Roz Thompson
[00:00:09] All right. [00:00:09] Well welcome to another edition of AWSP TV. [00:00:13] We are so thrilled today to have Joe Paterno who is the thriving school's program manager for Kaiser Permanente in Washington. [00:00:21] So we're thrilled to have them other a wellness partner with us and we'll talk more about the wealth summit that's coming up in a few weeks. [00:00:29] Their CEO will be speaking at that. [00:00:31] And so we'll talk more about that for sure but we have lots to talk about with Jill. [00:00:34] Thanks for being here for inviting me. [00:00:36] Yeah. [00:00:36] And we will start with.

Jill Patnode
[00:00:38] Just tell us a little bit about your background and what is driving school how so Luli so you know I am relatively new to Kaiser Permanente whether or not I'm here about a year and a half and prior to coming here I was with the Puget Sound is deep I were 15 years working all things dropout prevention all things social emotional learning keeping kids in school. [00:01:01] And that stemmed from my work with juvenile justice which was you know the decade or so before before that. [00:01:07] And so so lots of work in the systems that work with students and so when this position came up I was actually very intrigued. [00:01:16] I'm like What does Kaiser Permanente have to do with schools because their health care. [00:01:21] Right. [00:01:21] Right right. [00:01:22] Yeah I had that wonder. [00:01:23] And so when I got into the position when I what I loved about the position it was it advertises a statewide. [00:01:28] So it was going to have a statewide impact on schools. [00:01:30] And so when I when I got to the position I was kind of trained up I started learning about what this thriving schools is. [00:01:37] And so what I learned is that Kaiser Permanente has been involved with schools for like 35 years for a long time. [00:01:43] And back in 2013 they said you know what we need to do a deep commitment to schools and so we're going to start a thriving Schools program. [00:01:52] And it stemmed from all the work they've been doing and understanding that the young people and the staff and that we have members there all of our members and people on the staff and we have about one in five members in school at any given time. [00:02:07] And so in order and now we can treat them and do great work with them and meet them in our clinics but they always go back to the schools and schools are such a great place for building good habits and starting really new skills. [00:02:21] And so with thriving schools is about is taking a look at all of those skill sets. [00:02:26] How do we support safe and supportive climates. [00:02:28] How do what. [00:02:29] What are the tools and resources we can bring that support schools students and staff.

Roz Thompson
[00:02:35] That is great. [00:02:35] I love that. [00:02:36] So tell me more about how how striving schools really focused in on staff well-being.

Jill Patnode
[00:02:42] Yeah so often in all my work even with the Puget Sound USD when we start talking about students we're talking or school safety we're really focusing on the students and student well-being. [00:02:53] And so you get to that magical number that we're trying to get over the top that graduate that 20 percent we just want to get to graduate right. [00:03:01] And I you know at the USDA done tons of programming and trying to get that up there in schools have done some amazing things. [00:03:06] But I really came to decide that and share Kaiser's shares this is that it's really the staff if we can have it's that connection with that staff person at that staff person is healthy and well then they are gonna be in a better position to help that young person. [00:03:21] That's what I think it's going to take for us to get that final 20 percent is honestly to get our staff treating the total health of our staff their physical health their emotional health their mental health and getting them in a place where the students can come to them and they can respond to the students not in a place of a traumatized brain or vicarious trauma brain but really in a place of calm and mindful. [00:03:44] That's lovely. [00:03:45] Good. [00:03:45] Well what do we know then how. [00:03:47] What are ways that we can work to alleviate that teacher and that staff at all stressed that that it's out there so that we can then help kids. [00:03:55] Yeah you know the first thing to do is to actually before you even do any thing you need to recognize that you need to be a label you have to be able to identify what it is that you're feeling so be helping staff understand what their experience around burnout is bi curious trauma that it's actually a natural natural piece right. [00:04:14] We don't want them to experience it but when you're you're in a position where you've got high job demand and you're in a position where. [00:04:20] You have low resources right and you're you know you need to have some skill set up when you have those things happening then you're gonna have the staff burnout and staff burnout is detrimental to students it's detrimental to the staff it's a lot of time and energy for principals administrators to train staff up. [00:04:40] It's also really hard on the young people if they have a staff person or their teacher is burned out or there's a lot of turnover and substitutes that are happening because of the chronic absenteeism staff. [00:04:52] And so so really what we see is that we need to do that self care and it's really for the benefit when we have staff doing well and feeling well then the whole school is really going to benefit from that.

