0:04
Hello and welcome to today's info people webinar balancing books and social issues homelessness and Trauma presented by Alyssa Hardy. Melissa is the community resource manager at the Denver Public Library in Colorado her team at the library Works to support and build relationships with Denver citizens and assist them in navigating Community Resources to achieve their goals and improve quality of life her role at the library also includes providing training for Library staff in the areas of trauma-informed services homelessness mental health resiliency and more. I am now happy to turn the webinar over to Alyssa Hardy.
0:44
Hello everyone. Thank you for that introduction. And thank you for being here. Yeah, so we'll just kind of jump right into our agenda here and what we'll be talking about today. So we will discuss libraries are faced with being the last public space available to people and why language and terminology we use makes a difference utilizing empathy and compassion the effect of trauma on society and how it affects those of us in public service. We'll talk a little bit about just defining vicarious trauma and vicarious resilience and the importance of self-care plan. We will actually create them today but the importance of it and then we'll have some time for Q&A after all of that.
1:28
So we will jump right in with our first piece of today's webinar and why our libraries challenged with providing Social Service connections and service. So if we think about it libraries are the last public place that people can be and in our society. We have done a really good job of continuing to criminalize certain groups of people and also continuing the oppression of poverty poverty through criminalization and other ways.
2:04
It's really hard for someone to to find their way out of poverty and or homelessness it can be real difficult in our society is not really set up to help people succeed in addition to that, you know, our criminal justice system is really quite punitive versus reform itive for youth we often take a reform of approach, but for adults we do not And so for people who've experienced a lot of adverse life challenges in then becoming involved in the justice system. It's really hard to make your way out of that many people do not to say that it doesn't happen. But it but then when you end up with certain things on your on your background or your record and such it can be difficult to find employment and so forth and for some felonies in such you cannot apply for student loans, you can't what you want. You cannot receive federal student loans. So we do a really good job of keeping people down. Unfortunately in addition to that.
3:03
There's been a huge cut huge cuts in funding for social services over the last few decades initially initially there weren't a lot to start with and then we had some and then then we started to cut them more and more and you know in the 60s and 70s, we looked at D institutionalizing Mental Health Systems, which was you know in a way good because those institutions and - were not always the healthiest places for people but we did not really trained people or help them have the skills to survive outside of those institutions. And so, you know many people who lost that that support system found themselves living outside and that has contributed even more so to our homelessness issue on top of poverty and in all of that, they'll really tied together and complex also gentrification. I actually took this picture in my own neighborhood here in Denver of this old neighborhood that has been around for over a hundred years and just took just kind of show, you know, the changing landscape in our cities gentrification displaces people housing costs going up Denver's housing costs have skyrocketed is as have many other cities and communities and that's a problem.
4:26
We actually see a lot of People coming into our library who have never faced homelessness before in our at the first the first time facing that it may be the age of 60 70 or 80 and it's because their rents keep going up or their landlord is selling because they can make a huge profit and flip the property. So that's a problem. In addition to that. We've got this lovely War on Drugs that continues to criminalize people who have turned to substances often times as a way to cope with traumatic events that have happened to them and because of that many of our libraries have found themselves on the Forefront of the opioid crisis and such facing issues of overdose in their libraries as well as just, you know, people injecting and syringes and such. So libraries are just on the Forefront of this because we are the last public space that people can exist even in parks. There are guidelines like in the park across the street from our sin.
5:27
Library you can be on the grass on certain days in there's part curfews at night and you can't be there and you know, we are free and equal access for everybody. We allow anyone to come in because it's their right to come into it's everyone's right to come into the library and and you know, sometimes I get asked by Librarians. Well, what about the other social service settings? Why can't our why don't people spend time in those places in and people do when they need to access the services there, but oftentimes you need an appointment to walk in the door and to spend time in the waiting room. In addition to that. We do have these shelters in many of our communities who do great things and oftentimes, it does stay shelters.
6:10
There are meals and laundry access and shower access and other services but there's in so people certainly spend time there but there's no reason that they that people can also come to the library as everyone else does so that's why we're here that's why we have are having these Conversations today it's snowing really hard in Denver. And so our library is packed. We have a lot of people who are trying to stay warm and dry during the day today. We've offered hand warmers and socks to people to support them and are making connections and when we close I'll be back outside. So that's a very real thing. This is a very it's a kind of a social work way to look at this but I think it makes a lot of sense there are protective factors and risk factors that we look at and this information comes from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. I actually have that hyperlinked. If you if you get access to the slides online and the risk factors are defined as any characteristics at the biological psychological family community or cultural level that proceed in are associated with a higher likelihood of negative outcomes.
7:25
So risk factors can be anything from From you know having maybe growing up even in a one parent household or do you have a parent who's incarcerated or a parent that is experiencing a substance use or mental health issue that goes untreated, you know, relying on social service programs to support the family that gentrification issue. All of those things are risk factors for families fills as well as like other traumas like racial trauma and and such so the opposite of that then our protective factors and those are characteristics associated with a lower likelihood of a negative outcome that reduce a risk factors impact so examples of those could be growing up in a two-parent home educational opportunities supportive friends and Community Access to Health Care access to Mental Health Care Transportation, all of those things are protective factors and I bring this up because we really do look at libraries as a protective factor for many people in our community.
