Latest / Our Community, Our Mission / Ep #228 – Empathy-Driven Solutions for Lasting Change

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Ep #228 – Empathy-Driven Solutions for Lasting Change · Our Community, Our Mission

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Heavenly Father.
• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you, lord, for this day, and God just this time in this podcast.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Lord, we continue to thank you for our amazing listeners and their support.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Lord, pray that you'd bless them as they listen to this episode and, lord, that they would be invited into this story, god, and that they'd partner with us through this.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Lord, we just love you and we praise your name.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Hello everybody.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: You're listening to Our Community, our Mission, a podcast of the Topeka Rescue Mission here on Wednesday June 26, 2024.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Episode podcast number 228.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Hello, amanda Burrells, executive Director of Topeka Rescue Mission.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: How's your day going?
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: You know it's been busy, it's been busy.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, but good and messy and all of the above.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, life is messy, and when you work in rescue ministry it's maybe a little messier.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, correct.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: But you get a chance to be messy.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Hopefully straighten out the mess.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Well, we have a couple of people that are going to straighten out the mess today that have been on the podcast before.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, quite a team, for sure, but before that, we like to help people to see and understand the value of the day.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: So, again, this is June, the 26th, 2024.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: But what is known as a special part of today worldwide, it's World Refrigeration Day.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: World Refrigeration Day?
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Well, of course it is.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know it's been kind of warm, it has been.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: We're not talking about refrigerators that you necessarily live in, but we're talking about stuff that keeps food cool so that we don't die, right, right?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: So did you know that most Americans today according to a study in 2009, have a refrigerator in the United States of America?
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Not all not over the world.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just the United States.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Wow, that was really.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, yeah.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: So here's the deal.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: So most Americans have some form of refrigeration today, which means that most Americans have access to some type of power to be able to do that.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is good.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Not everybody, but most do.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: The real question, though, is is your refrigerator clean?
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Next question moving along.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say is your refrigerator running?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Well, that's always a good question.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: With some things we've had lately, you better catch it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: I was going to say that that is my oldest.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: That is one of her favorite jokes the refrigerator is running, you better go catch it.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, okay.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So how long have we had refrigeration in the world?
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Is that in the?
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: blurb it is yeah, just don't look down at your answers Over 300 years.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: How did you know that she is so smart, she used to be an educator.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw the number 300.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: So the refrigeration has been around for 300 years, when they had electricity 300 years ago, right?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: No, so how did they refrigerate food back 300 years ago?
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So in cellars, right?
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Where it was below ground and then underwater.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: So we are so spoiled today.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: We really are.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: Do you remember doing that, Barry?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, I do, yes, I do no.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Actually, before that, before we had refrigeration, so we just shot it, killed it, ate it right on the spot, so it wouldn't go bad.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: So the next subject and I'm going to apply this to you right now is National Forgiveness Day For hurting my feelings, amanda.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Your one feeling, so my one feeling.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so June 26th is National Forgiveness Day, but not to be confused with what other day Global, global, global.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Forgiveness.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you're going to be redeemed here in a minute.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Do you know what date Global Forgiveness Day is on?
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Is it July?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: You can't know everything.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: July.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is July 7th, that's right.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: So we have National Forgiveness Day today and we're going to very shortly have a Global Forgiveness Day, so that means double forgiveness.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we probably need two reminders on that one.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: We will.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was established.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: National was established in 1994.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: That wasn't that long ago by the Christian Embassy of Christ, Ambassador CECA.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Didn't know about that, yeah.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: One last thing before we get to some really important stuff.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: It is International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, and so that's important stuff and so kind of segues into me.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: As you know, it's the International.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Day Against Drug Abuse and Trafficking.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: But what's neat about that is it doesn't really matter the topic.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Right now.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: I think we're seeing a theme nationally, maybe even globally, some examples of it not working well, but then some places where it's working well not working well, but then some places where it's working well, where we're finding it necessary for communities to really come together to be able to tackle problems and to help work towards even if there's not exact solutions but the right approaches, and you know, together is better, that kind of thing.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: And I think that that's just incredible, because even in our own community are there things that we probably need to work better on or stronger at Sure, we want to share this information with another organization or a business or you know another nonprofit to be able to empower, to work together, to understand.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: I appreciate so many of the different groups right now.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Just last night I was looking on Facebook and my heart was warmed.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: I saw I think it was four or five just in the next 48 hours.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Four or five either groups or churches that are doing small pop-up clothes giveaways or small pop-up food distribution type things, things like that, and so what's cool about that is you see everybody working together and they might not know everything about that one topic, but they're doing what they can with it.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: And then you see that spur someone else's ideas to say, hey, we know a little bit about this, can we do more on that?
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: And so I think this is such a powerful day and a good reminder for that.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: But I think I also see it in the two ladies that are going to be on the podcast today.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: That's what they're doing.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think that that's something important to really bring out is that in order to do that, to come together, we have to understand each other's passion about the subject matter.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: We have to understand what they, what they know and what they don't know, and then we somehow collate those things together and it becomes a sense of community and we can really get things done in a very special way.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So a number of years ago, uh, lamanda, we um began to focus at Topeka Rescue Mission on, um, the subject of trauma.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Um, there was, um a kind of a national awareness of, uh, what trauma is, and so we began to see schools focusing on trauma awareness, trauma-informed, those particular things, and so, obviously, an organization like Topeka Rescue Mission that serves people who have experienced homelessness and addictions and mental illness and domestic violence, and on and on and on and on.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: There has been oftentimes in their lives, if not all the time, significant trauma.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: So to help them most effectively, we needed to be able to dive into that.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: We started out intentionally at the Children's Palace with a program called TBRI Trust-Based Relational Intervention and that's really taken off, hasn't it?
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, it really has.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: And I just think it's incredible because not only do we see just the seeds of truth and hope and science, research and things like that planted within the guests that we serve, we're seeing those seeds and just that information and power inserted into our staff, into community partners.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: You know some of this past training that these ladies put on.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: We had, I believe, six to nine officers in that training.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: They saw us advertise for it and wanted to understand more about just trauma healing and not just the approaches but what happens.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: And so you know, it's just incredible to see the seeds that are planted right now internally and externally.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Faith is in it, but it's also research and it's also best practice and it's also all of that.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: And so we see people with all different beliefs coming in, centered around learning this information.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really spreading out in the community not just one organization that has this and it's growing and growing.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Courtney Bard, deputy Director of Transformational Services, is here today, and also Cody Bloom, who is Director of TED, which we'll unpack TED here in a minute.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Courtney, you came to Topeka Rescue Mission to work in the Children's Palace as one of the child care workers, and now you've moved into a deputy director position and one time you were in charge of TED, and so talk a little bit about what transformational services mean.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Then I want to hear from Cody about what she's currently doing and then something very special, upcoming, that you guys are going to be doing out of state.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: So transformational services means a lot of things, but the heart of it is transformation for people and integrating whatever knowledge, skill sets, active listening, whatever it is that we need to do for the person in front of it, in front of us, to be able to have that transformation come through.
