Unfortunately, no evidence exists that these measures bring any improvements in the sense of safety. As Dr. Daniel Siegel (2015) explains, students need to be “seen, safe, and soothed, in order to feel secure” (p. 145), and these needs will not be met by current school safety practices alone. As collective wisdom considers the emotional and social impact of these safety measures, it is important to note that for more than a decade, US students have been reporting how many of them miss school because of safety concerns. Karyn Purvis and her colleagues remind us, there is a difference between being safe and feeling safe: “Felt safety, which has to be determined by each individual, includes emotional, physical, and relational security” (From The Connected Child).  It may be time to reconsider what is meant by school safety and to determine what our children and young people really need in order to feel the sense of safety required to thrive in school and beyond.

School Safety: A Perennial Issue for Some

Since 1999, the Center for Disease Control's Division of Adolescence and School Health (CDC/DASH) has surveyed over four million US high school students on health behaviors that contribute to physical, social, and emotional problems. One of the questions addresses students’ sense of safety: “During the past 30 days, on how many days did you not go to school because you felt you would be unsafe at school or on your way to or from school?” From 2007-2017, 5-7% of US high school students have reported not going to school because of safety concerns. These troubling results have remained stable with no statistical difference across a decade.

Looking deeper into the 2017 results, females have significantly more safety concerns than males, and Black and Latino students have more safety concerns than white students. Additionally, LGBTQ+ students have significantly higher safety concerns than non-LGBTQ+ students.  In a classroom of 30, two students stay home at least one day a month because they are afraid before, during, or after school.

The Neurobiology of Feeling Safe

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is often held up as a framework for acknowledging both physiological and psychological needs in schools, especially with regard to safety. The premise is that basic human needs must be fulfilled before social, esteem, and self-actualization needs are considered. At the base of human needs are physiological needs, such as food and shelter. The next level of needs is focused on safety and security. This need for safety can be met with limits, consistencies, routines, and predictability. From there, efforts can be made to fulfill the needs for self-esteem and self-actualization. Using this model, schools might easily simplify the safety needs of their students and mobilize all adults in the schools to play pivotal roles in meeting these needs.

However, as Patricia Rutledge and others note, this understanding is too simplistic, because it fails to take into account the prerequisite for social connections at every level of the hierarchy. While it may not be included in current discussions, Maslow’s original model sets preconditions that do indeed recognize the social environment. The freedoms to speak and to defend one’s self are noted as preconditions, as are honesty, justice, and order in groups. Maslow (1943) asserts, “These conditions are defended because without them the basic satisfactions are quite impossible, or at least, very severely endangered” (p.384).  According to Maslow, then, a healthy social environment is an imperative for meeting individual needs, including safety needs.

Considering the impact of the environment on individuals, Steven Porges (2017) explains feeling safe as a neurobiology in his Polyvagal Theory.  The neurobiological responses to relationships and to the environment determine whether humans feel safe, and these instinctual responses take precedence over a cognitive determination of safety. Porges challenges the traditional structural ideas of safety that focus on physical measures as they may have no impact on the feeling of safety. In other words, the environment determines whether or not people feel safe, and feeling safe may not be based on logic or fact. Porges advocates a shift in thinking about safety that is a simple thought: it matters how people treat one another.

The Polyvagal Theory also asserts that feeling safe is the natural state of the brain. In this state, humans are connected and fully present. Because the brain perceives no risk, it is open to new learning. “Safe states are not only a prerequisite for social behavior, but also for accessing the higher brain structures that enable humans to be creative and generative” (Porges, 2017, p. 50). This theory suggests that all learning, academic and social-emotional, must happen in a perceived safe environment. As a by-product, then, in tending to the neurobiology of feeling safe, student achievement is likely to increase, as evidenced by several researchers who have seen the relationship between strong school communities that prioritize social-emotional learning with increases in student achievement (See the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2019; Hagelskamp, Brackett, Rivers, & Salovey, 2013, among others).

A Sense of Safety First

Rather than considering security measures and drills alone, improving school safety should focus on increasing the sense of safety, which happens within a healthy school environment. While physical safety measures are an important part of all safety plans, students feeling safe at school is not the same as an adult declaration that a school is safe.  When students feel safe at school, they are more willing to engage in prosocial behaviors and their brains are ready to take in new information, be it academic content or social-emotional learning. Most importantly, when the focus is on students’ feelings of safety, it is possible to reduce the concerning numbers of students, especially Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQ+ students, who miss at least one school day every month because of safety concerns.