8:27
TS, we have a much bigger role to play them than what I think we initially intended to or initially that we would for for many of the youth that we see coming into our libraries. We are where they can come between school and home while parents are still at work. We are where they can come and not be, you know, experiencing other issues out in the streets or in other situations. We have programs for for them. We have obviously books. We have Wi-Fi. We have computers for people to work on homework those kinds of things that's a protective factor for our youth in our communities in addition to that where you know, a protective Factor on all of these levels in this little ecological diagram on the right hand side here from you know, the individual level to the interpersonal level, we build relationships with people organizational level the community, you know, programming identifying where we can support people the community level.
9:25
The library is a huge piece of our community and And Society so for some people we might be one of their only protective factors. So we are you know countering or reversing the risk of those risk factors. And so we provide a space to exist place just to be for some people for a lot of people we think about if you're out in the streets in a downtown urban area just downtown. There are Sirens, there's the sound of traffic horns honking just you know construction these sounds that are going on all the time to be able to be inside like we don't always think about that like when we get home, maybe we just really enjoy the silence for some people. There's no way to get into that silence until they come to the library. And so that's really really big for people and they're in their mental health or place to make meet basic needs including going to the bathroom often times.
10:22
We are the only public bathrooms in it in a community that are accessible without And for something to get in we have climate control. Like I said, it's snowing really crazy here right now. And so, you know, it's warm in here. It's warm and dry in the library and in most importantly there's connection the information that people get connected to that's what libraries do really really well and intend to do really well resources and services as well, you know, and with the addition of Social Work and peer teams, we are able to offer people resources in the community and help them get connected to those those services that might help them meet their goals. And then I think the most important thing is connection to people, you know, if you're if you're living outside or you've experienced a lot of trauma, there can be a lot of distrust with our community is and with others and we can help build healthy relationships with people and that's a huge protective Factor.
11:26
Just talk briefly about how different Library systems have applied Social Services to their libraries one way to do that is to collaborate with Community agencies to meet the needs of your customers. And obviously this is what you know libraries are looking at in order to address these issues that we just talked about. So, you know again one step would be to just to collaborate with Community agencies invite them into your space and form them that you have free meeting space they can use and then you know, if they if they do schedule meetings in your space as for 5-10 minutes when they're when they're starting their meeting to just talk about what's going on in your library and and you know, give them a tour and kind of talk about different things. I'll tell you I worked for several years in the city of Denver downtown with the homeless population as it as a manager of a housing first program and I would come to the library to find my clients sometimes because I knew that, you know certain people spent time here, but I had no idea.
12:25
Dia the breadth of what was going on in our libraries in Denver and I guarantee that many service providers in your community have no idea either and as social work and such as become bigger and bigger and libraries people are hearing more about that and there's a lot of media coverage. So that is bringing attention to this more in those those areas, but I still get approached. You know, whenever I tell someone what I do, which is also a very loaded question as I'm sure you all have to understand is you know, when I say, well I'm a social worker and a library there. Like what why does the library need a social worker people don't fully know so we have to help people understand that in our communities.
13:08
In addition to that, you know another step would be contracting with one of those agencies to have their staff work in the library as a social worker. I know that Multnomah County Library and Portland is doing this and I've been County Libraries and Michigan took has taken this approach as many others have to so the the social worker is not an employee of the library, but rather they're contracted through that agency to come work and there are certainly some pros to that. Then the social worker is you know has support and supervision from their agency as well. As you know, those HIPAA guidelines and such that we as social workers have to follow are already in place. But you know, the cons of that too is they're not always seen as an integrated part of the library as a whole and so that's the third step is creating a social work program within the library. And so then the social workers hired by the library. And again, is that integrated staff member and that's worked really well here in Denver and in San Francisco and DC.
14:08
And some other in Chicago just you know, just hired Justine out there. So a lot of different libraries have looked at it this way and I really appreciate this approach. Well, you know, I didn't have the support of other social workers when I started it in such it was night. It's been really nice to be seen as an expert in my field and integrated into you know, the librarianship. He said that to us, I think that librarianship and social work can come together in a really beautiful way to really serve our community. So really thinking about how we can do that in our communities is important in addition to that. We created a peer Navigator program kind of modeled after what San Francisco was doing and we now have six peer Navigators on our team and they do need Social Work supervision. There's a lot of stuff that comes up with trauma exposure, which we'll talk about in a little bit but the peers are people with lived experience.
15:08
Various types to of the people peers on my team have experienced homelessness and now live in affordable housing all three of the current Navigators. We have our live with a mental health diagnosis and those mental health issues have affected their life in the past negatively and now they're in recovery and on a path of you know a forward path with that and one of them has experienced, you know, substance use issues as well. And we're hiring three more people and looking at various adverse life challenges resiliency related to that they've built in the recovery process and that's just a really those positions are really great in the way that someone can sit with someone and say I've had the same experience and help that person know that they're not alone and that really helps people move forward with their goals and in a really really magical way. It's really good stuff. I added a link here at the bottom whole person librarianship. Sarah's letter fall has put this together.