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: And so there's a lot of different departments underneath that, ted being one of them, and I'll let Cody kind of explain all what comes within that department.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: But also our career readiness program is, under transformational services, to be able to get the job skills that I need to get the job, but then also, how do I keep the job?
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: That can be very difficult, because it's not about just getting the job, but how do I keep it, and there's an eight-week program for that called career readiness.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: And then we also have life skills programming.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: Things that may seem very simple to us may not always be simple for another person, and so something as simple as budgeting may be a class that could be held in life skills.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: Or something as simple as like how do I do laundry?
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: Like if I've never been taught how to do my laundry before.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: Those are sustainable things that I need to know to be able to live on my own, so those are covered under life skills classes as well.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: And I think some of those things that you just mentioned are not commonly thought of.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: When we think of people experiencing homelessness, they think they need a place to live, they need some food and once that's good, they need a place to live after emergency shelter.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: The word transformational means going from one place to another place, it's transitioning, it's moving from here to there Kind of best you can, because it's a complex issue.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: What are we trying to see transformed?
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: A lot of things.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: I think that the first thing is you have to ask the person in front of you what do you want to see transformed?
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: It's one thing for me to come in to another person and say here's all the things that I think that you should do.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: Those may be great for me personally, but it might not be for the person that I'm helping serve.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: And so understanding where their desires come from and really building on the uniqueness of that person and helping them in areas that they want to be helped in.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: And then, once you've built that trust and the rapport and those areas, then maybe they trust me enough for me to say here's some other areas that I think that you have so much potential in.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: Would you be willing to grow in these as well?
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: So in your experience and of course this takes a big team here at Topeka Rescue Mission to even get to the place where you can ask that person that question what do you want to see change in your life?
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Want to see change in your life?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: How common is it for people to have that insight of what they need to do, differently than when they walk through that front door and they're tired and they're hungry and they're dirty and they just need a place to be.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Where do you get that opportunity to start even exploring the need for change?
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: When I first walked through the door, that's probably not the best time.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: Right Like you've just walked in, it's brand new people, brand new place.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: I don't trust anyone.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: That's not the best time to probably don't say when you're going to get a job, when you're right.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: If you want to be successful, that probably wouldn't be the best timeframe.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: People need rest and people need reassurance that they're going to be okay, um, and that they're around people that love them and desire good things for them.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: And once you've done that, um, then maybe it's a good place.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: Everyone's different, though.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: Barry it's so you.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: That's something that is so unique, um, about this population is there.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: There's no one story that I've met that that's been the same.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: They're all so unique and different, and I was just sharing with Cody today.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: I was providing transportation for our Hope Center guests to their life skills classes this morning, and this population is one of the most generous populations that I've ever met, and I think that that's another thing that people don't really think of.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: They don't think of like, oh, you're experiencing homelessness.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: You're such a generous person, but truly the most generous people that I've met in my lifetime have been experiencing homelessness.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: So there's this woman that was coming to class and she is one of the sweetest girls.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: She was always like hey, sweetie, how are you?
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: And I don't know if it's okay to mention it on the podcast, but I like maybe hit a curb while driving at the shuttle bus a couple weeks ago, because it's really big.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: And I was just.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Hopefully there's an incident report's been written up.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: If not, there will be a podcast, right, yep?
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: It was just a little bump, it wasn't?
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: it just jarred us a little bit, but she's so encouraging.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: This lady was just like you've got this, like you're doing great, and today she was encouraging me.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: Today she was encouraging me.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: She's like you've gotten so much better.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: Like do you really feel confident?
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: And I was like, yes, I'm starting to have some confidence here.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: But she, so she, so we have some trust, we have some relationship built.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: And this morning she got on the bus after her class and they must have been handing out candy today in class or something.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: So she handed me her piece of candy and I was like thank you so much.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: I was generous.
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: This woman who has nothing is giving something to me.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Um, and then I even mentioned, I was just like thank you, I haven't even had breakfast yet.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: And it's like you know, 10, 30, 11.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: And she's just like oh, and got her last piece of candy and gave that to me as well.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: So I could have two pieces of candy and she could have none because I was irresponsible and didn't eat breakfast.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: And she came to class and got the reward of this candy and she was willing to give it away to me.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Um, so the generosity.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: So it's so hard to say that every story that there's a blanket timeframe of when you would talk to people of like, here's the change that I think that you are capable of having.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: Um, I don't think that it works that way.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Would you say that most people that you encounter when they first come into to pick a rescue mission or on the streets that they're pretty much going from moment to moment.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: They don't have time to plan because they're more in survival mode.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Like not sure if they're going to be safe tonight, not sure if they're going to get enough to eat those kind of things.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: So what does it take to go from survival mode to even allow?
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: yourself to think about.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: If nothing else, hope yeah.
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: Scientific answer is you're going to have to be able to help that person activate their parasympathetic nervous system.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: And if they're going to stay, what does that mean?
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: That means that is what our body uses to regulate, that's what's going to help bring it down at my adrenal and that's going to help bring down my cortisol level.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: And if I am in a state of fight or flight and I feel unsafe, then you're going to need to show me what is safe.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: And then also, the definition of safety isn't always hey, there's a roof over your head and it's a locked facility, so you're all good, see you later.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: But it's, I'm willing to check in on you.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: Locked facility, so you're all good, see you later.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: But it's, I'm willing to check in on you, I'm willing to sit with you until you feel safe, because there's a difference between perceived safety and a person actually feeling safe.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: So, cody, you've just taken us to, I mean, Courtney, you've just taken us to Courtney, cody, okay, you've just taken us to something that people may not be aware of in regards to trauma intervention, trauma-informed care, and that is science.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: And so how much, how important, I guess I would say, is the scientific understanding of what trauma does to the brain, the body, the central nervous system.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is a ministry, this is not a hospital, this isn't a scientific research institute, but yet you just brought up something that a lot of people don't know about how important is it to understand that physical, emotional, psychological, chemical, the whole 10 yards to be able to do this job.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: I would say it's important.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: I think the most important thing is understanding that we serve a God who is capable of all things, with or without us, but he invites us to be in it with him, and once we are willing to take that step forward and say you know what?