Roz Thompson
[00:05:03] That's lovely. [00:05:04] Good. [00:05:04] So what specifically could administrators principals do to help to help their own staff. [00:05:11] Well talk about principal stress in a minute too. [00:05:13] Yeah. [00:05:13] How can they help their staff because that's what principals want to do isn't there.

Jill Patnode
[00:05:18] I'm talking to you again back to a little bit it's just getting those getting that knowledge giving staff opportunities to recognize what it is that they're feeling around around their own self care. [00:05:29] Are they feeling burned out. [00:05:30] Are they feeling tired or are they. [00:05:32] What does that look like. [00:05:33] Having them do some exploration or reflection on what does it look like when you actually are feeling a little bit burned out when you're feeling a little bit tired when do you know that too much stress is really actually. [00:05:44] Going to really harm you. [00:05:46] And so and harming your performance. [00:05:48] And so I would say first give that opportunity and then I would say it takes no more than five minutes in a staff meeting to have to talk about self care. [00:05:57] We just did that today in a staffing that I had and we just said do we spin around and what would you do for self care yesterday. [00:06:02] And just asking and creating a norm in your school climate that we're going to talk about self care and it's important day is really critical. [00:06:11] And then looking to your policies and your practices and that's the bigger work too is like what what is your sickly practice if someone does need is feeling burned out and needs a day break. [00:06:23] What does that look like for them. [00:06:24] Are they stigmatized for taking care of their own mental health. [00:06:27] Right. [00:06:27] So what is your culture look at. [00:06:29] And then do you have what are you putting in your staff wellness policy or your student wellness policy. [00:06:34] And then this is going to lead I think into the question right but what are you as administrators modeling right. [00:06:41] Because you're modeling things to the staff and then if we have staff that are burned out they're modeling things to the students so if we're really trying to build a really good social emotional well-being of our students are really giving them these strong skills what are they learning when our staff are totally burned out and are working 12 hour days grading papers till late at night you know not feeling like they can even run to the bathroom right. [00:07:05] Right on their break. [00:07:05] So so thinking about how a remodelling for the young people who's our ultimate goal but with these things.

Roz Thompson
[00:07:11] Yeah. [00:07:12] With the adults family we know from our surveys that principals experience a lot of stress significant stress that affects their sleep it expects their relationships they're taking care. [00:07:22] I mean they're the ones putting their oxygen mask on first and trying to take care of others. [00:07:26] So what are some tips that you could give specifically to principals those that are leading their schools about managing their stress and practicing good self care.

Jill Patnode
[00:07:37] Yeah I like to use the acronym that we have called self care for this and I really think that we need our principals have got to do this first and they have to model it. [00:07:46] So S is for sleep. [00:07:47] So it's getting your eight to 10 hours of sleep if you can make that happen. [00:07:51] That's what's going to work best. [00:07:53] E is for exercise so getting your exercise every day is really important. [00:08:00] L is for love and laughter. [00:08:03] F is for food eating those healthy foods. [00:08:06] So trying you know one of the things you can do is get rid of the junk food and the snacks in the staff room. [00:08:12] There are some amazing snacks that we can do that are healthy and keep them in the snack room. [00:08:17] C is for compassion. [00:08:19] So how can we be compassionate. [00:08:22] A is for awe and wonder. [00:08:25] That's my favorite one. [00:08:26] So getting out in the in the woods getting out in nature and appreciating that are is for resilient is just doing things are going to build your own resiliency. [00:08:35] And E is for engagement so and that is about really loving what you do it's more than just being engaged in the moment. [00:08:45] It's really about are you doing what you love to do and so and so having our principals and administrators practice that self care and model that self care and provide opportunities in your staff meetings in your one to one day with your staff as you doing observations I think would be one of the most amazing things taking time to acknowledge like this is we've got to pay attention to this first and then we can get on to some other business that will pay off probably in spades.

Roz Thompson
[00:09:14] Well those are that's a good little tip there. [00:09:16] I know that Kaiser Permanente has lots of tools and resources and they offer one at no cost to schools. [00:09:24] The rise initiatives. [00:09:25] Yeah. [00:09:26] Tell us more us.