16:07
There she's a librarian and this is a really great resource to connect to a lot of information on that website. In addition. We have a Google group that you can join you can ask to join to receive articles and and ask questions of the group and and help answer questions and things like that, too. I'm going to quote Sarah in in what you know a phrase that I heard her say recently is relationship is the new reference librarian and I think that's very true to what we're talking about today.
16:43
So let's talk a little bit about the importance of language and terminology as we look at social issues. If we use the wrong language or unaware language, we continue to stigmatize marginalize and separate people but if we use strength-based words and words that help build community, we can strengthen Community we can Empower help people feel in power. They already have the power but help them feel empowered create connection and develop empathy and compassion.
17:17
So we so that I'm really big on language in a lot of things we do. We do a lot. We have a lot of media coverage and so I'm always sitting with reporters and talking about which words I'm okay with them. Which words I'm not okay with example of examples of that are not calling people homeless, people are homeless customers or that transient or you know, certainly other words that I won't even say allow that sometimes we hear around this population, but rather using a person experiencing homelessness or someone who's on housed, but even keeping in mind in those conversations, we're not saying well, this is Sally she's housed and she needs help with this. We're not defining people by their housing status being on housed is not a lack of character. It's only lack of an address and we know that there are systems failures failures that have led up to that person's experience. We are not divided defined by our own.
18:17
Experiences were defined by who we are as people. These are just experiences. Someone has it's very impactful. Absolutely. But being mindful of this language is really important. I actually was really amazing the other day A man was talking to me about how he just got into an apartment and he had been in housed for a while and he used the language. I was a person experiencing homelessness and I've never actually heard someone say that about themselves before and I thought that was really really powerful something I've heard in libraries a lot is the term disruptive behavior.
18:57
And so there is behavior that is challenging and it's not always what we what we want to have happen and but just being mindful about how we're using language around that and also separating a person from their behavior because often times when there is a we have a library used Let's see some libraries have these policies have rules regulations, whatever it might be but when someone's violating our library, there's something violating our library use policy. It's not the person violating it. It's their behavior that's violating it. So we're going to address that behavior and you know, we often say to the person, you know, I understand you're having a hard time. However, this Behavior doesn't work today and you know, whatever the outcome of that needs to be and people really respond to that really understand that another thing. Another area of challenge to challenge is the terms addict or alcoholic some people made self Define themselves as such in the 12-step programs that happens a lot and that's fine.
20:00
If someone's self defines himself as that, but we want to use language that such as a person who uses drugs or person who injects drugs not an IV drug user but a person who injects drugs or a person who uses alcohol again taking that's helping Remove some of that stigma and then also the term mentally ill some people like it made to find themselves as such is struggling with a mental illness, but we really see it as a mental health issue or challenge or concern. We all are on the spectrum of mental health. Sometimes those those things on that Spectrum can be an issue. Sometimes they're not and so when we use the term mental illness or really kind of thing with a person is sick and there's something wrong with them so that, you know, try to try to steer clear of that language as well. Also being mindful of the language the terminology in our culture.
21:00
We really do a good job again of stigma stigmatizing and marginalizing people and in continuing that poverty spectrum and and in other oppressions, so you may hear, you know news stories media and even research talking About encampments where people live when they don't have an actual like legitimate house and and that's their home. It's still their home. Even if it is a tense even it's where they live and their everyday items can be are often called paraphernalia when that backpack is actually holding that person's all of their all of their their life's belongings. So that's their belongings. That's their stuff.
21:42
It's not paraphernalia being mindful that stigma stigmatization pushes unhoused people out of public spaces decreases their visibility and forces them to accept stigmatized identities to receive Services by you know, I know a lot of you face the issue is we do to of having customers who don't understand these issues coming in and asking what you going to do about all those homeless people in the library and and questions about that and it's really taking that step back with that person and saying well, you know, there are a lot of people In homelessness in our community homelessness is a systems failure and talking about that a little bit continuing to in. You know what I think that is libraries. We I know that you know, I face this in my own system of like, how do we help everyone feel comfortable and really good. Bye everyone. We're kind of talking about those more privileged folks when we need to be talking about everyone.
22:41
Everyone should feel comfortable here and being mindful of that and realizing that by stigmatizing certain groups of people were continuing to push them out some things that are happening in many of our cities in our downtown areas and such there are camping bands in and things like that that happened because people don't want to see people living in our public spaces what that does is that pushes people out into other parts of this city and suburbs where there aren't Services where there might not be access to health care or emergency health care when it's needed and such and so being really Full about that and instead of just accepting people who they are where they are is really important the Anheuser subject to various nonverbal marginalization including dirty looks being avoided having more space put between them poor face-to-face interactions and can be rejected by even you know by peers. I once ran a group years ago when I worked in a in a housing program and we made bumper stickers in this group of so people made a bumper sticker of what they would what they would felt like when they were experiencing homelessness versus what they feel like once they felt like once they were housed one man use the bumper sticker when he was housed is said home sweet home, but when he was experiencing homelessness, he said don't look at me. I'm invisible and that just said so much to me about in many people feel invisible so we can really do so much by making.