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: I'm willing to join you.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: God has given us a ton of resources to be able to learn about how he created our bodies.
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: He's the one that did create the brain, he's the one that did create the central nervous system, and so if we have access to know better, then why not learn?
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Why not learn a different way?
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: And something that I even said in our meeting yesterday is the world has never changed by doing something that we've already been doing.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Like the people that have really made a difference in the world were willing to step out and do something drastically and radically different.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: And I think that for us, as a ministry, to be walking in the center of the will of the Lord is to be willing to step out and do something radically different than what the rest of the world perceives as normal or okay or whatever, and be willing to look like fools before the Lord, because it's what he has for us and his love.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: Um is radical and it's different, and if it, if it doesn't feel awkward, then you're not.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: You're maybe not doing it, right, right.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Hmm, a good point.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: We are, uh uh, called to be fools for Christ and uh so um, but it's not just a warm, fuzzy feeling.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Uh, sometimes that means going beyond what might be traditionally thought of as a Christian ministry to actually study everything we can about a person, including the physical reactions to trauma in this case.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: So you were one of the first to be certified as a practitioner in what's called TBRI.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Unpack that just a little bit and then we are going to get into the person who's followed behind you and who's sitting over to my right.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: So what is TBRI and what is certification, and what is the value of that to be able to do?
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: What a little bit of what you've unpacked here.
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so TBRI stands for Trust-Based Relational Intervention.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: It's a trauma-informed care practice that is derived from Texas Christian University and the Karen Purvis Institute of Child Development, and so that practitioner's status allows us the ability to have all of the educational materials and things that I learned through that process with TCU and be able to bring it back here to TRM and share that information with all of our staff so that they can be informed of the same knowledge of trauma-informed care that I was able to learn through TCU.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Bring it back here so our staff can have that same knowledge and be able to walk it out in a really thoughtful way.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: So, lamanda jumping back to you before we get to Cody, jumping back to you before we get to Cody we were in the process of wanting TRM to be a trauma-informed trauma intervention ministry.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: A lot's happened in the last two years since you've been director and before that, ministry operations.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: What is your take on the value of investing in this particular area, not just for a department but ministry-wide?
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: I want to tell a small little story and then I want to answer that, because sometimes I think the answer to that question can be more powerful, coming from someone that we serve, than even what I can put into words.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Earlier this week I had the honor and privilege of just I had about an hour and a half, and so I was on the streets and just engaging with a couple of individuals that have been tough cookies but over years and it's taken me almost the full three years that I've been here to build relationships with them and so I was talking to several of them in a parking lot and a couple on the streets, and one conversation really just kind of turned into a very deep conversation, and it's with a gentleman that I just am really close with and we've just had a couple of powerful conversations and it seems like God just always allows him to pop up when I need him the most, and so there's been a couple of times I've been going to tough meetings out in the community and he'll be walking by the Children's Palace and I'll roll my window down to talk to this individual and he just says exactly what I need in that moment.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: To To the point where, about six months ago, I said hey, do you care to take a picture with me?
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: I said I want your picture of me, of me and you, on my phone, to remind myself of why I'm doing what I'm doing.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: And he said because you've been doing a lot of stuff here lately.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: That's not fun, haven't you?
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: And I said Well, that's true.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I said, but y'all are worth it.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: And he said well, I just want you to know we're all rooting for you because you speak for us.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: And so I have a picture of me and him on my phone and anybody else that was looking through that would just think it's another you know picture.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: But when I look at that, I remember him hugging me as he's telling me that when I got out of my car, and so fast forward to this week, I was talking to this individual and this individual has been clean for three months and I'm so proud of him.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: This is the longest stint I have personally seen him clean.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: And so I said you know what's different this time?
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: What's your motivation?
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: We were just unpacking all of that and I just appreciated his vulnerability to walk me through things that are a struggle, things that are easy, things that he's learned through recovery that he's able to apply.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: He was very vulnerable to tell me.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: You know, part of the reason I'm clean right now is I'm scared of fentanyl.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: Fentanyl is everywhere on the streets of Topeka, where you would have never thought fentanyl would be, and we'll kill you and we'll kill you.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: And so we were just having these conversations and I'm patting him on his back and I thanked him you know for how much he educates me and that there's so much that I care about but I don't know.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: I haven't lived it and I want to know as much as possible.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: And so then I told this individual, I said you have said, this time it's easy for you just to quit quit the drugs.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: And he said yes, and I said how do we go and give that message to everyone, your tips that have just been able to kind of overnight?
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Finally the light went off and you're ready to do this.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: How do we share that with everyone else?
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: And he looked at me with those big brown eyes and he shook his head left to right.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: He said well, first of all, lady he calls me lady or boss.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Lady You're not going to be able to save us all, right?
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: And I looked at him and I said well, that's not what I wanted to hear.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: And he smiles and then he says but I don't want you to quit doing what you're doing, because you get upset for the ones that you can't save and you forget the ones that you are.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: And so then I said but if I'm not sad for those that we aren't reaching, who will be?
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: And he said well, that's a good point.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: And so I said I'm trying to find the balance of celebrating those of you.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: When you do kind of what Courtney was talking about, everybody's timeframes are different when they're going to trust us, when they're going to heal, when they're going to be able to kick the addiction, right, it's all different.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: And so I told him I said you know, it just hurts me though.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: And he said I know.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: And I said he goes.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: But the drug use, you need to know that it's so hard for us to say no because it's tied to pain.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And I said Can you tell me what the pain is, what?
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: I know that and we throw that out there.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: Right, but in your words, what's the pain that y'all are experiencing?
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: And he said Well, it's both physical and it's emotional.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: And so I said Okay, can you explain that?
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: And he said Well, the physical pain is self explanatory.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: And I said You're right.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: And he said it's the emotional pain that y'all don't get Because you can't see it.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: And so I said when is your emotional pain from?
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: I said my guess is that it's loneliness, right?
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Not having connection, not having a village.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: And he's kind of just shaking his head and he says well, you're right.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: But he said the loneliness comes after the trauma.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: And there was something about that.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: When he said that, that it was like a ton of bricks just kind of smacked me in the face and I said can you explain that to me?
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: And he said there's very few things that you can say about all of us on the streets and lump us all, because he said we're all different, we have different stories, different backgrounds, said, but one thing that we've all experienced is traumatic events.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: And he said and no one really knows how to help us with that, because all the traumatic events are different.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: And my heart was so heavy and I just was, on one hand, so appreciative of him telling me that I loved that I finally have earned trust with him.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: You know that he would share that with me, but I say all of that to say this is someone who is in the middle of recovery, been on the streets forever, you know, for years and years and years, lots of struggle, but is willing to talk about that.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: And so when you first asked me, what does it mean to me that we have this trauma training?
