71. (Archival) Ep18 After Processing Suicidal Ideation
Becoming Centered
Today’s episode is from the archives that are available at . It’s a re-cast of Episode 18, addressing how counselors can stabilize kids after an incident involving suicidal ideation or gestures. The role of a counselor is fundamentally different than the role of a therapist in these situations. The counselor’s focus is on helping the client see the suicidal ideation or gesture as a symptom and then helping the client cope with that symptom. It’s not about understanding where the symptom comes from – leave that for the individual sessions with a therapist. ...
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70. (Archival) Ep17 Suicidal Ideation
Becoming Centered
This is an archival episode that re-releases Episode 17 on Suicidal Ideation. Episodes 17 and 18 explore how to counsel residents who experience suicidal ideation. Residential children and youth are part of a high-risk group for having thoughts of suicide and, often times, it will fall upon residential staff to provide effective counseling, typically late at night. Learn how to effectively process suicidal ideation with your clients and what sort of follow-up interventions can help keep your clients safe.
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69. Expectation Systems & Contracts
Becoming Centered
Episode 69 of the Becoming Centered Podcast, building off of the previous two episodes, presents listeners with a powerful tool for residential treatment programs – Expectation Contracts. Episode 67 presented the underlying conceptual difference between using point systems, behavior contracts, and other “behavioral” change techniques to impact performative surface behaviors versus impacting inner systemic change. Both have their place. Episode 68 expanded on these distinctions by introducing the idea of a “behavior-management” system versus a...
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68. Behavior-Management vs Feedback-Incentive Systems
Becoming Centered
Episode 68 of the Becoming Centered Podcast expands on the topic of how to design interventions targeted at changing performative surface behaviors versus interventions designed to inspire inner systemic changes in how kids manage their emotions, adopt self-regulating beliefs and values, and consciously manage relationships with others. The key design difference is whether or not a point system, coupon system, token economy, or other forms of behavior contracts track observable behaviors or try to track the kids’ efforts at self-directed change. This episode examines the profound...
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67. Performative vs Systemic Change
Becoming Centered
Becoming Centered Podcast 67, “Performative vs Systemic Change” lays the groundwork for understanding how to design effective behavior-focused program structures that are intended to shape the behaviors of children and youth in residential treatment programs. The key to effective design of these structures is understanding when and how to focus on performative behaviors versus when and how to focus on inner systemic change. “Performative behavioral change” are changes in the kids’ surface behaviors while they are at the treatment program. “Inner systemic change”...
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66. House Meeting6 - Parts & Treatment Objectives
Becoming Centered
This episode of the Becoming Centered Podcast presents four major parts to a residential treatment program’s House Meetings (a regularly scheduled meeting of staff and clients). Each part, (1) check-ins, (2) announcements, (3) group discussions / agenda items, and (4) wrap-up provides a forum for promoting resilience, self-regulation, social skills, and team-building. Regardless of the specific content of any single meeting, staff focus on four aspects of resilience, four aspects of self-regulation, and four aspects of “meeting behaviors” or social skills. Resilience is...
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65. House Meeting5 - Storming and Purpose
Becoming Centered
Skillful facilitation of House Meetings is one of the most challenging, but also most impactful, aspects of providing a treatment experience. Developing a group of troubled kids into a high-performing team, that absorbs each other’s misbehaviors and promotes maturation, is a difficult task. Storming behaviors are common among kids in residential treatment. In House Meetings, a significant number of kids will deeply struggle with inappropriate meeting behaviors – ranging from aggressively menacing the whole room to simply not paying attention or actively distracting...
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64. House Meeting4 - Emotional Sensitivity
Becoming Centered
Running a residential unit for children and youth that goes beyond providing quality Care to also delivering an impactful Treatment experience requires staff to constantly focus on team-building. It’s as a high-performing team that the kids develop their own self-regulation and resiliency; through helping their team-mates manage their daily emotional, cognitive, and behavioral challenges. One of the best structures in which to develop a residential unit into a team is the, at least weekly, House Meeting. House Meetings have several parts, such as announcements, group...
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63. House Meeting3 - Check-ins
Becoming Centered
Episode 63 of the Becoming Centered Podcast focuses on how to facilitate Check-ins as part of a residential treatment program’s House Meetings. Check-ins are an excellent way to start House Meetings. Literally, people take turns giving a brief report on how they are doing that day. Structured effectively, the practice of conducting Check-ins can become a foundational technique for a program providing a treatment experience for the kids. When used in a group setting, Check-ins are steered by the facilitator to focus not so much on the kid doing the check-in, but on how everyone...
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62. House Meeting2 - Phases of Team Development
Becoming Centered
Episode 62 of the Becoming Centered podcast is the second episode in an arc focused on House Meetings. In my experience, House Meetings are the single most effective group structure in the residential week for promoting team-building and for developing the kids into a high-performance team. When that happens the entire residential experience shifts from having to spend an excessive amount of time on behavior management to a treatment environment that promotes mental health. Developing that kind of positive peer and staff culture takes time. It also takes solid strategy...
info_outlineToday’s episode, which is the fourth on the Unit Supervisory Learning Pathway, focuses on a model for how to structure the typical supervision session. In the context of working on a residential treatment unit for children and youth, there are many sub-roles that define an effective relationship between a supervisor and their supervisees. A Supervisor encompasses the roles of Counselor, Teacher, Coach, Leader, Superior, Boss, and Mentor. This episode focuses on starting supervision meetings with the Supervisor focuses on the role of Counselor. In that role, the Supervisor is most concerned about the emotional well-being of the direct-care staff being supervised.
This initial focus on emotional wellness, which starts with simply asking a person how they're doing this week, makes sense as a basic display of good social skills. However, the Counselor sub-role goes far beyond good manners and tries to attend to helping your Supervisees manage the high level of exposure to traumatic stress that is a big part of their jobs. Just expressing concern helps. Beyond that, there will be times when engaging in psychological debriefing will be an appropriate way to help your Supervisees take the edge off of the more stressful encounters they've had that week. Attending to the basic human emotional needs of your Supervisees also means trying to help them find inspiration and meaning in the work, celebrating their successes, and reinforcing examples of their good teamwork and their demonstrating strong executive skills in their work.
Sometimes, it makes sense to spend an entire supervision meeting primarily in that Counselor sub-role. However, that should be the exception and not the rule. Supervision meeting time is incredible valuable and a skilled Supervisor consciously designs their supervision time to be strategic about how many minutes to devote to the domain of emotions, before moving on to the other sub-roles (Teacher, Coach, Leader, Superior, Boss, and Mentor) that are also essential aspects of being an effective Supervisor.