24:16
I contact and saying hello and knowing people's names. It's so big. So all of those things that we just talked about are clearly can be, you know, very traumatic marginalization stigmatization not seeing someone for who they are categorizing people throwing a generalizing blanket over groups of people is all very traumatic and sometimes we you know, we think of the word trauma when we think of a single event that may have happened to someone and that can be very true. You know, that could be an assault or a car accident or a death or something like that that you know, that's how we Define trauma and sometimes we don't even know what the effects of that trauma will be until much later when someone may be having some some adverse experiences, but also to keep in mind that staying that trauma only applies to one event or even a series of events does not give credit to the severe effects.
25:16
All of these things, you know oppression, which I've mentioned a few times racism sexism ableism discrimination related to sexual orientation discrimination related to gender identity ages poverty and homelessness political trauma will lie going on in our country these days and there's also you know, General generational trauma trauma has passed down through the generations is actually scientific evidence of the effects of trauma being passed down on DNA. And in addition to that also those learn coping skills of how to how to you know, work their work your way through trauma is generational and that goes into that historical trauma peace and cultural trauma. All those are pretty interconnected yet yet are you know separate things, you know, as people as United States has been created the colonialization piece. All of that stuff has really torn apart many many cultures.
26:17
And we lose a lot of that and that's traumatic for groups of people. So there's a lot going on all of the time and again, I put this ecological model here on the right hand side because trauma ripples out through all of those things if trauma happens to an individual it's happening to their relationships to organizations. They're involved with included including the library their community and society and vice versa but trauma happens is in a society a triples back down the other way and all through all of these spaces, right and I bring this up because I'm working in a library. We are exposed to trauma trauma walks through our doors every day. Let alone the fact that many of us have experienced our own traumatic experiences or adverse life challenges to right we may have you know had something that happened we might not have labeled as a trauma and that's that's fine. That's actually great. But that doesn't mean it wasn't, you know challenging for us and didn't have long-term effects for us.
27:17
So keeping in mind that we have our own experiences and it walks through our door our doors every day and we have to recognize that because if this is what I hear from a lot of staff is in in in in that whole Space of getting frustrated with seeing homelessness everyday, we're seeing even substance use every day was seeing, you know other other things that come through our doors every day.
27:48
We're asking well, why is that? Why do these people have to come in? Why is that happening over and over? So we have to really recognize and accept that it is happening so we can do something about it. In addition to that. This is also a hyper Link at the bottom of this this adverse childhood experiences study down at the bottom there. So the adverse childhood experience study or a case study for short was a study done by Kaiser Permanente in the late 90s where they were looking at the long-term effects of childhood trauma, and there's a lot more to it. I won't go into too much detail because it's pretty in-depth and it's a pretty stellar study.
28:29
It's pretty amazing, but it basically explains like at the bottom of this period we have the adverse childhood experiences, which you know, they recognized is you know, obviously there is abuse and neglect involved in that but also being bullied living in a household where appear Was incarcerated or struggling with a mental health or substance use issue that wasn't treated, you know Healthcare issues that weren't addressed not feeling loved not feeling supported those kinds of things to and the long-term effects of that are what is you know goes towards the top of this pyramid. So disrupt a neuro development is a big big space for this if you think about the developing brain, a lot of things have to be going really well for a brain to develop well and if a person a child is living in a situation where there's a lot of ongoing trauma in their basically and fight-flight all the time, they're their brain development will be different.
29:31
We actually have brain scan studies to prove this and you know, their amygdala is enlarged that that engages the limbic system which engages the fight flight which is what our systems developed to do if there was a threat we fight or we flee What that also does is it pulls a lot all of the blood out of our vital organs and into our limbs so we can fight or flee so that has an adverse effect on our on our or our organ structure and the cardiopulmonary pulmonary system and sometimes that frontal lobe space isn't as developed as it would be for someone who didn't experience a lot of trauma. So that's where we hold reasoning and problem-solving and relationship building and all of those things and so as a result of all of those things we can have social emotional and cognitive impairment. We can have an adoption of health risk behaviors, which might be you know, we think about like smoking or using drugs or alcohol, but there's also eating poorly or overeating or under eating or exercising over-exercising under exercising, you know, all these different things maybe driving too fast all the time not wearing a seatbelt those those risk-taking behaviors as well.
30:48
Because what people do is they try to cope with what has happened to them in the best way. They know how so oftentimes what we what we've used as you know terminology of like symptoms or even like, you know adverse Behavior such as substance use and such is actually a person's way of learning to cope with what's what's been handed to them. So kind of reishi kind of Shifting how we view that is really important. We have also this can lead to disease disability and social problems. As I mentioned, you know, that fight-flight process pulls the blood out of the vital organs and even if someone you know, let's say they've experienced, you know, some trauma as a young person or even you know as an adult and they've had that happen to them and they never you know, smoked or you know had issues with substances and lift a pretty healthy lifestyle.
