001excuse me I guess that's why I hired me okay Tony whenever you're ready Miss Harrigan here Mr motelli here Mr paragini here miss Rosenberg here Mr White Mr chairman uniform thank you the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with Liberty so uh thank you everybody turn over to the Showcase is there anyone here that has perfect with our next showcase hey the only reason to handle it so if it's dessert you want to give us uh hi welcome to Darcy's school um we're excited to have you here tonight we're going to share a little bit about the circle security parenting and how it also has been um it has grown here in Cheshire public school to to also move on to not just parenting
002but we've been doing circle of security for the classroom and how classroom teachers are using it within their classroom to support the children this came about what seven years ago eight years ago with Barbara Stern when she first when she was here she brought it to Cheshire and then with the support of Charlie slatter who we did recognize at one of the board meetings last year he has been supporting us and he works for DCF and we've been getting they've been supporting us with training our staff and our facilitators through Grant through DCF so that's how it's all came and we have some of our original people who have first trained we're first facilitators and have been doing this for the past eight years and continuing even through covet where they were working right right
003through there we discussed where we learned how to do some virtual oh yeah and we actually were able to read to read a lot of families who is here and she's um from birth to three and she um has retired but we still have her here in Cheshire and she has been such a point person for this program and has really helped to make it continue to grow and then we have Gina morthra who is a kindergarten teacher here at Darcy we have Stacy Lopez who is a kindergarten teacher at Highland School and Circle security and then Laura atro who is a speech and language Authority I'm going to turn it over to these wonderful people and they're going to share building those relationships with children and really focus this really focuses on that social
004emotional learning piece and how we've done this with children and with families and now we've moved to classroom teachers so good evening everyone and welcome thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to showcase circle of security parenting Cheshire Public Schools we are really proud of our program and we um feel that it has a lot of positive attachments with our children our teachers our staff and our parents Don andotti who we she was I just wanted to introduce you but I think we're good at that um so we want to talk a little bit about what is circle security it's a program designed to help caregivers in supporting the secure base for children and to enhance the development and attachment which correlates strongly with increasing social emotional learning and a few years back
005when we decided Cheshire to take on social emotional learning for our children we knew it was a really important issue many of our children were struggling and this became an Avenue for us to introduce a program that we could help parents we can help staff and we could also help the children of Cheshire Public Schools so um it's it's a way of that parents can look at a different way in a different lens and helping their children helping them with their struggles and being able to be there for them during these times technical security is the program itself is an eight chapter DVD program in which we do in person or as Mrs dessert said we could do it remotely which we did all through covid and it was really helpful for many of the
006parents and their children during a time that was really difficult for them appearance meet with the facilitators which were all facilitators specifically at Darcy and Highland and it's a simple graphic that you're going to learn about tonight where the children go out on the top of the circle and parents are there to watch them explore and they come back on the bottom of the circle when they need to have some guidance or reassurance to then go around the circle again here at Cheshire we have Incorporated the foundations of surplus security with parents teachers staff we've had in-services for our special ed Department the teachers the paraprofessionals who are working with are our involved children and we've seen a big difference in the way they interact with the children and handle difficult situations when they arrive
007so how can we as professionals translate Decades of attachment Theory into actual practice we are going to start with the graphic of surplus security and I'm going to give this over to Stacy and you all have this one graduate foreign [Music] over and over and over again so it's so nice to be able to present this to you it's Social Security starts with your base our hands our hands are on the circle as caregivers we are bigger we are stronger we are foreign yeah naturally children go out to explore and during that time they may need us during that exploration to watch over them maybe to help them maybe just the Delight in their exploration and then naturally children come back to us for reassurance for Comfort to get their loving cut filled let me
008give you just a simple example children you may see a child go out explore some toys the child comes back to you you say wow they come back again they go out to explore again they come back to you maybe for some comfort just to let you know that they're there if you're there watching them and then the circle continues and each time the circle continues the relationship is strengthened and the security growth what's amazing about the circle is that we work with parents three times a year for eight weeks and we meet with families that have children that are seven months old it's at 17 years old in our particular group this discussion in the fall and we're talking about that children go out in the circle applies for teenagers too it actually applies