Jill Patnode
[00:09:27] Yeah. [00:09:27] So yeah we're really excited. [00:09:29] We are launching rise. [00:09:30] It's it's it's brand new. [00:09:33] And so it's gonna be launch nationally in what it is is. [00:09:37] It is our coordinated approach in our according to response to mitigate adverse childhood experiences. [00:09:42] And so it really takes a look at. [00:09:45] The. [00:09:47] What does it take devastating supportive climate right. [00:09:50] What does it take to what are the interventions that we need again the Tier 1 2 2 to 3 interventions that we need for our young people and then what I love about it is it layers on self care for staff it layers on staff well-being which which to me is entirely what makes it separates it for many the other school climate assessments that we've seen there that this one is really focused on resiliency. [00:10:12] It's built off of evidence based practices. [00:10:16] We know through the pilots that have been done already that we have seen decreased staff burnout. [00:10:21] We've seen less turnover and we've also seen reduced discipline for young people. [00:10:27] So so this tool is going to be online and it's moving its assessments about a forty six question assessment tool that's online. [00:10:36] There is if staff takes the asset that you want it to you would probably want to have an administrative team like your leadership team would probably do. [00:10:43] OK. [00:10:43] Got it. [00:10:44] And you would have the team do this and then based on that then when you you're going to do great in some areas and you're probably gonna flag in other areas. [00:10:52] And what you do then is on the backside there are a lot of resources that you'll be able to then access. [00:10:57] To do. [00:10:58] And so we're excited to be launching this create the rise resource and again there'll be some online modules or social emotional learning there'll be some way to well-being pieces.

Roz Thompson
[00:11:08] Yeah go ahead. [00:11:08] Phil will look forward to hearing more about that and getting out some of those resources to our members so yeah that is I did include some information yes. [00:11:15] OK. [00:11:16] So at the end of this we will put up some links to more more information coming good.

Jill Patnode
[00:11:20] I know that Kaiser Permanente has done you know really made a significant investment to support schools in Washington and it's interesting to hear it's been happening for you know 30 over 30 years 35 years. [00:11:31] So what are any of the other investments in our schools that you want.

Roz Thompson
[00:11:35] Exactly yeah. [00:11:36] We have been doing some really exciting work. [00:11:39] Honestly I'd love it. [00:11:40] So we've been doing a lot of work around access to care and mental health. [00:11:45] So how do we support because we recognize that if young people are going to spend and a staff right that are in schools going to spend six to eight hours a day staff probably more students 16 hours a day in school that we need to be bringing we need to be bringing services to the school. [00:12:02] We need to be helping attend to their physical social emotional and mental health wellbeing in the schools. [00:12:09] And so what we've been doing is we've just released we. [00:12:12] Well we just awarded We have multi tiered systems of support grants. [00:12:16] So we have. [00:12:18] We have districts that we have awarded that grant to. [00:12:21] So we'll be doing it. [00:12:22] It's a long term three year grant. [00:12:24] OK. [00:12:24] So we're doing some to help them implement helped him build MTF says right named. [00:12:29] And then we also been doing quite a bit of investments around school based health centers as well because we also see that that's a place where you where young people can come and they might come in for a physical ailment and they may find out that they're depressed or there's something with their mental health that we can support. [00:12:44] So we're doing a lot of support around school based health centers. [00:12:48] And I would say multitude systems of support and then of course we have the way to wellbeing workshop series. [00:12:53] So because we we really feel again that staff we have to focus in on staff and they deserve that. [00:12:59] Have their own approach. [00:13:01] And so we have a way to wellbeing workshop series we launched it last year and then we're getting ready to make some announcements as far as what it will look like this year. [00:13:10] So we'll be launching it very soon. [00:13:11] And those are no cost to no doubt. [00:13:14] OK great. [00:13:15] And what are some of the topics in those we weren't being taken. [00:13:18] Yeah we're going to be taking a look at again the traditional self care like what are you doing. [00:13:23] Like even goal setting sometimes we don't even like how do you hold yourself accountable what is the goal setting around that. [00:13:28] But we're also going to take a look at some of the collective approaches. [00:13:31] So as a staff team what is healthy for you to do out there as your staff team. [00:13:37] One of the things we've been doing some investments in is staff or makeovers. [00:13:40] So we've got we've got probably I think about 10 to 15 grants out there small grants out there right now to make over staff rooms. [00:13:47] Yeah because that is a place where staff we want set to better go there and relax. [00:13:52] What we don't want them to do is to have the coffee machine the coffee machine in there and people at a hallway and you know all kinds of things but this should be a place where staff can really go have adult conversation nice and relax with no junk food no joke. [00:14:06] Yes preferably no junk food would not be next. [00:14:09] Yeah. [00:14:10] So yeah good good.

Jill Patnode
[00:14:13] And then I don't know if you want to mention we are planning a series of workshops physician workshops. [00:14:20] We want to just give a teaser now. [00:14:22] Yeah. [00:14:23] Planning more videos that.