31:47
My still develop these these disease and and other issues health issues because of the effects of the trauma on the system and the cortisol that goes to our body when we that adrenaline that goes through in that fight flight processes also very damaging to our systems. So that has a long-term effect which obviously can do, you know sometimes end up in early death as well. So that's how childhood trauma plays into all of this but you know, it ties into with ongoing trauma because a lot of times when people have had these adverse childhood experiences, let's say they do have some pretty significant disrupted neurodevelopment chances are they may find themselves in other social situations as an adult that are re traumatizing and such so it kind of snowballs if you know what I mean, and it also is so like interconnected between like the mental health the trauma substance use adverse Health experiences, all of those things are so interconnected.
32:48
I love this diagram because I think it really explains a lot. I think, you know something that I think our society thing so if someone just gets into treatment or therapy or whatever it might be they'll be fine. They're gonna get better. It's this nice Straight Arrow up and it's great and it's glorious and that's not reality. I'm sure we've all had this situation where on Monday morning you've packed your lunch. You're like, I'm being healthy this week. I'm going to do this and by Thursday, you're a little stressed out. Your cortisol levels are up and you're like, I'm gonna go have a drink or some chocolates or whatever. It might be or that that that like comfort food starts to craving starts to kick in because we out the reality is is were human and we have our ups and downs. We do the best we can in our situations.
33:47
So the Ality of someone finding recovery and people find recovery all every day all the time. It just looks like what recovery looks like for them. And also it's not a straight easy line. If it were my job would be so easy. It's so easy, but that's not reality. And it's also good that it's not a straight line because this people are in treatment or therapy or working with appear or whatever. It might be building relationships. They're building new skills and they need an opportunity to to practice those and so that's why it's also good that it's not a straight line because we need some bumps in the road to practice what we're learning.
34:28
So here I have some tips on I'm going to come back to trauma and libraries here in a minute. But first I want to talk about some tips on how can we do build relationships? Well with our all of our customers and all of that and our libraries so eye contact is really really important when establishing a relationship. I mean, we've all been at that coffee shop where we've ordered something in the Barista never looks this in the eye and you're like, I'm here I can see you you can see me so making eye contact with people is critical obviously being mindful of too much or too little I'm especially there are some cultural components to that as well to be considered attentive listening always listening. I do this to you.
35:23
I think you know as a as a trained therapist is you're seeing in In therapy with someone you're always thinking about. Okay. What's this person saying? What's my next step? And we do that I think that happens with Librarians to with the whole like okay, how am I going to help this person as they're talking but just really being mindful of like I can be present with this person and listen to what they're saying and and not have to interject and we'll figure out what we need to do. And so it's not just, you know, just hearing the words. It's actually hearing and comprehending what the meaning of what is said.
36:04
So sometimes people were asked will ask for you know, something in there kind of asking for something indirectly and because they're saying something else for example, someone might come in and ask for a book on let's just say a book on Mental Health diagnosis or looking for a psychology book or Location as a librarian in your job is to provide that for them and not ask a lot of questions about that. Absolutely but also you can you know be like, hey, here's some people you can talk to if you want to know more about it. This is their specialty or here's a resource of an agency you can call and just like, you know being like maybe this person is actually actually asking for help in in kind of hearing that facial expressions being mindful of our faces work. I'm terrible with my facial expressions and meetings. A lot of times is something you can probably relate. So just you know know that you're our nonverbals are saying so much more than a verbal sometimes being mindful of that body positioning, you know, if you're sitting with your standing with your arms crossed or, you know, kind of turned from the person just really kind of giving that impression that you're irritated by them or bothered by them. That's not going to help build that relationship.
37:27
So just being relaxed keeping your hands visible is really important because so people don't think you're doing something else with your hands in that kind of thing is is really important being casual and being open having that open body language to hear people using empathy and warmth displaying warmth involves conveying a feeling of interest and concern while being an affection to another individual one thing is a vehicle for acceptance a lot of people again wear a protective Factor. So a lot of people are looking for that acceptance so you hello, it's good to meet you. How can I help you today? I really like your scarf. I'm glad we had the chance to talk about this. It's good to see you again. I say this to people all the time and like hey Anthony, how you doing? It's good to see you here again today and he's here every day. So I say this every day when I see this guy and he's just like he's always so happy. It's like I'm good. I'm just looking at this stuff up on the computer.
