Navigating Trauma with Resilience
by Friends School mom and local trauma therapist, Lauren Hassan, LCSW
Many thanks to Friends School mom and trauma therapist, Lauren Hassan, LCSW, who met with our staff last week to provide tools and resources to navigate these challenging times. Lauren shares her experience as this week’s guest blogger.
I recently had the pleasure of spending some time with our incredible teachers and staff at Friends School. We addressed what it means to be living in trauma and how to actively and purposefully cultivate resilience. And how to do this while being both present in our bodies and with each other. Our time together was a little bit of everything.
As a trauma therapist, I have been working in a microcosm of this pandemic. Sitting with individuals and feeling the depths of their experience through the unique lens of each life that sits with me on my screen. We dive deep into pain, we connect in vulnerability, we rebound in connecting to resources and resilience, often times we laugh and then we do it again the next week. This work is profound. I am privileged, humbled and honored to be invited into peoples’ worlds in this way.
Yet, there is a part of me that feels connected to something so much bigger as I think of all the shared pain, loss and fear; all who are sacrificing during this time. Each day I take the kids to school and pick them up, I find myself moved by the commitment our community is making. All of us! How can we truly support and show up for this community from within. From our core sense of self, reaching each individual who so passionately commits to our families and our children. I invite you to consider the same. Not just for our Friends School community, but for all communities in your life…family, friends, groups you are a part of, others in need. What could this look like if we all put our whole hearts into loving and showing up for each other?
Resilience. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but when we do this, when we give, even if we feel we have nothing to give, we expand our capacity to cultivate resilience. And with that, I leave this letter here for our incredible teachers and staff.
Dear teachers and all staff… all who work tirelessly to keep our school running,
You continue to show up in ways that you did not choose or necessarily sign up for. What you are enduring now, was likely far from your radar when you chose to engage in this line of work. You are being asked to establish safety for our community and our children and in that, to monitor behavior and circumstances that require hypervigilance every single day. Your roles have been renegotiated. How you connect and work as a team has been redefined. How you adapt is requiring intense flexibility and rigidity all at once. You are not only having to work with your own emotional needs and livelihoods, but you are supporting our children in theirs and identifying how to relate to and work with parents who likely all have a unique reaction to how everything is being handled. All while still teaching…still educating our children in their whole sense of self.
Oh and let’s please not forget, you all were heroes before this pandemic entered our lives. Committing to our children and our families through incredible skill, knowledge, collaboration, and empathic care. I said this when I first invited you to join me – you are warriors. Warriors who will forever be imprinted in the maps of our lives and in the narrative of our stories. We are forever grateful.
Thank you.
With all my love,
Lauren
Learn more about Lauren and her work at laurenhassan.com.
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We stand against racism
Statement to the community by Honor Taft, Head of School and Jenefer Donovan, Friends Community Board Chair
June 2, 2020
Dear Friends School Community,
There is a problem in America affecting all of us. At Friends School we stand unequivocally against racism and believe we can and must be part of the change for a better world by honoring, nurturing and challenging one another.
We mourn with Black communities, the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. Their tragic deaths are only the most recent harsh reminders that the ugly truth of racism is both prevalent and systemic.
The pain of the past week’s events weighs heavily in our hearts and we stand in active solidarity with all who strive for social justice. Friends School is committed to preparing strong, courageous people to use our voices to promote justice.
We believe that ending racism begins with education, compassion, and critical thinking and that having difficult and important conversations with our children will make an impact. Friends School has gathered these resources to support families in navigating these critical conversations about race. Additionally, we would like to share the following links:
- Race and parenting: Why raising ‘colorblind’ kids is actually a terrible idea: https://www.today.com/parents/how-teach-kids-about-race-don-t-be-colorblind-t115136
- Op-Ed: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-05-30/dont-understand-the-protests-what-youre-seeing-is-people-pushed-to-the-edge
- Kojo For Kids: Jason Reynolds Talks About Racism And The Protests: https://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2020-06-01/kojo-for-kids-jason-reynold-talks-about-racism-and-the-protests?
- A Child’s View of the Death of George Floyd: https://stonesoup.com/post/a-childs-view-of-the-death-of-george-floyd-by-amara-9/
Respectfully,
Honor Taft
Head of School
Jenefer Donovan
Friends School Community Board Chair
If I’m OK, Are You OK?
Parents of Friends preschoolers know that their children are learning at one of Boulder’s best preschools. What’s often a surprise for them, however, is the added parent education they receive from our amazing preschool team.
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