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: Or why am I putting an emphasis on what you started and what God did here and why am I continuing that?
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: And what does that mean to our team?
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: When you have someone look at you and say it's the part that y'all don't understand, to me that lights a whole nother fire into myself, into our team.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: I'm going to tell the board that you know those kinds of things to say you're right, there's a lot we don't understand about trauma.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: But, man, there's a lot that we do.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: And if you know better, you do better.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: And I think God started revealing stuff to you, barry, long before I was ever here, and your heart for people has been there.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: The approach has tried to be that of kindness and respect and all of that, and then now, through Courtney and Cody and stuff with Jessica starting long before me, all of these things then have built upon itself of the research part, the science part, mixed with faith and the transformation that only the Lord can do.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: And so to me, I'm looking at trauma education and trauma healing, trauma approaches, all of that.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I look at it as our third pillar.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: We've got food, we've got shelter and we've got trauma interventions because I can feed people all day.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: But if I'm not helping them with the pain using his words when he says it's pain that's driving the drug use it doesn't matter if I just give them food, it's not going to matter if I just give them shelter.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Those things are entry points and I can help, but it's not going to take away the pain.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: And so if I can use food, if I can use shelter and I can use trauma practices and the trauma knowledge that we have to say, hey, you don't have to be like this forever.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: There is healing that can happen.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: We can teach you strategies to help navigate the struggles you're having in your head and in your heart.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: To me it's a no brainer, and so I just want to continue to facilitate the work that these ladies are doing, not only to better TRM and our guests, but our entire community, because it's the direction we need to go to be helping understand and heal pain.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: That's a pretty good way to explain it.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: I want to take this just a step further, amanda.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Cody, we're going to get to you I want to take this just a step further, amanda what you have learned about the trauma in that one story amongst many that you just unpacked.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: How hard is it for you when people oftentimes look at people experiencing homelessness as a problem.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: They need to get out of the way or just get a job or just get off the drugs and I know I'm opening up a can of worms here but how hard is that for you and not only how hard is that for you, because you understand some things that people don't, and we can't blame them for what they don't understand.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: But what do you want to do about that?
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: How do you want to help people to understand that?
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: It's deeper than when we drive by and we see somebody living in a homeless camp and there's trash all around.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: What is it that you and I know you're probably still in the process of trying to figure this out, because there's a lot of reaction on homelessness nationally, sure, as well as here locally, because there's a lot of reaction on homelessness nationally as well as here locally.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: But what can you do with the information that you have, the experiences that you've experienced, and just like that one individual who said it's not just the physical pain, it's not just the loneliness, it's what happened, that maybe was a predecessor for us being here, it's the trauma that came before.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't I'm not sure if I have the right answer or a good answer.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: We might need to put this on mine and yours weekly meeting agenda.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if it's right or not, barry, but I own it and I think that that's probably something that's incredible about myself and our team is we, we personalize it.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: We, we love the person in front of us, even when they're not lovable.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: And there's this humanness right where we're like man, we're so frustrated with their behavior, this, that and the other, but we're like we're not giving up on you, we are not going to do that.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: I don't care, you know, if my hair turns gray or I lose it.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: We're not giving up on you.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: And so there's this incredible and I say incredible because it is it's an incredible weight and responsibility that our team carries.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: But I feel like here lately it's been so misunderstood and miscued Because we want everything to be one or the other, and so there's just lies out there right now, and maybe it's maliciousness, maybe it's just misunderstanding I don't know a person's heart and that's not really up to me but this you know, that we don't care about, we meaning TRM.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: But this you know, that we don't care about we meaning TRM, that we don't care about businesses thriving or we're just turning a blind eye to safety concerns, or that we are not taking a stand against the trash in the river.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: You know there's lots of talk right now going on the riverfront plans.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: They've excluded us from the plans and I'm trying to get some meetings on that.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Just all of these different things, because there's these opinions out there that we are this extreme right.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: We only care about those less fortunate.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Do we care about those less fortunate and the ones that are in the midst of their hurting and struggle?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Absolutely?
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean that we can't also be proactive to help limit trash concerns, safety concerns.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: There are still things that I put into place to keep our guests safe and all of that.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: So I think the biggest thing that that frustrates me or that I struggle with is that we see these individuals and their people.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: They have a mind like we do, even if it doesn't work the same way.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: They were someone's daughter, they were someone's son, they had to live and many of them have gotten to the point of adulthood through pure survival.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Some haven't.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Some had a very wonderful life and then different course events happen and that's a struggle.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: But I think the blessing and the curse that I have and our team has is we see people and we're so much more alike than we're different and there's beauty in that.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: The frustration comes when outside factors want us to demoralize that or say that it doesn't matter because at the issues that maybe we as a society are causing the individual which then harms, and so it means a lot to me when people open up and I can hear.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: I also appreciate when business owners come to me because of defecation happening on their doorsteps or maybe their employees don't feel safe going in because someone's in the middle of a mental crisis and fighting themselves and stuff like that.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Like, my role is to care about all of that and I want to.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: But I and I take it very serious to educate this other side of that.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: They are people and they're thinking through they.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: They want to know why they're addicted.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: They want to know why they're addicted.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: They want to know why this has happened.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: There is so much more that we're alike than different.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: The other side of it is I don't know if it's just me being a newbie and growing into leadership I'm also trying to figure out what is it my part to own, because this is a community concern.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: We've got infrastructure issues, we've got development issues, we've got hardships that landlords are facing, some of the hardships that landlords put in place themselves.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, we all are struggling with things and so I'm trying to figure out what part is mine to own and to try to make better and to try to fix, but also not doing it in a way where there's compassion, fatigue and burnout and all of that, because this is a very sensitive topic to me.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: When I know so many of the people on a personal level and I know them and I know their stories and I know what they're fighting against, and then I have to go sit in another meeting and I hear things just blasted or I read emails that are so focused on money or successes that we've made that more important than a life, and that's a struggle for me to be what I feel like God has called me to be and find the balance in caring for the community and wanting the whole community to thrive.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: But I will not, and neither will TRM, do that at the expense of a person's dignity, and that is a very difficult line to walk.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Sure is and that balance of representing the broken to a community because it does take a community but also being well-equipped in the ministry that you're in charge of to be able to have an emphasis on this.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: And then that kind of rolls us back into transformational services.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Courtney, at one time you were in charge of TED and now you have taken some of these other things into the rest of the ministry.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: And Cody, you came along, cody Bloom, to assist Courtney in this endeavor around trauma and today you're the director of TED, while Courtney's moving into kind of spreading this into other areas of the ministry.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: So we've used the word TED before the acronym TED.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: What does TED stand for?