38:28
And so just really using those interpersonal skills genuineness people know when you are not being genuine, especially people who experienced a lot of trauma because they have had to try to discern if so, what someone is telling them is the truth or not the truth and can they trust this person or not trust this person. So being genuine is critical. So if you're having a bad day, it's okay to have a bad day and I've said to people I'm sorry. I'm in a really bad place mood-wise right now, but I'm going to do my best to help you and people are usually like well thanks for being real honest smell bad. Like yeah, and then I usually feel better and I'm like, okay we can work together on this. It's okay just to be honest and theythey goes so far and there's a difference between empathy and sympathy and all of those things and in sympathy kind of tells us to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and we don't have to do that. We don't have to place ourselves in someone else's experience to understand what they're going through.
39:27
Because that's also kind of traumatizing for us if we're continuing to do that with ourselves. So just being empathetic and you know recognizing that this person is having a hard time and I actually changed this slide. So on your handout it actually says you're conveying to the customer and that you do that you understand how she or he or she feels or they feel and it's not so much because we don't want to say I understand because we might have fully understand and that's not fair. But basically that we're not going to judge how they feel their feelings are valid and that's important and it doesn't mean their feelings are positive or negative or that we have to fix anything for them. It just means you're being present with that person and you and you get that they're having a hard time in that's okay. It's okay. We all have a hard time being compassionate and being present kind of talked a lot about that here, especially, you know with young adults and people experiencing homelessness.
40:27
Being present conveys cure and just making that eye contact and spending a little time with somebody is so critical and quite honestly, you know, we created a lot of programming around you know for the population is experiencing poverty and homelessness and they've gone really really well one of those being our coffee connections program, which many libraries have like a coffee and conversation group and we called ours coffee connections the same premise when we have staff serving customers experiencing adverse life challenges coffee and donuts and such and and and that's and it which I love because we're also serving people and I really like that approach, but when we started this, we had a lot of Staff who are really worried about because we wanted conversations to happen and like what I don't know how to talk to people. I don't know what to say. What if I say the wrong thing there's a lot of anxiety around that which is valid absolutely, but just conveying to like so we integrated it.
41:27
Of arts and crafts in that so you can keep your hands busy and have a conversation that because that really helps kind of be a conduit for things to talk about and then you can open it up for other things and build that relationship and you know what people say, you know what it's turned into as a lot of people saying I people our staff come back every month, even if they're not hosting because they loved having the conversations with people and it's not necessarily about the coffee. It's not about the donuts. It's not about the Arts and Crafts. It's about that being present for those two hours and making those connections and sitting with someone and actually having that cup of coffee with them and all of that. That's what the important piece of this is and you know programming and all that absolutely important, but it's the relationship that's important.
42:17
And then the strength based service delivery strength to Base Service delivery is a very social work way to be we are always looking at the strengths of people but I think with that shoe is something libraries can also do and do a lot of the time and it's just really recognizing a person's strengths in their Assets in a conversation in an interaction with them recognizing their resilience because even though people have experienced trauma or if they've experienced trauma or these adverse life challenges, they're still alive. They're still functioning. They're still they still have goals. They still have hopes and dreams and that's resilience and so recognizing that with people and even if someone is frustrated or they're having a hard time finding what they need, you know, just using the say it's the phrase.
43:08
It's great that you're here working at this if you keep trying you'll only get better at it and I'm here to support you with that and also recognizing that There's choice in that too. And I think that's all this is a really cool place where social work and librarianship comes together to because we do believe in autonomy and Independence and the importance of personal choice and you know, no matter what someone want you know, what that's their choice and sometimes we put our own agenda in front of what that person's agenda might be. You know, for example, we might have someone come in and meet with one of our peer Navigators. He's asking for affordable housing but they're all so intoxicated that day. So, you know, it's that what's our priority in some people might really think what we need to address that substance. Use. The thing is until that person gets a roof over their heads. We might not be that person might not be be able to address or substance use and might not want to that person's Choice today is to work on their housing situation. And so that's their choice and that's where we're going to go and in that relationship building. Maybe we can start a conversation about the substance use absolutely but we're going to go where that person's choices.
44:17
And so again recognizing those resilient that resiliency in those strengths and all that stuff and that's where new skills are developed and adversity and in all of this stuff. That's where this comes from. And yeah and kind of coming back to this trauma-informed peace and all of that information, you know, we don't provide care in libraries where provide a service so this is really trauma-informed services and just that recognition that trauma walks through our doors and that people have had experiences in their lives. It's not about what's wrong with this person. It's about knowing that something happened. We don't want to ask them what happened to you because that's not appropriate but rather recognizing that they've been through some stuff and this is how they've learned to cope with it. And or this is where that those system failures have have landed them. So, you know what's happened to this person within that to like I mentioned it's really important.
45:16
Going to be aware of these things because we have our own trauma exposure responses, which we might not have recognized is trauma exposure responses on I do this training for our staff use examples, like, you know feeling physically fatigued at the end of the day, even though you know, you're just kind of at the desk all day feeling a loss and creativity. It's affecting your relationships or feelings that you can never do enough. Those are all trauma exposure responses. And there's so many more obviously in a and it's not you know, what I don't point this out to to make people feel like there's something now wrong with them that oh my gosh. I'm all screwed up from a job. That's not it at all. It's that. Oh, wow. I'm having some reactions to my work and I need to take a look at that and figure out how to work on that for myself so that I can be find my own resiliency in build on that so I can be better at my work and continue to serve my community.