009to any relationship that you're in that we have to secure base again and another simple example would be someone that's learning about college some of that is trying different approaches to learn about college somebody who is visiting different colleges comes back in and they say okay talks about this I'm a little scared and as a caregiver we have the hands on the circle that we support them we're there for them even in their discomfort we have a story that I'd like to share because I would like to talk more about my hands and I asked permission from one of our participants in our group to share her story because she has a 12 year old girl and she was coming to the circle and was one of our participants and with it was about me
010before and each time we meet with our families we always have the same impression does anyone have any circles so she opened up with this circle story that really shows the importance of the hands her daughter came in the room and started just to yell it and mom thought well I have a couple choices of what I can do I could do what my mom would have done and yelled back and then offered consequences of groundings or take me away something that was really precious like a pulse foreign [Music] because that's what was modeled for me I wanted to use the circle approach and I really wanted to apply these strategies so she said to her daughter first it's okay to be angry it's not okay to you she made the boundary clear there was
011a boundary that was crossed across and she let her not let her daughter know the boundaries but then he said two you look so you look like you're going through something really hard right now the TV is off my book is closed I'm here [Music] mom's words actually had a physical reaction with her daughter and her daughter saw and her daughter said I can't sleep I haven't stopped because they keep thinking something that um when I do my homework all I think about something bad is going to happen when I'm at school I think sleeping bags right to happen so mom kept her hands on the circle the whole time and when mom kept her hands on the circle he was able to go from thinking up my daughter is just frustrating right now two
012oh my gosh my daughter needs me to comfort her my daughter needs me to protect her and Mom then I was able to get help for her daughter for the family but mom kept her hands on the circle the whole time children never leave the circle they're always on the circle if Mom went mean his hands are off mom when we our hands are off again the circle that has a rupture and the security is interrupted so families phenomenal phenomenal families meet with us each week they're phenomenal because they're learning about parenting and they come and they share stories just like this every week and we're privy to those stories those amazing stories about building that security about strengthening the relationship even up into those strict teenage years our job as facilitators is to hold
013these families and as we hold these families with these new ideas they come back each week and then again tell us more Circle stories was wonderful about our district is that as facilitators we hold families so then families can then hold their children but were also held as facilitators because we meet once a month to talk about Concepts maybe things that we're feeling triggered by we come back in for support by our team of facilitators were also supported by our district our district is here supporting us letting us share about the circle security they hold us they support us within our district is able to support teachers and families and children and now that we're working with kindergarten teachers and offering them this professional development we're able to hold them as they are able to
014take care of the children so what's happened what has happened is we have this culture now I want you to think about that first Circle that I showed you that very simple beautiful circle of a child going out and then a child coming back in and I want the next slide will show you actually what it looks like as a classroom teacher this is our world this is why sometimes on Friday nights we're a little tired because we have children that come to us that are very familiar with us they're all they go out to explore they come in look at this Mrs Lopez check this out we have other students that are uncomfortable with that exploration it scares them because they've learned that it scares their caregiver so they come to us and keep
015coming back there are some students that really struggle with coming in for comfort in Rio's terms because it's has scared or made their characters feel uncomfortable all students come in with their own emotional backpack and in kindergarten we may not even know what's in that rack but our job as a teacher is to be a Healer to show them this path of security of what it could look like I can give you an example from my classroom before Circle security when a child came to me and was scared to leave their family for the first time in kindergarten I would I had a fish strategically placed across the realm and I would say come with me let's go feed the fish the fish wasn't hungry and nor was the child wanting to feed a fish
016and the result was a very unhealthy fish and then also a child whose need was not met and then when I started the circle security I became really honest about what was happening to let the child know that I could be with them and their families and I would say often to this day still say to a child you're scared about leaving someone that you love and it's okay to be scared to leave someone that you love when I leave people that I love I miss them too and that's normal to feel that way and instead of feeding the fish I'm able to be with them in that feeling letting them know you're safe we can explore I'm here you know I just wanted to share something I was um I always share this story
017in Social Security when we do classroom is you know the biggest thing that comes back is how are we gonna everybody has to circle the 17 22 circles how are we going to do this and I always see a example of Maura she was standing at the door holding the door open and this one child was so upset so she had the child close to her and she was really supporting him I know I know and she's holding the door and as every kid came in she said I know I saw you you threw the ball yeah yeah yeah she held every emotional cup that welcome back do I at the same time as she's rubbing this kid's back so I would say do it I don't even do it so CeCe touched upon a