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: So TED, we've joked we need like TED is kind of like our mascot, I feel like.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: But TED is trauma education and development.
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: So what does that mean?
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: Coming on to the Speaker Rescue Mission ministry team and just equipping them with the information.
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: Courtney and myself are both practitioners and so the information that we have regarding TBRI, just getting to share that with a new group of people to be equipped and then turn around and use those trauma interventions, those connecting skills with the people that they're serving.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: Also do weekly guest classes, and so guests staying in our shelter have a men's group and a women's group and they come in and we use a lot of the same materials that our staff are being trained on and have a time for guests to come and feel safe to learn about trauma.
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: They obviously have experienced it before.
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: As Lamanda was talking about, this man shared with her his experience of everybody having that common experience of trauma.
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: But something powerful about those classes that I've seen is giving language to those experiences, to see somebody kind of go through an aha moment of oh, I'm not crazy, I'm not the only one.
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: This isn't an incurable thing that I'm going through like this.
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: There's reasons for it.
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: That doesn't necessarily lessen the pain immediately or change the experience or situation immediately, but it gives some understanding, a sense of relief.
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: You can see the shoulders soften a little bit just to see this understanding.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Sounds like it's very powerful to that person who's experienced trauma that maybe has never understood it.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: One or in a little bit, just to see this understanding Sounds like it's very powerful to that person who's experienced trauma that maybe has never understood it.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: One or an accommodation felt safe enough to tell other people what they've been experiencing, but to come into a place that they're getting the basics taken care of and then having this opportunity then to know that it's a safe place to not only unpack some things but also have some insights that maybe they didn't have before, Because some of us struggle with certain things in life and until we get some definition for it, we don't go anywhere with it, and so this gives some definition to them.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: So you talk about staff training them when they come in.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Have there been any staff that have kind of had an aha moment about their own trauma?
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: Every single training, every single training, every single training.
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: I feel like I have aha moments every time I do a training or a class, yeah, yep.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: So you talk about third pillar here, lamanda, and this very much is, and I think it's important for people who are listening to this podcast to understand the Topeka Rescue Mission and still, people are going to probably always think about this over 71 years.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: It's just a place to get something to eat and someplace to stay.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: It's way more than that and has been for some time, but it's even growing into more of that because you know, courtney, back to what you're doing.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: It's about transformation, of moving from this place to that place, and that's important in all of our lives to keep on moving forward.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: If there's something that's stopping us, if it's our homelessness, if it's our education or just life skills of even knowing how to take trash out, and I, you know just to digress a moment, I'm known of a couple of people that were given housing and been unsheltered for years and they didn't stay in their housing very long because nobody taught them how to take trash out and so trash just built up in their apartment.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: The landlord came along you can't be here anymore.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: They're back on the streets again and we were wondering what happened.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Now we think of that as so fundamental that you got got to take the trash out on a certain day a week.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: If you don't do that for a couple of weeks, you've got a problem, and if you do that for a very, very long time, you're going to have a big problem.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Somebody's going to tell you you can't live there anymore, whether you're owning it or not owning it.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: But if people have never been shown that, then there's some concerns there.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: So that's part of transformation education.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: So that's part of transformation education.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: So that's an awareness piece that may not be trauma-induced.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: That's just that it has never been taught, and so what you're doing is you're helping people to understand some things.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: And then, once you do that, what do you teach them?
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Or help them to know how to address what they've learned.
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: So I think you really hit the nail on the head with something as simple as taking the trash out, doing laundry, like Courtney talked about earlier, and the same goes for connection and relationship, for regulating my emotions and behaviors.
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: Those aren't skills that were born knowing how to do.
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: One of the quotes I believe it was Darren Jones from the Karen Purpose Institute of Child Development with TBRI, is that we are born to connect but not born connected, that we are born with this innate desire and longing to be in connection, one with the Lord and then also, as the Lord has created it, in connection with people.
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: But if I have a person, I stick them in a room.
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: Maybe it's just because of trauma.
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: They've not had those healthy relationships around them.
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: Healthy relationships aren't just going to magically develop.
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: We have to be shown, taught, it has to be modeled to us how to have healthy relationships, and that's part of classes is teaching.
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: What does a healthy relationship even look like?
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: What do I do with these unhealthy ones that I have?
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: When it comes to emotional regulation, how do I take all of these difficult, challenging experiences that I'm having emotionally?
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: How do I manage those?
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: Because the natural reaction is to escalate, is to have a big reaction because of them, and so teaching how to regulate those emotions, how to have healthy connection.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: I forgot your original question.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, no, that just.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: You know the value of unpacking that, and then where do you go with that?
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: You know, and some of these unpackings are.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: This is not psychotherapy.
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: This is not counseling.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: What it is is taking science, taking what we understand about God's love and purpose and value in each of us, and being able to help people have a safe place to unpack some of that, which then sometimes does mean maybe they need to go somewhere to get some professional help outside of this, whether it's a mental health center like the Leo or something of intervention.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: But when you take a look at one of the things that I think it was I'm missing the number here, but it was 1,800 and some I want to say 1,825 or whatever that is the average number of sexual assaults that happens to one victim of human trafficking in one year.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Whatever, 365 times five is that is how many sexual assaults occur to that individual per year if they are being trafficked on a full-time basis.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: And according to Homeland Security they say it's double that, but let's take the lower number.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: What that does is traumatizes the mind, the spirit, the body, the biochemical changes and reactions, and that's not uncommon to see somebody come in who has been traumatized in that regard and so very broken, very damaged, and has a much harder time to be able to relate to people outside of that trauma experience.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: But yet that's what you have coming through the doors of a homeless center services, as well as what's on the streets.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: And back to LaManda's point is that these aren't just people who are problems, these are people who have encountered lots of problems.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: And so we could go on with that.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: But we want to kind of move into the next thing, which is exciting.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Which is exciting Both of you have been invited here in the near future to Seattle Washington, to a special program or whatever I'll let you talk about it of something that you took on your own to try to unpack the differences between people who have experienced homelessness versus, maybe, people who have not experienced that, in regards to something called ACE scores.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: So I'll leave it at that.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: You unpack what an ACE score is, what you did, what you discovered and why you've been invited to go to Seattle.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: And kind of talk about ACEs, if you want to take what we're doing with it.
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: Sure, so yeah, with trauma like we were just talking about, there's a lot of impact that happens, and I think typically when we think about trauma, we think the emotional response that it has, which is a huge aspect.
