All About Trauma-Informed Practice – Episode 37 with Colleen Wilkinson

Welcome back to The All About Audiology podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach Saperstein. And this episode is really truly from my heart. Coming to you guys, to my listeners, it’s a topic that’s really, really important to me and something that really propelled me into making this podcast. And the more and more we’re continuing with interviews, more and more guests come on the show, the more I interact with you guys, I see that the original message that I wanted to come and put out in the world is really something that’s very, very necessary. And that is that, this is hard, this journey, hearing loss, learning all about audiology, making really big decisions for your child is not an easy topic. It’s something that really has to be given weight and really has to be taken seriously.

And something that I was noticing throughout my studies and throughout my work was that there was a lot of emphasis and focus on doing the interventions, doing the treatments, getting the hearing aids, programming them and, many hours of speech therapy, or deciding to do the cochlear implant surgery… And then boom, boom, boom, like action, action action, which obviously is fabulous and very necessary. And there wasn’t quite as much urgency and attention given, almost at all, to the emotional processing of the family to the news of the hearing loss, specifically to the parents, who may have really been totally caught off guard by this diagnosis or not. Whatever it is that the experience of the parents is, it wasn’t being properly addressed.

And it’s really the perspective that I wanted to bring to this, to the all about audiology project, to this whole community, is that we really do need to care for ourselves as parents, where audiologists do really need to take into account the parents’ reaction, the parents’ readiness, the available resources, in all the ways that that means. Financial and time and emotional attend to the needs that now have presented themselves with this diagnosis, and also to the entire process of grieving, of being in denial, of accepting the news, of going into action, of becoming advocates; this whole journey that twists and turns and winds back and comes back around. It’s really something that is, I feel, a very big message, a very big mission for me to make room for that and make space for that within the community of families who are navigating hearing loss.

In Episode 31, I interviewed Mama Manon, who is a French teacher and gives parenting workshops where her entire approach is coming from addressing our children and connecting with our children from a body level. How do our bodies feel in different circumstances, what is that gnawing in my stomach or that fluttering in my chest? Am I listening to those cues? Am I paying attention to my body and then also making room to connect with what our child’s bodily experience is? Like if they’re flailing around if they’re unable to regulate their bodies and all of that. So, if you haven’t had a chance to listen to Episode 31, I highly recommend you go back. And then in Episode 33, I interviewed Dr. Julie Renshaw, and we talked a lot about the experience of the diagnosis in the context of the equipment that we use, so it was kind of a technical episode and something that I’m always trying to do is make a balance with these episodes so that you can really find what it is that you’re looking for.

And today I wanted to invite someone I really look up to, someone I’ve been following on Instagram for a little while and I just feel like all of her posts and all of her messaging really resonates with what I’m trying to do. Her name is Colleen Wilkenson. Her Instagram is Trauma_Informed_Montessori. Of course there will be links and transcripts on the website as always at allaboutaudiology.com. And I just want to invite you to come into this conversation and think about the word “trauma” in kind of a different way then you might have thought about it before. Because sometimes we hear the word “trauma” and we think it has to be this devastatingly, consequential life event, a major event, but the word trauma and how we can think about education and connecting to children and to ourselves in the context of trauma is to realize that trauma is a way that we are experiencing whatever is happening. That could be something that is acute, big event that is very, very upsetting and frightening and you know, too big to handle. But that can also exist, that constellation of what’s happening with our memory, with our body, with our limbic system, our whole emotionality, that trauma response can happen to things that for one person are no big deal and are just everyday life and for another person, it might really affect them and be difficult to handle.

So, I’ve learned so, so much about trauma, just on a personal level. You know, this is something that’s really touched me and helped me through my own stuff that is totally unrelated to audiology, but then to be able to bring in those frameworks and say, ‘Hey, is a child who is constantly ignored or feels unheard because their communication method is constantly breaking down, is that registering as trauma for them? There’s educational trauma that we talked about in the interview, and generational trauma as well of things that have affected us as adults or when we were children and how that then translates into how we interact with our children, or with our patients or with our students, for that matter. So, I really am so grateful to have you as a listener to come on this journey with me.

And without further ado, I’m going to welcome Colleen.

LS: “Welcome Colleen, thank you so much for joining us on the All About Audiology podcast. I have been following you on Instagram and I love, love, love so many of the messages that you’re putting out there with trauma informed Montessori, trauma informed education and parenting. And I think that’s something that is really becoming very popular. People are becoming more attuned to it, you know, in the good sense of popular. I’d love to hear about your background and how you came into this work.”

Colleen: “So, I came to this work when I was a very, very young beginners teacher on September 11th. And I had a very young pre-k class. And I very quickly learned that I was not at all prepared to even help talk them through what they were experiencing in Fort Worth, Texas at the time. So, it wasn’t immediate. It wasn’t that they saw something in person, but that the adults were afraid and that there was all these things on the news. And I wasn’t prepared for that. I didn’t know how to help them. And so, I was just doing my best, like so many teachers are. And then as time went on, I had had a child in my class who had experienced significant infant trauma and I started learning about reactive attachment disorder through that family, and what the outcomes of attachment disorder could be.

So, because I was 26 by that time and really felt like I was wise in the ways of the world, I felt able to go and become a foster parent. I felt that I knew all about this stuff now because I’ve been doing this for a while, and very quickly realized that there was a lot more to it, even then I had experienced as a teacher. So, I became a parent who also needed these trauma informed practices in my home. And so, when I started really doing therapeutic parenting, and using these trauma informed practices on a daily basis at home, I like to say I don’t compartmentalize well, so, I just use the same practices at home, and I just started using them in my classroom too. It’s just easier that way. And I saw a transformation in the children in my care. And I saw the change in the relationship with the students that I was having, where we were establishing trust and connection and safety. And I began to observe these changes in them.

And then I learned more about trauma informed practices through the Parent Purpose Child Development Center out of TCU in Fort Worth, and the trust based relational intervention system and have sort of grown my practice from there over the last 10 years and now I consult with schools all over the US. I teach a graduate level class at Dominican University of California, and I help teachers both on my Instagram and through some individual coaching, kind of find ways to take these practices into their classroom to the benefit of their children. So, it really just started out of a need that I had and grew from there.”

LS: “Wow. Okay, so, I think what we should do is define some of the terms that you’re using. Let’s explain how do we define trauma? What does it mean to have a trauma informed approach for parenting or teaching?”

CW: “Yeah, that’s a really great question. A lot of times when people talk about trauma informed care, they think of adverse childhood experiences. And that’s a very, very limiting view. Trauma, truly, is something that happens to you, that creates a reaction in your body or in your emotional system, your nervous system, all that stuff. And the context of that event is the is the most important thing. Does someone help you? Are you ultimately safe? Did you have a web of support to begin with? So, what could be trauma for one person isn’t necessarily traumatic for another person. What is devastating t