018lot of the key Concepts Stampy West is probably the biggest being with us have to be physically sitting with the BS simple as I'm going to lunch but I'll be thinking and that's huge for kids that when you're you know if I have to take a break that's a big deal and that you know trigger kids to kind of viral with some undesirable behaviors I even think about Mr Lombardi our school he had to be out for a meeting one day and I checked the kids hubby and he left a Post-It for his guy that he used to see every day and he said I'll be thinking about you I'll see you tomorrow and that was just enough for this child to be able to make it through that that day which I really appreciate
019so CeCe also touched upon this always be bigger stronger wiser and kind bigger and stronger without kind mean why is there in kind without the strong we often see parents being nervous about the SE are too harsh not being strong enough so we're trying to help them find a balance whenever possible follow the child's need and with that we go back to the graphic of the exploration on the top and the welcoming in on the bottom whenever necessary we know that kids really benefit from boundaries and knowing that the adult is going to take care of them and that they don't have to have another huge piece of reflection we've used that with our parents with our teachers and people have to be vulnerable to be in this process you don't have to talk about
020your weaknesses sometimes that's tough when you're you're working with people in the district that you know these are my colleagues these are parents in the district um but people have been really receptive to being open and honest and sharing their stories with us and we always just stress it's good enough parenting and good enough teaching I don't know Mr Sullen wants to hear that there's no perfect parent so we want to reinforce that it's never too late you know there's people that talk about this in relationships and with their parents in their 70s and they you know preparing things that happen years ago so it's never too late a huge piece for us as Educators too is time in versus time out I think of this with my own children it's very easy to say
021go to your room like while I tried to calm down really the circle is recording that time in peace of being with the children helping them regulate their emotions because often we're asking kids to regularly and organize their feelings and they don't have the capacity to do that so if we're sending them off to go be by themselves they're not going to really build those capacities excuse themselves and it's the same thing with daycare centers right if they have a Cozy Corner okay go you know you seem like they're having a hard time go to the Cozy Corner and it's a start but there has to be someone there to help facilitate that regulation so we're telling the child to go okay from us it's we're telling children that we're not comfortable with the way
022they're feeling we're not comfortable with those kinds of big emotions as we go through the circle they're going to learn those kinds of things and what is your child's Behavior telling you about them and their so looking at behavior on the circle again so if there's a clingy student or your child is just kind of nagging you what is it that they need right now is it the need for exploration or coming in and we often with the reflection piece is what triggers prevent you from meeting the needs or being those hands so we've Stacy talked about what our parents were like what they were comfortable with it it trickles down to us whether we really wanted it better not of how of how we parent and what we are comfortable with and how we
023respond to our children's and there's a term called Shark music you refer to that as that feeling of uncomfortable kind of anxiety that comes up when it feels like the same situations maybe it's the bedtime routine for families a hard time and it's really a safe thing that's happening but you feel this comfortable nagging sense of stretch when it's coming so we're helping families and teachers recognize when that shark music comes that they have a choice on how to respond I always responded you go that way or I could pause and say I use it with this discomfort on child's needs this is a huge concept that really resonated with a lot of our staff changing you know having this empathetic shift to go from connection seeking versus attention seeking I think we sometimes get
024in the habit of saying oh they're just doing this for attention you know they really want my attention they're driving me nuts but I think for me I know when I change my mindset to they're trying to connect with me it made me meet the child with such a different lens kindness and compassion and there was definitely a need behind that so we like the idea of the kids who need the most love will ask it for the most unloving ways right you see it the most negative and often those kids are the kids that don't their schema or their mental model of what attachment is isn't a great one so they've realized that every time I go to explore maybe there's not the hands there to conquer me back in or when I go
025for comfort that has always made my caregiver uncomfortable so I so they act kind of distant they're hard to connect with and beneath every Behavior there is a Feeling and beneath each feeling is a need and when we meet that need rather than focus on the behavior we begin to deal with the cause picture this idea how it's being on fire you know you know smoke alarms going off you take the fire extinguisher and you go to the smoke alarm spray that on the floor what happens to the fire right still you haven't makeup just trying to bring families back and to go back to that simple graphic of the exploration and the welcome again and I just really helps me think about kids a more positive way so if this child is when you
026go to the connection piece once you've built that connection and that child goes through the circle many many many many times it doesn't happen on the first time built the relationship and once you've built the relationship you can easily feel that emotional company but it takes time in a really tough difficult kids are the ones that we know the best and give us probably the most shark music but when we put the time in I would say put the time in the front end and it will pay off okay kind of that way um so I want to talk a little bit about what does a circle of security help with um research and it builds resilience children and increase the edits so it only takes one person to create a positive instrument with your