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: Something really interesting with ACEs, though, it stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences.
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: It's a 10 question questionnaire looking at traumatic experiences that could have happened to a person between the ages of zero to 18.
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: Um, and what this does is it looks at mental health outcomes, but it also looks at physical health outcomes, which I think is so interesting.
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: Um, that trauma can have an impact on our physical health.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Um, and so it's Correct to childhood so adverse.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Something bad happened in childhood.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: There was a test that's come up.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: It's pretty simple 10 questions to kind of go a little further than that.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Who made that up?
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: How long has that been around?
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Is it a new thing?
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: No, it's been used for quite some time.
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: In the 1990s I believe it was 1994, kaiser Permanente and the CDC wanted to do this study to find a correlation.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: Kaiser Permanente is a healthcare agency insurance, so they want to spend less money, right?
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: So how do we spend less money?
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: Let's do a study and see how much does trauma correlate to physical ailments later on, like diabetes, like heart health issues, like obesity, like then they went into, like drug use and sexual experiences and all of those things of.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: They want to spend less money, and so how do I maybe limit what happens in childhood that way we spend less money from a healthcare perspective later on in life.
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: And so it's been around.
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: For I'm not good at math, I have 50 years.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: A long time, yeah, yeah, not quite that long in the 90s, but anyway, 40, 30.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: So that's okay.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Can't be perfect at everything.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: I had a math teacher once.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Tell me, Courtney, you're going to have to be able to do these things, and I'm like man, there's going to be a calculator somewhere.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: Shout out to my teacher, you were so ready.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: I was born in the 80s and I'm not 40 yet, but that's okay.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: That's okay, but it's been around since the 90s, so it's been around a while and so it was, and it was a good explanation.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: It was originally created by by healthcare insurance to see how can we save money.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: So let's find cause and effect, what causes these diseases or these kinds of behaviors and those kinds of things, by going upstream or origin and see if there's a connection there and what we can do about it.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: So, okay, that's where it started.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: There's these 10 questions.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: It's adverse childhood experiences.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: What happened to you in childhood?
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: And so talk about the scoring.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: What does that mean?
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you score one of them, are you messed up for the rest of your life?
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: You score all 10 or somewhere in between, or what is it?
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: So you go through the questionnaire and, like I said, it's those 10 questions and I simply answer yes or no Questions are some examples physical abuse, receiving physical abuse, divorce in the family, a person in my family being incarcerated, having a mental illness or drug addiction time I say yes at the end of that questionnaire I add them up and that is my ACE score.
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: So if I say yes to four of those experiences or eight of them, then my ACE score correlates with that outcome and so what this original study found.
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: So a person would take that 10 question questionnaire and then a correlating health outcome survey relating to those mental and physical health outcomes and they found a significant correlation with those having higher ACE scores.
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: Having experienced more adverse traumatic childhood experiences are likely going to have an increased number of both mental and physical health outcomes later on in life.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: So that was a good tool to know about, but you both decided to do something extra special that maybe hadn't been done anywhere else before, or at least you're not aware of, but it's been recognized.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: So talk about what came to your thought processes and what you did with it.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: To take that ACE score test and apply it to what Topeka Rescue Mission is it to?
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: what Topeka Rescue Mission is.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so our vision statement if you will not statement our why?
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: Behind it was a quote from Desmond Tutu that says, at some point you have to stop just pulling people out of the river and you have to go upstream and find out why they're falling in.
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: And logically, we knew that people experiencing homelessness probably have maybe their, maybe their traumas look different than this survey that was taken in the nineties and they used a non at-risk population that they surveyed.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: And so we wanted to see what are the actual stats for our people and our own neighbors.
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: That it's not these statistics out of Southern California from the nineties, which was to you guys 30 years ago, to me 50.
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: Um, but what are the statistics here?
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: Like, I want to know what is my neighbor suffering with?
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: Right, not these people from the nineties that I don't know, I care about them, they're, I mean, they're people.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: But my neighbors that are here, um, in my own backyard, what are they struggling with?
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: And so we decided let's do this survey here, let's do a whole study here.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: And that's kind of where it started and we were able to survey.
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: 100 individuals experiencing homelessness over the age of 18 were the parameters, because you had to be outside of that zero to 18 range of what happened in childhood and you had to be experiencing homelessness.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: So that was both unsheltered and sheltered homelessness.
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: We wanted to get a wide array of people.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: So 100 each or about 50-50?
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: .
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: Total of 100 people.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: Statistically I don't know how many were unsheltered versus sheltered, because that wasn't one of the questions that we asked, but we did survey.
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: It was 60 males and 40 females was a breakdown for gender.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: It came inside the shelters of Topeka, rescue Mission also went out into the streets of Topeka to Yep.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: We use the mobile access partnership as an opportunity to interact with our neighbors that are unsheltered and take those surveys that are unsheltered and take those surveys.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: And so what we were able to find from that?
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: The original survey was 13%.
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: From that Kaiser Permanente study, from the people that they looked at, 13% of those individuals were able to National basis back in the 90s.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah 13% of those 17,000 that they surveyed were able to say yes to four or more ACEs.
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: And then we come back to here now, this study that was done in 2022 were able to say yes to four or more ACEs.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: And then we come back to here now, the study that was done in 2022 with our neighbors here 64, 62%, thank you.
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: 62% of those individuals were able to say yes to four or more ACEs, which means it's a 496% increase 496%.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: So about five times more likely our people are To experience that four or more out of 10 means what.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: That was just the basis.
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: The threshold that Kaiser Permanente put as like here's something that's like maybe a lot of ACE scores is four or more, and so we use that same threshold here to just do a comparison.
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: And I believe that that was their number where they started to see a great increase in adverse mental and physical health outcomes.
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: Correct.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, so something that had been around a while and this was compared to national with people that most likely didn't necessarily wasn't targeted for an unsheltered population, but you did, whether in shelter or at the mobile access partnership with some people who live in the streets.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: I know when I saw that number, I was going well, this explains a lot when you're talking about 496% difference in the propensity of people to experience trauma in their life significant issues of trauma, based upon this pretty well-recognized test.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: That's okay.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Now we understand some things we didn't understand before.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: So what have you done with that information and what's next?
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: So after we gathered all of it, we were super excited about all of it made a little fancy PowerPoint huge spreadsheet of data huge spreadsheet of data.
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: Yes, we're able to present to our leadership, we're able to present to our board members, able to share information with our staff members to have a greater understanding of here's the propensity of trauma, like they are traumatized, hurting people.
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: Let's see them through that lens, that this person in front of me is hurting.