46:15
And you know when our own experiences overlap or are affected by the people we encounter like we talked about we all have our own experiences. We're more vulnerable to Vicarious trauma and burn out in Burnout is you know, I always use the term crispy Critter when people get to that place of he's like, oh, yeah, maybe it's time to retire. You're just having a hard time and that's real and I've been there in the past job. I was burnt out and I had to take a step back and study these things and actually started teaching classes at a social work program a graduate Social Work program on trauma and by learning all of these these pieces has helped me come out of it and become better at what I do as a social worker. And so again if that awareness and then working on it in vicarious trauma is really when we are exposed to other peoples.
47:14
All of the time and we kind of absorb that ourselves actually a term that was coined for therapist doing trauma work and hearing trauma stories over and over. It's also recognize that you know police officers have this First Responders ER Personnel, but also anyone in public service so Librarians because we hear people's stories when we build these relationships with people too and sometimes we're avoidant or avoid building these relationships because we know that there's going to be trauma see peek into that and it's a protective factor for ourselves to not do that but recognizing within that there's resiliency in this person as well as well as in me as a staff person and we can pull that together and build this vicarious resiliency place. It doesn't mean vicarious trauma doesn't happen. What it means is we can have a balance of both and that helps us stay healthier in our systems and you know with healthier staff who are recognizing this we have fewer sick days.
48:14
We have you know fewer people leaving losing that institutional knowledge. All of those things go. It has a Rippling effect for the institution. Here are just some definitions of resiliency from a good old dictionary.com. In that first one is interesting. I think for non-human things that might work to come back to the original former position.
48:37
But after something has happened in our lives it changes us because that's who we are as humans we adapt and we learn and we change and we should and so it's really that elasticity that we have within ourselves is what creates that resiliency and that non rigidity and we talked about victories resiliency, but here's a good definition of a unique and positive effect that transforms service workers in response to trauma survivors on resiliency just really recognizing that And then the importance of self-care, you know, I think some you know think that self-care has to be something we do outside of work all of the time and we practice self-care all day long even in the face of direct service work and and all this. It's just like am I grounded am I taking deep breaths, you know in my in my burnout recovery. I became a yoga instructor and recognize and we learned that people often times use about a third of their lungs space. We have 2/3 more lungs that we can take oxygen into. So using that and taking those deep breaths pulling our shoulders down and back that whole like just being grounded and present and mindful of what's going on in our own bodies and our own reactions to two situations that come up and you know taking a break when you need a break eating. Well eating healthy at work drinking a lot of water staying hydrated.
50:07
Those things are so important laughing with your co-workers building those relationships with your colleagues as well. And you know outside of work. What do we do? I think it's really important for us to have a transition ritual between work and home for a friend of mine who listens to store people's stories all day. She imagines herself driving away from work with a parachute on the back of her car and she throws all of those conversations.
50:36
She had that day and that parachute sends a good wishes and then lets it go They should take some deep breaths. And then she can be on her way home to dinner with her daughter. One of the peer Navigators that used to work on my team. He would take the the bus to the light rail home. And so he would get on the bus and he would think about work. What happened that day. What does he need to follow up with tomorrow? And then when he transitioned to the light rail, he stopped thinking about work and on the light rail, he would only think about getting home to his family and that was his Focus. I always like to use the example. Mr. Rogers here in the beginning of each of his show. He would walk in change from his jacket to his sweater and change his shoes and he was transitioning from his day into his space of you know, mr. Rogers Kingdom and you know have that transition ritual I know for me I take off my jewelry. I wash my hands. I have to take my shoes and socks off. I hate wearing shoes and socks anyway, so those come off as soon as I get home oftentimes.
51:39
I changed my clothes and I have Like it's like snuggle time with my dog's I like sit with them. I have no phones in the room nothing and for you know, at least 5 minutes sometimes up to 30 minutes. I sit with my dogs we play with their toys scratch their bellies and that's my transition usual. So keeping that in mind to and then you know, what's who supports you and your self-care as well. So building that that structure for yourself is important including at work as well. So that's that's that's what we have. So I will open it up for questions for their last few minutes.
52:24
Okay, we are just getting a couple comments in someone's asking if the handouts will be emailed to us. You can download the handouts right now from your control panel. There's a handout section and the handouts will also be available with the recording of the archive. You'll be able to download them there as well. I like that dog therapy Alyssa. That was me to someone saying this has been incredible another person great presentation. So glad I got to listen in. Okay, how do you handle problem patrons who are experiencing homelessness watching p*** on computers or having freak outs and using bad language? Okay. Well first I'm going to rephrase that and challenge that language a little bit. Right? So we're going to talk about we have a person who might be having experience of homelessness or not.