027child just think about that so if you're that one person that can make that can help that child that's enough for that child to make it in many situations um the research also shows caregiving and help it it makes us feel more empathetic to the child than what they're being and it gives them the ability for the caregivers to show that they understand the child and they understand what they're going through and it reduces the caregiver's stress so once a caregiver really learns about the circle and they really understand it and they use children they they have reported to us that they feel less stressed about interacting and being there for their children one thing that our team has been so willing to help us with is is research and data because this this is
028a very nebulous you know if you know emotions are hard to say yes okay we see Improvement in Behavior but in parents stress how do you how do you really look at that so we've taken a lot of time in putting together a pre and post survey that really gets at what you know what is the what is the quality of your immediate relation how you feel you see a circle citing because we've used the group and we're finding that parents and and professionals because we're doing this with classroom people we're really getting to pinpoint exact data as opposed to oh everybody feels better everybody gets a lot better plugin foreign the parenting section we work with parents and three times a year that we offer this program after we present the parents it's basically
029sold out we have waiting lists to get into the circle security parenting um and it's basically a new word of mouth that's what's exciting is that awesome teachers often come to the parental security training as a parent and then they say oh my gosh I meet this is this is my classroom I need to bring this to my classroom I came I got the golden ticket as a flyer that was sent from Darcy school I had heard about the circle of security from a half hour PD over at Aces and I was sitting on the edge of my chair thinking oh my gosh this is only a half day baby I need to know more I need to know more I'd left wanting more and a a flyer from my daughter's preschool from Thursday school
030I was put on a wait list because it's so popular but it's definitely worth the wait and I was holding up the ticket and I said to my husband we're doing this we have this is this is the golden ticket and as I was sitting there before teaching me Circle I thought I need to know more about this as a classroom teacher because this applies to all the children that I'm working with every single day so the writers of the circle of security saw that connection and wrote the classroom circular security so we have been able to have a professional development starting in August with kindergarten teachers we all sat in a circle together with kindergarten teachers learned about the circle they saw videos about the circle and they also learned that as the caregiver
031they are bigger stronger and committed knowing that no matter what happens from a child that we're going to be able to be there we can do this and we're going to be able to do it together we'll meet again next week and when we meet with the classroom teachers next week we'll learn about being with being with a child in their emotions and not trying to attempt to get the child to feel better or to leave that emotion but just to be with even if you're sad I could be with you even if you're really angry I can be with you I'm okay with sitting in this emotion with you because we're going to be able to figure this out together as a team we'll also learn about the tension versus connection and then the
032winter will meet again and we'll learn about sharp music to know what triggers us as classroom teachers and then we'll also learn about rupture and repair we'll learn what happens when as a classroom teacher maybe we take our hands off the circle until we can fix it with the child because they can't be fixed with Greek hair and then we celebrate before and after stories we take a look at videos of parents before the circle and parents interactions with their children after the circle and then we will be able to report those classroom teachers too I just wanted to share some of the feedback that we have received parents for teachers so this was a parent an eye-opening experience and I knew there had to be a better way to parents thank goodness they found
033the circle of security I don't feel lost gave me some teacher feedback building connection with my students makes me more aware of what each child needs emotionally and academically um care that I worked with for eight weeks and she was she was incredible so open and so vulnerable and just it really showed me I can without a doubt confidently say that Circle of security parenting has changed my attitude perspective interaction with my son quite frankly in a stressful situation with a child I was supported by a trained circle of security facilitator with the support I was able to restore my relationship with this was a big piece of being with and hanging in there when you know sometimes you really want to leave for me the Breakthrough moment was as I was going through my
034parenting course practicing skills I was learning I was working one of my kindergartners who was struggling and when I was being with him I watched his whole body exhale because I know as a teacher and parents the circle of security parenting Community has been a really important source of support in my work with children one of the most impactful pieces to both my classroom teaching the mindset that it it's okay to feel whatever you are feeling validating their feelings and showing that I'm here to help with all of those feelings help my students and children begin to take ownership of their emotions even more they then begin to identify their needs in both moments of challenge yeah what is the general age range because I'm thinking here's Darcy with young kids but you're talking about