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: And now I have the knowledge of the hurt, have the knowledge of how to interact with the hurt and, like Cody said, it's not, we're not taking away pain instantaneously, like we are not Jesus ourself, we can't physically stop it, but I can show that I'm a person that cares and wants to connect and help you and hear you.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: And so we took that, all of that information and said let's do something more with it, let's not just keep it here for us, let's our community needs to know right, and so we were able to connect with Washburn University and the psychology department there, and so we were able to connect with Washburn University and the psychology department there, and so we have been working with Julie Boydston, who is a professor in the Department of Psychology, and we've been working with Jeff Downs, who's a master's student in the Department of Psychology, and have been able to take this information to a whole new level.
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: They're pulling statistics and stats from it that I wouldn't have even thought of personally.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: One of the things that Jeff really wanted to look at was, out of those 10 questions, is there a greater likelihood, if you experience this one specific ACE, to have an increased likelihood of mental illness or a physical outcome?
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: And so those things that we didn't necessarily, cody and I didn't pull those stats, we pulled a ton, but that wasn't one of the things.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: So, just having another brain and a person and involvement and a university that cares Julie and Jeff care about our people too.
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: It's not just a project for them, they care and that's huge.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: So, worshippers, taking a look at this, they are getting more involved in expanding your research, but there's a special meeting coming up in Seattle and you both have been invited to go.
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: created a thesis, presented it and applied for the American Psychological Association, the national conference and the APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and we were accepted.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: So you're going to go present this to this group?
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, which is amazing, right?
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: Pause, drum roll something here, and we were accepted, and so you're going to go present this to this group.
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: Yes, which is amazing, right, like the pause.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: Drum roll something here, lamanna.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: What does this mean?
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: I mean?
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: how cool is this?
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: I know Well, it's kind of like what I started off the podcast of saying like the seeds are being planted and just in some powerful information and the curiosity is there, the data is there to show the struggle, but then we're not just staying in the struggle, we're also then following it up by saying OK, so if we know this, what do we need to put in place to help people know more about this, to work through it, to overcome what they can, and to see people, whether it's universities, whether it's legal services, that are asking us to come train their staff so that they can better serve clients who are in the midst of crisis, and things like that.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: It's just powerful to see the information spread.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: What's it mean to have two team members like this on the team?
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: You know, they are fierce and they are smart.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: They don't look fair.
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, they are, though they look a little gentle.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, courtney was kind of getting ribbed about going over a curb but she could barely see what was real.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: Listen, they are small, but yes, small but mighty.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: But dynamite comes in small packages and these women.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: They are their dynamite in the fact of they are so jam packed with power power from the Lord, power from their love of people, power of information and knowledge that they are self-seeking.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: None of this has just come innate to them, where they just, you know, were toddlers and experts on trauma.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, they are using their own stories good, the bad, the ugly, the unknown to then drive, learning so much about topics that are so tough and then turning around and using that to bless so many different people from all walks of life.
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is not just helping an individual who is in the midst of some type of traumatic crisis.
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: We're talking professionals with two and three degrees that I have seen set in these ladies trainings and go.
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: I never knew that, I never thought of that, or you know what?
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: We're going to have a whole different approach now because of that, and so, to me, that is, I look at them in awe and I just kind of try to stay out of their way, but yet, you know, still keep them in parameters budget wise, finance wise, dreaming wise, but I think they're incredible and I think they're dynamite, still keep them in parameters, budget-wise, finance-wise, dreaming-wise but I think they're incredible and I think they're dynamite and I am so excited to see just this explosion of hope, this explosion of power in such a healing way that is just being transferred to so many different people.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite stories, and probably will be for a long time, was when Courtney was getting ready to go present on a.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Saturday morning to a group here in Topeka and I said, hey, I just want to give you a heads up.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: There's going to be a person in the audience.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: His name is Dr Walt Miniger and I remember you going okay, who's that?
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: So I explained Miniger Foundation, miniger Family and so forth, and I remember how freaked out you were.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: But what did you hear from Dr Walt Miniger?
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I got there and I was told that he was not going to be present.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: And so I was a little relieved.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh praise God, he is real and he is active and moving in my life.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: He saved you and then he shows up.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: And then he shows up and sits in the front row, and so I introduced myself to Dr Miniger and talked to him a little bit before and then afterwards.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: And a renowned, known world famous psychiatrist, famous man who knows significantly more than me, who has experienced significantly more, and he was able to say oh, I learned things that I never knew and that was huge.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: That's Dr Walt, he really is.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: And I talked to him after that a couple of different times and even a couple of years later, and he remembered.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: He remembered that I got a text message from another person that was in that room that day the superintendent of the Kansas Highway Patrol and he said this was an amazing presentation and that was early on, before you came to this.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Another person was in that room that day, the superintendent of the Kansas Highway Patrol, and he said this was an amazing presentation and that was early on before you came to this study and those kinds of things.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: So it's exciting in Topeka, kansas, out of a ministry that God has made an assignment here to go deep on this as well as many other things with this ministry.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: It's kind of mind boggling to me, lamanda, and I know it is to you as well.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: So you're going to Seattle, you're going to present your findings.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: What do you anticipate could come out of that?
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: What are the options at this point?
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: And when you get back, we want to unpack what you learned, but what do you think could happen there?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I know what I hope to happen.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: I don't know what could happen, but I anticipate going to obviously share and educate on what we have found.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: But I want to go with an open mind and open heart and hands for me to learn Right, like there are so many other presentations that are happening here from the field of psychology that we could walk around, walk away with just a wealth of knowledge.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: So, wanting to walk away with I want to learn more, and the older I get and the more that I learn, the more that I understand that I know not that much right.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: The more that you learn, I feel like the more you realize, the less.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: I know the more that you learn.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: I feel like the more you realize, the less I know, the more to learn, yeah there's more to learn and so hoping to walk away with that.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: But then, on a larger level, of taking this back and our research has gone to the International Review Board, which is the IRB, for it to be able to be published, and so, once this work is published, we want to advocate for what the findings are.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: If this is the outcomes, then what are we doing?
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: How do our laws, how do our policies um reflect what we know about people?
