For this high-leverage practice, we are talking about collaborating with families to support student learning and secure needed services. This week, I've got Waddell with us. He is one of our school social workers, and he does some really phenomenal work, both with students and their families, just to try to kind of move them in that more whole direction. It's bigger than just academics. There's a whole bunch of other things that go in with it as well.

So Waddell, for you, what does it look like to collaborate with families in your practice?

It looks many different ways, whether we're talking about, like… You meet with the kiddo, you meet with the kid in private sessions or whatever, but there's a definite understanding that no matter how much you meet with the kid, I'm only seeing the kid once a week for about 45 minutes at a time. And at the end of the day, the kid has to go home to the family, into the environment that is causing them issues.

So it would behoove you to work with the full family and work with the full picture in order to see sustaining change. So, for us, that looks like, obviously, family therapy sessions, whether it's the kid and the parent, the direct parent that's involved or the whole family. I've done it with siblings or whatever, and that's important. There's other programs we have what's called life skills clinician that also work with the families as well.

And we kind of tag team together, like the therapist and our life skills clinician that does work in the community a little bit more as well. It can look like we have a program called Wraparound, the Wraparound program. I was a Wraparound facilitator for a couple years before I became a therapist. And that's even more so looking at the whole picture of not just the client, but the client and the parents, the client and the siblings or whatever, just looking at the whole picture.

Wraparound, I feel, is even more designed to get at, when you think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs  you think about, like, food, shelter, and clothing and stuff like that, like, the Wraparound program is even better designed to try to attack some of those needs as well, but again, with the whole idea of trying to look at the whole family as a whole and its totality. So those are some of the ways that work with the whole family.

Yeah, those are really neat examples, because it's not just the parent. You're talking about community, you're talking about siblings. You're pulling in all of these different angles. And, yeah, I'm familiar with Wraparound as well. And there is some really cool work that can come out of that is definitely more intentional or I don't know that I would even say intense. It's just bringing more components to the table than what typically schools do.

So I love that you're bringing that up because, good gracious, yes, it hits. It's all of those boxes when you're talking about Maslow.  And families are more than just a nuclear unit, so.

Absolutely. And I feel not enough programs… Because when you get into Wraparound, they always say it's the last line of defense before a residential or juvenile or something like that. But in reality, that kind of work is needed for almost every family. That kind of work. No one exists in a vacuum, and families and kiddos definitely don't exist within a vacuum.

And you have to, like, it's imperative. You have to consider the whole picture. You have Wraparound, but, like I said, it's for that “really, really problem child” or whatever. But when in reality, that's why I love family therapy sessions, you know? 

No, I always tell. Whenever I get a parent in there, I always say, I'm not a kid. I'm not a parent. I'm not about to sit up here and tell you how to be a parent. Like, don't think of this as a hire, me being the expert, looking down. This is a teamwork. This is collaboration. I can see your kid for 45 minutes, but at the end of the day, you know your kid a lot better than I do. So, like, I need you, for us to work together to figure out how to help.

And that has to be a collaborative thing with the families, so.

Yeah, but you're respecting their knowledge, their expertise, their experience, regardless of if it's what we would maybe want or hope for. Sometimes there's definitely discrepancies there, but I think to honor it regardless, that is so necessary. In a couple of weeks, I'm going to talk with Chris about how to, like, report evaluation results in meaningful ways. And one of the things that I've learned that I do weird in my practice is when I'm reporting out my results, I'm always asking, is that matching with what you see? Is that how you're experiencing it?

And getting the family gut checked to say, like, am I really describing your kid here? And sometimes it's yes, sometimes it's no, right? Like, it shows up differently in school than it does at home or whatever. But just asking that question, I have learned, is different than most folks when they're just reporting out results of, like, here's what I ran, here's what I got, here's what it means.

Move on with life. It's more like, well, yeah, here's what I ran, and here's what it means. But does that match? Does that fit to what you see?

And that's trying to combine the qualitative versus quantitative. I hate that I said versus.

I know I'm a hardcore mixed method, so.

You can have all the numbers and have all the data all you want, but at the end of the day, is it really helping? Is that what the family is seeing? Is that what the family needs? And they're the experts. Families are the experts. We're just here to, like you said, collaborate, work. Let's work together or whatever, but at the end of the day, the families are the experts, and that's how can we work together.