035teens as well what's the age range either for you or general public school s in the program that may have many children and some of them are college age some of them are younger some of them are infants and the program we try and just get the foundation of the program and then we open during share stories about struggles are and it really applies to all ages do Circle security at work with our colleagues it's just a way of thinking and and the way that we have come to understand how to how to put while working and all right and Highland School has Circle security there too that they are a lot of their care so we send out information to all the elementary schools gotcha so it's basically Darcy in elementary school assistant Target
036group for the program but it does go beyond it because different schools so it's not specifically just which makes it a little bit better because um sometimes as you know they might be a little nervous if I'm a teacher there might you know that that might have their child they don't want to share such personal information but you know this presentation that this is about all relationships relationships and relationships so Cheshire has always been treasure public schools has always been so active in the community that this grant that we initially started with was for the greater water very important Union Foundation and if you look at your little paper here um started in 2015 with with four more than I do two of the four facilitators and we served we were able to provide 14
037families with over time building in the community and building outside of just Darcy's school going into the homeschool system going into Community more and I have done Social Security just really trying to get the word out there to get this to be more of a state of mind state of kindness a state of reflection and observation and really what happened to us is no one is the pandemic and then people were really isolated and what are their lifelong and learn how to do it on the computer and how to do small groups we follow their rules you know you don't have any people in a group and you know it's very strict the circle of Security International is very strict with their rules and they have a strong sense of fidelity that they want us
038to upkeep and we went like I said for four facilitators now we're 23 there's another page but I can talk about that but we're up to 23 we went from 14 participants every year now we have a 130 to 150 participants that's family teachers professionals people in the community the YMCA now we're working with first church daycare we did start Naugatuck it's really just growing and growing one of our biggest you know achievements I think is um Morris daughter was a nursing practitioner student at Yale yeah and she and her mom talked about it so much she told her professor and they asked us to come yeah and um do a presentation on Circle security if you're graduating group of pediatric nursing practitioners and we talk about social security this is a tool in there
039too though they go they only have families come in and parents saying oh I'm struggling with this I'm struggling with that and I think your daughter will say that she's in a pediatric practice now which and and Southern Connecticut State University Gina had a little lead over there so we got in there and now there's the um the curriculum class and their seniors at the seminar they're graduating and we do we do a little gig and we talk about social security and try to get them interested again they're going to go into the workforce we want them to know about new teachers being able to use circular Circle as a tool but also to tell um so my point is with growth with the help of the Cheshire Public Schools about him is a facilitator
040as well every principal in the school as long as I've been here that's a long time they've all been very circular security I was always a home visitor for birth control the last eight years I feel like it was success Academy and you know it's so hard sometimes when when people are struggling but if you know you'd just be there with them it just had to be there again it's about the relationship so I would like to offer any of you here that would like to take the experience with us we'll do a separate move for you whatever you would like because I do think the best way for you to talk about it with people and this is so important for our future that we all use this same kind of language and we
041all are sensitive we all stop and take a pause we don't react so I just appeal to all of you to to think about it and we'd love to have you join us and are there any questions I know I see the power of this not just the students but the adults and uh you know back in my mind I think this is something that you know part of the education at their meetings because often times so it's also show up right they have an issue a situation and you know be mindful that there's nothing difficult and try to practice some of these things foreign Tuesday night at 7 o'clock I think that's been really one of the biggest benefits that don't have to hit daycare anymore child care anymore they don't have to come
042out of their home where they can put their kids to bed and we do Circle and there's one group that does it at what eight o'clock at night from eight to nine because that's what works for some families so our facilitators are like Bonnie I'll do it for me you know that was the other thing I wanted to mention 23 facilitators that we have are probably just dedicated kind of I I'm so lucky to be to be with this and the circle of Security International offers more training so we've all been trained in the classroom the four of us sitting here so now we can go and help teachers learn this project Amora and Gina and I recently took a training on when you've been a facilitator for a while you know you don't want
043to become robotic you really want to still make sure you are being the support of dance and we took kind of a refresher for you know facilitators have been doing for a while so they author us a lot so that keeps that keeps the sustainability it keeps the Fidelity and it keeps builds more capacity and those are the things in order to keep a really good any program going and it needs it needs more family it needs to be our administrators I agree ment thank you guys [Applause] foreign I'm sorry thank you