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: And that's a long game answer, that's not something that we're going to come back and, you know, a year from now, be able to sit on this podcast and say, hey, it's changed.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: It could be, you know, 30 years from now.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: But you said going deep, and I think that you can cast a net and try to catch as many fish as possible and go shallow.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: Or you can choose to do one person and go super deep and change the trajectory for that one person, and knowing that it's not us, ultimately that changes anything for any one person, and knowing that it's not us ultimately that changes anything for any one person, um, it is ultimately the Holy Spirit, um, working through us, um, but being willing to be a part of that work, to make a difference in the life of one person, then my, my job on earth is fulfilled Right.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, absolutely, uh, that's a, that's our assignment.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: Just do what God calls us to do and be faithful in that.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: I think that what you have discovered is a game changer in regards to how we looked at unhoused people and trauma in addictions and those kind of things, what has happened and how that affects and what our outcomes are.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: And I would think the health industry would be really still interested in this, because what they found was it was a small percentage of that particular population back in the 90s, 50 years ago, and now today, with this issue of homelessness that we have before us, that's growing and growing and growing.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: That cause and effect.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: This tool, whether published or not I got a feeling it'll be published is going to be a game changer.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: And so last question for both of you how does it feel to personally be involved in this space?
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: Courtney, I know you came in as a child care worker here and you didn't have any idea what was going to happen here.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: Cody, you came in as a volunteer Worshipping Christian Challenge during pandemic and I'm sure you had no idea.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: What does it mean to be invited into this space personally, for both of you, to not only be working in this ministry, but now to be even considered to be influential on a national level, maybe a global.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: I think for me, especially looking back to those times, like you mentioned, coming on as a volunteer and just at the time I thought it was going to be just as a volunteer, I felt the Lord pulling me here and then he had other plans.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: I feel like is a common thread for a lot of our staff come for a short time and then the Lord keeps you here for a long time.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: But coming on as a staff member at the Hope Center and just seeing the trauma I didn't have the understanding, the scientific understanding at that point, but just seeing that there was such a need for it, the scientific understanding at that point, but just seeing that there was such a need for it, um and then just seeing how the Lord has equipped me, how he has challenged me, how he has kept me against my will at times, um, but just leaning into that and seeing how he has been faithful.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: I think back to when um Courtney had the idea for doing this project, for doing this internal study, and we brought it to um.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: Our team's supervisor at the time for doing this internal study and we brought it to our team's supervisor at the time was Miriam Crable and Courtney.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: Like you mentioned, sometimes has to be reined in with ideas.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: And so somebody said but I remember Courtney suggesting this to Miriam and her saying, yeah, sounds good Like, go for it if you guys.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: This to Miriam and her saying, yeah, sounds good Like, go for it if you guys, if you guys want to.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: And um, just seeing how, from that moment to now, going to this national conference and having a partnership with a university, like Courtney mentioned, who truly cares like is just a testament.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: I feel like I can just sit back and just be in awe of the Lord, like I'm sure that there are going to be so many more times in my life that I'm surprised by the Lord.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: But this is, this is just telling me like I shouldn't be surprised at what he is able to do, like he is so truly capable and just, yeah, courtney and I like, like we've seen, math isn't necessarily our strong suit being able to legitimize Y'all stop with the joke being able to legitimize this.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: Y'all stop with the jokes.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: Hey, y'all are perfect in every other area.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: Thank you, that's just your one area.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you, yeah, and so just seeing how, hey, brilliant people sometimes don't wear the same pair of socks, that's right.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: They walk out of the house, at least until they got their clothes on.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 5: But, yeah, courtney and I couldn't have done this alone.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: And so all of the partners, all of the people who have connected us with other people, for the TRM team, for you guys, who have just continued to believe in us and support this project and pray over us in this project, like it's been so powerful, so it's a blessing and it's humbling just to see where it's come and what we get to be a part of.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, good Courtney, yeah, good Courtney.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I have as eloquent words as Miss Bloom has, but truly I can say that I'm honored and the Lord still allows me to be used.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: I'm just honored Humbled is another word Not deserving of it, I can tell you that.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: But the Lord is good and he gives to those that don't even deserve it.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: And so, and I am excited to just share, um, some of the stories, um of the people that we were able to interact with and for their voices to be amplified and heard and hopefully a different way.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: Um, because ultimately, like, these are just statistics that we're showing, um and sharing with people, but I want them to know that there's real faces, real names and horrific stories that go behind these numbers.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: To make these numbers possible and to really challenge us as humans to think in a different way.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: And if we want to address the suffering of people, we can't ignore the trauma that caused the suffering.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: And it's time for us to do different.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: And people are in need of it, even when they don't know that they need it.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: Right, and I'm just honored to be a part of it, and I'm excited to see what the Lord does and excited to see where he takes it, and we'll see.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Well, man, I know you're very pleased, proud Last word.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: My last word would be don't ever limit yourself.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: You know, I I'm not sure that when Courtney and Cody start looking into and let's be real, what they started looking into was problems, problems that staff were having because of incident reports that we weren't sure how to handle right Because behaviors were atrocious.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: Problems that we saw people facing and coming in with, problems that our staff then faced after someone relapsed and we we blamed ourselves and we worried and all of this they became curious about problems.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: But never once did these ladies say the problems are our staff.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: It's never been the problems are the people coming in here that we serve.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: It's always been what's happening and what's the why and how can we help, and that's been their hearts in this.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: And so I think I just want to conclude by saying I don't think any of us should limit ourselves.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't limit our curiosity.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't limit ourselves to our own biases.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't limit.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: If you're leaders, people that are working alongside you or under you, we should want to help them, propel into whatever they're trying to help make better.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: And just sometimes, by taking the time to look into problems, you see beautiful things come and you see information, you see approaches, you see possibilities and not about us.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: It's not anything like that, but we do say it really isn't about everything that we've learned.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: It's about then telling it, because we want people to understand what we've unlocked, and it can help their businesses, it can help their employees, it can help those people that are served, and so I would just say don't limit yourself and also don't be negative if you're in the midst of a leadership role or a role where, right now, all you're facing is problems, because a couple of years ago, that's all these ladies had were the things that needed help, and now they're on the other side of it, and that's beautiful and other people are being impacted.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: Well said.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: And don't limit God either.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: Obviously, he has blessed this ministry and blessed this team to be able to do things you never thought you were going to do, and so, as we don't limit ourselves, don't limit our God to get involved in helping us to find out what's really valuable.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: So thank you both for what you have done.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: It's exciting.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: So thank you both for what you have done.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: It's exciting.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: Can't wait to have you back with what we're going to learn from that trip to Seattle.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you for supporting the Topeka Rescue Mission.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: You've heard a very important kind of lengthy podcast today about trauma and the effects on it and how what's been learned here in this community can possibly be a significant game changer in how we address homelessness in the United States of America, and it's important to know the why in order to know the how, and so that's what we are unpacking here, and we'll be unpacking more.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Our Community, our Mission.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: If you'd like more information about the Topeka Rescue Mission, you can go to trmonlineorg.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: That's trmonlineorg.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Our Community, our Mission.