NEWS

Q&A: Mary Cnrobori

How MNPS’ new advocacy centers help mitigate discipline and trauma in elementary students

BY HANNAH HERNER

A model that was once at just a handful of schools is now part of every single Metro Nashville Public Schools elementary school starting this fall, thanks to $5 million in funding as part of the most recent MNPS budget.

Advocacy Centers are focused on supporting students’ social-emotional learning, health and wellness. These spaces are staffed with coaches who provide on-the-spot support to students who might be having a hard time emotionally.

Mary Crnobori, the coordinator of trauma-informed schools at MNPS says to be trauma-informed in the school setting means providing safety, not just physically, but emotionally. It also means that students learn how to regulate their emotions, and are given the tools to do so. They emphasize connection to other students and adults that care about them, fostering a sense of belonging. And, of course, learning is a key element — that kids have the capacity to pay attention and have fun in class.

Crnobori sat down with The Contributor to talk about the advocacy centers’ trauma-informed approach.

How do the advocacy centers run in the school setting?

They're really designed to support students in the moment when they need it. When they become upset, we call that emotionally dysregulated. So when they get dysregulated — and that can present as a whole variety of different emotions — whether it's sadness or anger, overwhelmed, frustrated, the whole range. In the moment where they need it, the Advocacy Center space and the coach can help provide them with individualized support to help them get emotionally regulated and forge caring connections, both with the coach and other adults or peers if needed, too.

Would you say that this is an alternative to other kinds of discipline?

Instead of using, say punitive, disciplinary procedures, we instead provide the student with support. We deal with the underlying needs, the root of the issue.

It's helping give them opportunities to practice and build skills so that they can better self-manage their emotions and behavior in the future, to try to prevent discipline referrals. And in fact, in a preliminary way, we're already seeing a difference in our numbers — we've had almost no suspensions at the elementary level.

Can you give an example of how a coach would help a kid when they’re acting out?

The type of things that the coaches are using to work with students would be a variety of calming strategies like guided breathing and yoga. They can incorporate fidget tools like stress balls, and pop-its are a big one for kids right now. Glitter wands, glitter balls, glitter jars, those kinds of things. They might be listening to calming music with headphones, they might be using mindfulness apps, and then that connection piece is huge. So building those social awareness and relationship skills through working with the Advocacy Center coach.

There’s all kinds of charts that show emojis or faces so we can learn to identify the emotions we're having and then we can process through and reflect on to respond, versus react when we have big feelings. It could just be as simple as taking a walk and getting a drink of water while talking to the coach.

How does this program fit into the resources the district is already offering to students experiencing homelessness?

This strategy is absolutely optimal and helpful — and an added layer of support for our students who are experiencing homelessness. Because if they feel unsafe or not secure or unwell because of some of the stressors that they're dealing with outside of school, then the Advocacy Center coach can be that sort of safety net, or another layer of safety net.

That Advocacy Center coach can help connect them with other resources that are available, whether it's food or social worker support, as well as just help give them that safe, stable nurturing place. Homelessness, not always, but often may come with a disrupted sense of safety and security, and connection and belongingness. And those are the very things that the Advocacy Center aims to ensure that all of our students have access to.

Knowing trauma can affect the brain long-term, is one of the purposes of this intervention to be able to reverse some of that?

So trauma absolutely can and does impact the way the brain can operate and it can impact lifelong outcomes and development. For example, one child may be homeless, but regardless of where they are, whether they're staying in a car, whether they're kind of just house hopping to different family members. But that one child has access to a parent or a caregiver, anyone who cares deeply about them, who makes them feel loved and protected. And they make sure that even if it's not ideal, they have access to basic needs, and that first and foremost they feel loved and cared about by the caregiver.

So even though that child does have the adversity of homelessness, which is very real and does cause stress, they are far less likely to develop symptoms of trauma, because that stress was buffered by that protective relationship. And say that a child goes to school and they have a safe, stable, nurturing school and a trauma-informed school environment, it's likely that it won't harm development, it won't have lifelong negative effects.

What we know is that protective relationships and environments counterbalance the impacts of the adversities that kids have had, so we're buffering or mitigating trauma. Adversity does not have to become trauma.