So then how do you partner with families that are frustrated? Maybe they're just kind of giving up in the whole situation? Like, yeah, I know, I know. I hear this a million times. I don't know what to do, right? And they're just kind of like, this young person is just going to live their life. How do you partner with families that seem to have sort of either given up or lost hope to really bring them back in and reposition them in the way that we're describing them right now?

Very patient.

Yes!

Very, very, very patiently. And you have to have grace and understanding. Because, you often have a {situation} where they're naturally pitted against each other and they're naturally pitted into this fighting. So you go in there, you'll be very intentional. I. Look, I'm not here to be a part of your triangle. I'm here to help. I'm here to… Let's figure out how we can collaborate together and work together to figure this stuff out.

And you have to be open, you have to be genuine, and you have to be very patient and understand, like, yeah, this parent is fed up. I get it. This kid is probably fed up. I get it. And you just go in there and be like, all right, how? You try to be the voice of reason within the room, and you try to be like, okay, how can we work together? I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying.

Clearly it's not getting us anywhere. How can we work together? And don't get me wrong, it's easier said than done. And Lord knows I done messed up my fair share of times or whatever, but you have to go in there with grace and understanding. Very patiently is how you do it.

Yeah. Because I know I usually get pulled into those teams where the team is frustrated, the family's frustrated, the kid is frustrated, everybody's just done with each other, and that's the time that they'll pull someone like me in. And so many times I hear from the schools, oh, that family doesn't care or that family isn't involved. And there's a lot of negative commentary that circles the school's perspective of the family, which isn't helping, but sometimes it's also not wrong.

And so part of that effort then, is then how do I instill, hey, school team, I understand that that's exactly how it has been, and that is how you're seeing it. Let's learn more. Let's ask other questions. Let's try to understand why.

Let’s understand why they, “don't care.” Let's try to understand why, “they're giving up.” Let's try to understand what are some of the underlying needs and issues that we're missing because we're so caught up in this chaos, right? I mean, it's like when, when a hurricane comes or whatever. All right, we can see the hurricane. We can see the storm. Let's figure out how the storm was developed. Let's figure out where the storm came from.

That's going to tell us about the storm just as much as the storm itself.

Yeah. And I mean for me, right now, in this little pocket of my career, I'm a behavior analyst, and I look at some of these things through function. And so if we're saying, okay, so this family doesn't care, they've given up. Well, why? Like, for me, and I would frame that as kind of like, what's the function of their behavior? Quite honestly, I would even pull some of that back into what you had started this conversation with, talking about Maslow. Like families, parents have their needs, and then when they are having their needs met or not, then that is trickling into their experiences with their kids, with the kids school, all those things that it's all interrelated.

And so I've had some really good success with securing those services for parents. Something as simple as a local food bank or something so that then they're not worried about their grocery bill, and then they can actually use what little paycheck they are getting for other purposes, right? And then all of a sudden, because one burden was no longer, that was lifted, it had another way to get met.

Then all of a sudden, they're showing up in other ways as well. But it's seeing that big picture that it's even bigger than the kid. And that's where I know Wraparound is somewhat focused on the kid, but it does take into consideration all of those factors and variables around them. For me, some of that is then how can we look at the family and how can we partner with them to get those needs met so that then they can meet the needs of their kid, too.

Right. Exactly. And again, by getting back to why I said earlier, no one exists in a vacuum. No one. You have to look at the whole totality of it, you know? So, yeah, those are some of the ways that I collaborate and have collaborated with families. Do I think any of these programs or methods are perfect or foolproof? No. But do I think that it's a good start to kind of look at, get a better burst eye view of the situation of the family, of the kiddo?

Yes. Right? So I think that particularly working with you, any kind of work with you, you have to include the family. Like working with the kid or just the kiddo is a… I'm not going to say waste of time, but it's, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

You can only go so far. It's good work and meaningful work, and it absolutely means a lot to that student, to that kid, that client. But there's really only so far that one individual can go for themselves, because, like you keep saying, nobody exists in a vacuum.

Yeah, hopefully that answered your question.

Yeah, of course. I know you live in this world more than probably the rest of us do. And so I was super curious to kind of hear from you where, like, how do you specifically work with a client yet still simultaneously serve their family and to do that in that meaningful way? Thank you so much for engaging in this conversation with me.

Absolutely no problem.