References

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2019). Research: SEL Impact. Retrieved from https://casel.org/impact/.

Center for Disease Control (2017). Youth Risk Behavior Survey: data and trends report 2007-2017. Retrieved from Washington, DC: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/trendsreport.pdf.

Hagelskamp, C., Brackett, M. A., Rivers, S. E., & Salovey, P. (2013). Improving classroom quality with the RULER approach to social and emotional learning: Proximal and distal outcomes. American Journal of Community Psychology, 51(3-4), 530-543.

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2016). Percentage of students ages 12-18 who reported being bullied at school during the school year, by type of bullying and selected student and school characteristics: Selected years, 2005 through 2015. In Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (Ed.), Digest of Education Statistics (August 2016 ed.). Washington, DC: NCES.

Porges, S. W. (2017). The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative
Power of Feeling Safe. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

Purvis, K. B., Cross, D. R. & Sunshine, W. L. (2007). The Connected Child: Bring hope and healing to your adoptive family. In. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Rutledge, P. (2011). Social Networks: What Maslow Missed. Retrieved from http://mprcenter.org/blog/2011/11/social-networks-what-maslow-misses/

Siegel, D. J. (2015). Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin.

Julie E. McDaniel-Muldoon, PhD

·        Social Media Director, International Bullying Prevention Association (www.ibpaworld.org)

·        Student Safety and Well-Being Consultant, Oakland Schools (Waterford, Michigan)

·        Advanced Trauma Practitioner and Trainer, Starr Commonwealth (www.starr.org)

·        More information:

o Email: jemmuldoon@gmail.com

o Blog: https://jemmuldoon.blogspot.com/

o Twitter: @jemmuldoon

Feeling Safe at School: A National Downward Trend

Since 1993 the Center for Disease Control's Department of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) has asked high school students the following question on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS): "During the past 30 days, on how many days did you not go to school because you felt you would be unsafe at school or on your way to or from school?" Before discussing the 2017 findings and 14-year trend, let's explore the concept of safety

In 1943 American psychologist Abraham Maslow first proposed his Hierarchy of Motivation. This human development theory frames a hierarchy of needs: physiological, safety, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. The model asserts that the physiological needs of food, warmth, and more must be met before safety needs are met, and so on. In this sense, safety is a broad term and describes security, stability, order and freedom from fear.

From a trauma perspective, this sense of safety is no less critical in human development. Dr. Bruce Perry, internationally recognized author and expert on child trauma, suggests that a sense of safety is necessary for optimal child development. As he asserts, children will thrive when their world is safe and predictable, in addition to having consistent emotional nurturing.

School violence has put student safety on a national stage for the last twenty years. Despite the perception of our students' increasing vulnerability in school, the evidence suggests our students are very safe in schools.  Dr. Scott Poland, expert of violence preparation and crisis response in schools teaches the difference between psychological safety and physical safety, advocating for a "balanced, comprehensive programs consisting of prevention, intervention, mental health, security and crisis preparedness components." 

Here are the results of a nationally representative sample of US high school students responding to the question of not going to school because they did not feel safe on their way to school, during school, or on their way home from school:

• In 2017, 7% of students reported staying home from school at least one day over the last 30 days because they did not feel safe.
• The prevalence was higher among black and Hispanic students (9%) than white students (4%).
• The prevalence was higher among 9th- and 10th-grade students (8%) than 11th- and 12th-grade students (5%).
• During 1993-2017, a significantly greater percentage of students stayed home from school at least one day, from 4% to 7%.
• Focusing on our students across states and in large urban districts, context matters. The range of students not going to school was 5% to 12%, with a median of 7%.
• Across 20 large urban districts, the range was 6% to 13%, with a median of 10%.

Why is the sense of safety that our children feel in school decreasing, despite our added preventative measures, our increased crisis preparedness, and our improving identification of mental health concerns? Did the focus of accountability and spotlight on test scores distract our attention and divert our actions away from providing a level of school safety necessary to provide optimal readiness for learning? If Maslow's theory holds true and the neuro-development research remains strong, then our children's physiological, safety and love/belonging needs must be addressed first at school, not just at home.

Perhaps it is time to articulate a vision of our children's success that takes into account their well-being. Perhaps it is time to step back from comprehensive and balanced school safety programs in order to consider the community context and its impact on our children. Perhaps our children are telling us that despite our attempts to protect them, our personal sense of safety may be more influential on their own sense of safety than the precautions and measures that we provide for them.

This issue is deserving of a larger conversation.