53:19
We don't unless we know where that person lives which we might we No, also challenging that word problem. So this is basically so just challenging all of that and looking at we have a person we have a customer or Patron and our library who if p*** is a violation of your use policy as it is ours. So their behavior is violating our library use policy, right? So how we handle that is we approach the person it might be security. It might be what someone from my team and might be a librarian. We approach that person and say hey, do you know that you're not allowed to look at p*** at the library and depending on how it goes from there? Sometimes people do escalate and then you know, it's like, you know, as soon as I'm working today, I'm going to ask you to leave and you have to set very clear and consistent boundaries and always give people two choices so you so if you're able to calm down you can stay today or you'll have to leave for today. So there are two choices in that and if the person doesn't come down like okay, you have to leave for today if you don't leave then I have to call.
54:23
Police or whatever your next step is. So those two choices for people all the time. It's okay for them to step it up that's their choice and recognizing to that. Sometimes people will step that escalation up because they their their brain remember there was that neurobiological piece of trauma, but also, they might not have a lot of control and choice and other areas of their life and we're giving them choice and they're getting they're able to make a choice and that's up to them. We're going to respond to their choice. And so yeah and sometimes that will go well most people are like, oh gosh. Sorry. Sorry, you saw me watching p***. I'll stop and we never have a problem again or five days later. They're in a different branch watching p***. So, you know, and then we're aware of that and were like, hey, you were told the other day at this location not to do that here. So now we have two we're going to restrict you from coming to the library and we have a process here.
55:18
Whereas if you're if you're banned or restricted you have to come in and meet with our security manager and one of Social workers to go over Behavior contract and then you can come back in and if you violate your behavior contract, then you're out for a full year and most people don't want that. So this is like 98% effective works really well again giving people a choice. I feel like there's another piece of that question, but I don't remember what it was. No, I think that was a very good answer. We have a lot of other questions that have come in. So go ahead and move on. This is kind of a big question. I think but we have a couple people asking questions about what if you don't have the budget to hire a social worker. So what can they do? Yeah, good question II recognize that's very real. We're really lucky here. So that one slide I had about like how to approach different ways of bringing social service support into your library that number one bullet point talks about how to collaborate with your agents your community agencies. So you can talk to you know, maybe just have a panel conversation or a group conversation just invite people in from your homeless service agencies mental health agencies.
56:23
Agency is whatever it might be be like, hey, this is what's going on here. We need a little support. How do you guys think you can support us? And I'll tell you too that we actually have a Public Library Association a pla Social Work task force now and my co-chairing that with a social workers from DC in San Francisco, and we're happy to help walk you through this process. We want people to feel supported even if you can afford this obviously, you know, we've got a lot of work in our own systems, but we're here to support everyone. So you've got some resources you got some support and check into that whole person librarianship stuck to there's a lot there's a lot of support in there. But yeah having conversations with your with your community agencies is a good place to start.
57:09
How do you document interactions with Library users like my like our social workers individually, so what we do since we don't keep records on customers per Library privacy laws, we just have a currently a spreadsheet where we keep the person's first initial and then we just keep track of what those interactions are about just so that we're tracking the number of contacts and what those what those needs are. We're literally looking at a better way to track that data just met with the social worker from the Seattle Public Library in a couple of weeks ago and they have like the you're using SurveyMonkey to track that data. So I think most of us in this in these positions are trying to figure that out and trying to figure out a way to collect better data, but that's what we're looking at right now.
58:04
And someone was asking how do you handle it? If you see Library patrons and other places in the community when you're off work good question, and I know that happens in smaller communities a lot more than bigger communities, but I'll tell you I walked out of a yoga class Monday and there is one of our regular customers right outside the door and was like, oh hello expect to see you here. I just said hey, how are you doing and kept walking because I also want to respect that person's anonymity from being in the library and also from the social work pepper perspective. I'm not going to engage them. So if they want to engage me, I'm not going to be rude. I'm going to be like, okay. Well, I tell you what, if you want to talk about this further, I'll be in the library tomorrow. You can come in X I'm going to set that boundary because this is my personal time, but but I'm not rude. I don't ignore them. I'm like, hey, you know make the eye contact say hello.
59:01
Say hi and You know being clear with that boundary like, you know, I'm not at work right now. I can talk to you more about this when I'm at work.
59:10
And we have time for just one more question. Someone was asking about that statement you made the relationship is the new reference librarian if you could expand on that a little yeah. Yeah, so that's Sarah's that are Vols phrase from whole person librarianship. I asked her if I could use it and she said sure So really just recognizing the fact that relationship is so important and you know, you guys are trained in the reference interview and all, you know, trying to figure out how to help people find what they're looking for and get their needs met but remembering within that that relationship again is that most important piece of that and really building on that.
59:54
Okay, well, we're at the top of the hour. So thank you so much Alisa for that fantastic webinar. We also had a lot of comments coming in and a lot of thank yous from the audience great and for our audience. This presentation will be archived and available on the info people archived webinar page within 24 hours. I've posted a link to the certificate of attendance for those of you who would like one and we also have a short survey you'll see after you close out of the webinar. So if you could please take a few minutes to fill that out it helps us in planning future training. So thanks everyone and we'll see you all at our next webinar.