Roz Thompson
[00:14:25] We are we are planning. [00:14:26] We are planning in the process right now to plan some more videos to bring some of our physicians out to talk to schools about just some of the important topics that criss cross there's so much overlap it between education and health care when it comes to the ultimate outcome we want young people to be healthy but if they're not healthy they can't learn. [00:14:44] And so. [00:14:45] There are a lot of young people that are in our schools. [00:14:48] Yeah yeah. [00:14:48] With mental health needs in summer. [00:14:50] So and and sometimes of staff we don't train this time up on this when we go to our certification programs we don't always get to hear a lot about some of these.

Jill Patnode
[00:14:59] Well what I'm hearing is students want to talk about mental health. [00:15:02] They're talking about it with their peers. [00:15:05] Adults sometimes I feel comfortable talking about it but they also want more information. [00:15:09] So I think in addition to helping adults take care of themselves it's arming the adults with information so they do feel comfortable talking about it. [00:15:18] Whether it's in classrooms or after classrooms or after class time or whatever it is as they're taking care of kids they need more information and want more information too.

Roz Thompson
[00:15:27] So everybody's wanting more information. [00:15:29] The kids and the adults.

Jill Patnode
[00:15:30] So yeah yeah. [00:15:32] We also the Educational Theater Program which does it brings a fun way to have discussions around mental health stigma interest to find ways to talk about. [00:15:42] I don't know. [00:15:42] Yeah conflict resolution just a different way for young people to kind of experience some of these topics so it's not just to sit and get and maybe just role play but they're actually getting to take on a new character. [00:15:53] Oh great in practice. [00:15:54] Is that for every age. [00:15:55] Or is that a certain we have that right now we have that mostly for the secondary. [00:15:59] OK. [00:16:00] And then we have the rise up workshop which is going to be a workshop and that when we're launching that one this year so we're very limited in production with the show but we're very excited about that one because it is for staff and it's really all about shifting that mindset to morbid trauma informed lands and a resiliency lens. [00:16:18] So.

Roz Thompson
[00:16:18] So more to come you guys on that's the good information. [00:16:21] Yeah. [00:16:22] And we will post a lot of this at the end of our this talk show so people can see and put out some articles and things on our Web site. [00:16:30] What else is there anything. [00:16:31] I mean how can administrators principals learn more. [00:16:34] What else do we need to know.

Jill Patnode
[00:16:36] So you'll be able to say I give you some information to post. [00:16:38] Yes I think that would be great and I would. [00:16:40] Yeah I would just start looking at some of those websites I know that there's just so much happening right now it's particularly areas empty RSS and there's a ton happening. [00:16:49] I'm excited to hear the work that's happening at the state level around mental health and schools. [00:16:54] So and how to support that. [00:16:56] So there is just a lot happening. [00:16:58] And you know I think the key message is just to be sure that they're taking care of themselves. [00:17:03] Because when they're healthy the staff are going to be healthy. [00:17:06] And when the staff are healthy the students are going to be healthy that it seems so mindset.

Roz Thompson
[00:17:10] Yeah. [00:17:10] And what I what I do see and what's what I love is just this intersection and obviously this interest of a company like Kaiser Permanente to say we want to partner with schools and we want to help you and interact and share our information.

Jill Patnode
[00:17:24] And you're starting with staff and focusing on staff. [00:17:26] So that is.

Roz Thompson
[00:17:27] Yeah I mean these are this is our future. [00:17:30] These are our young people and so there's a responsibility for everybody to take care of them and so we want to work with the schools racetracks and so. [00:17:38] All right.

Jill Patnode
[00:17:38] Thank you. [00:17:38] Any last words. [00:17:39] No I think. [00:17:40] Thank you so much. [00:17:41] I'm looking forward to your health care.

Roz Thompson
[00:17:44] And we're thrilled to have you as a wellness partner. [00:17:47] So just a little plug again if you would like to hear more from the Kaiser Permanente president Susan Mulaney she'll be at our wealth summit which is women and education leading and learning and that is November 6th and 7th at the Crowne Plaza in SeaTac. [00:18:03] So we'd love to see their look at our website for more information on that again. [00:18:08] Thank you Jill for being here and thank you Kaiser Permanente for your support. [00:18:12] Looking forward to helping everyone feel safe and strong and. [00:18:16] Able to. [00:18:17] Take care of those kids every day. [00:18:19] Yeah.

Jill Patnode
[00:18:20] I agree. [00:18:20] Thank you.