00:00:00:00 - 00:00:04:15 Unknown Helping to Heal: Conversations About Trauma-Informed Principles. 00:00:04:15 - 00:00:14:06 Unknown This video is hosted by The Link Center. Improving Access to Mental Health Services for People with I/DD, Brain Injury and other Disabilities. 00:00:14:06 - 00:00:17:14 Unknown This video will focus on peer support 00:00:17:14 - 00:00:24:15 Unknown ♪ Dearie my dearie we all need a voice, in a world that convinces us we’re here by 00:00:24:15 - 00:00:33:21 Unknown choice. Soon as rain falls police make sport, of running us from the awnings and ruining our fort. 00:00:33:21 - 00:01:01:20 Unknown Hi, my name is Monica. I'm a trauma survivor and I'm also a certified peer support specialist. Since 2009. And, I came through with the first group. This is for me a passion. And I'm going to talk to Mychal today who also has a passion. And we're talking to her while she's in her office because she's a certified peer and a facilitator. 00:01:01:22 - 00:01:12:06 Unknown And we've got some things that we want to talk about that will help people learn to maybe, work with a team of support people. 00:01:12:06 - 00:01:27:00 Unknown I received my peer support certification in September of 2023, and during that time I had attended a SMART recovery meeting in the area that our peer support training was offered. 00:01:27:02 - 00:02:09:03 Unknown And that led to me becoming a facilitator of a smart recovery meeting here in Dickinson. And that is changing unwanted behaviors that include harmful addictions like substance abuse, eating, gambling. And, what had led me to becoming a peer support specialist is sustaining a traumatic brain injury. Losing all of my, impulse control, losing the ability to regulate my emotions, becoming very angry and engaging in behaviors and activities that were dangerous to myself. 00:02:09:05 - 00:02:43:00 Unknown And, I ended up getting arrested, for drugs. And during my time, incarcerated in our jail here, I was grateful to be connected with programs like a Bible study put on by a woman who had started a sober living house here, and so being able to connect to, I'm a devout believer in Jesus Christ. And one of the programs that I am affiliated with, Celebrate Recovery. 00:02:43:04 - 00:03:27:14 Unknown We declare ourselves to be grateful believers in Jesus Christ who struggle with things like chemical dependency, depression, anxiety, because often we're finding now as we're starting to have these trauma informed person centered, person first languages, in talking to people who do have active or so active substance use disorder or, substance use disorder that is currently in remission because they're working a program or abstaining from those, or they have healed the years of what we're discovering to be trauma and abuse and neglect and hurt. 00:03:27:20 - 00:03:36:20 Unknown That is really the underlying cause of what is leading to leading people to engage in these addictive behaviors. 00:03:36:20 - 00:04:09:10 Unknown My case, I went through several severe traumatic events. I also sustained several traumatic brain injuries that had altered who I was as a person. My behavior had completely changed, and because I looked normal and because I was, I didn't have an obvious disability. Like I didn't lose an arm or I was not in a wheelchair, or because I was able to be discharged from a hospital and I was able to walk around normally. 00:04:09:14 - 00:04:35:18 Unknown People were not understanding that this was not who I was as a person, and that I was operating at a cognitive deficit. And so when you have somebody who's angry, who can't speak or advocate for themselves, and nobody is asking me any questions or screening me when I get arrested, like, when was your last head injury? Have you been through any recent traumatic events? 00:04:35:23 - 00:04:48:20 Unknown Is there anything underlying in your current life situation that is leading to you wanting to be arrested or being arrested? What are the underlying issues of 00:04:48:20 - 00:04:49:09 Unknown disability, 00:04:49:09 - 00:04:56:13 Unknown Peers help others overcome barriers by providing resources and person first, trauma-informed language. 00:04:56:16 - 00:05:01:24 Unknown I have tested positive for an intellectual developmental disability. 00:05:02:01 - 00:05:46:22 Unknown I have sustained injuries to my brain since I was a young child, and being able to overcome those barriers by finally being paired with resources that were geared at helping me and changing the language of what I'm called now, I'm a survivor of traumatic brain injury. How much more impactful to my recovery and to my upcycling of a positive recidivism rate of me being able to not only utilize my lived experience to help others, but I was able to receive help by peer support from others with lived experience that were able to help me when I needed it most. 00:05:46:22 - 00:05:50:24 Unknown Peer support allows people to heal and be a support to others. 00:05:51:05 - 00:06:31:01 Unknown And now that I have gotten, I am graduating from needing to receive the services to have reached a level of healing where I'm now able to provide services and share my lived experience with others who have been justice involved. And I can change their language for them in their head. Because when you have police officers and judges and district attorneys who are constantly calling a traumatized, injured human all of these horrible person morally defective criminal, you're never going to amount to anything. 00:06:31:01 - 00:07:03:12 Unknown I'll see you back in my jail. You're never going to get out of that. You know, when you have that language that is constantly pounded in your head, how are you ever supposed to believe that you are capable of more able to provide more until somebody with lived experience and, you come along with their, with their person, first person centered, trauma informed language and tell you that you are now a survivor of traumatic brain injury. 00:07:03:12 - 00:07:14:22 Unknown How can a traditional clinical person without lived experience support us and support the person at the same time, which happens. 00:07:14:22 - 00:07:31:03 Unknown It does happen. And that's a really great question. Because you could you train someone to walk a mile in the shoes of someone with substance use disorder. If you've never chased the dragon, so to speak, can you? 00:07:31:05 - 00:07:35:20 Unknown Because obviously my first answer to that question is, oh, let's have a webinar. 00:07:35:20 - 00:07:40:20 Unknown Peers who have lived experience are important to understanding and supporting others. 00:07:40:20 - 00:08:03:08 Unknown Let's train them. Let's give them some impactful training seminar that could really reach them too. But you can't teach the lived experience we gain. And that's why they say a person and in recovery from substance use disorder or criminal justice involvement or whatever, have an education that I can't get at my, Dickinson State University. 00:08:03:11 - 00:08:29:15 Unknown I can be trained in how to become a psychologist. I can be trained in how to become a licensed addiction counselor. But the years of experience that I gained in overcoming in active drug use, overcoming criminal justice involvement by means of incarceration, and dealing with the courts and such, that is, a valuable education that I can't necessarily train someone in. 00:08:29:17 - 00:08:46:12 Unknown However, videos like this and conversations like this that are happening to let people know that sometimes good people have underlying causes. They're trying to numb trauma. Are we looking at this from an objective 00:08:46:12 - 00:08:55:21 Unknown case manager at VOC Rehab has become one of my staunchest supporters through this. She is not peer support. 00:08:55:23 - 00:09:28:01 Unknown She doesn't necessarily have lived experience, but she has empathy and compassion because she is in a field where vocational rehabilitation, does deal with people with learning and, and intellectual developmental disabilities. And so now you bring someone like me who has a developmental disability and the traumatic brain injury factor, but now we can increase her sphere of experience, because now you have a person with just criminal justice involvement. 00:09:28:03 - 00:09:45:15 Unknown Now you have a person that's in active recovery from substance use disorder. And so it takes people, who are able to. And I had my peer support specialist go with me, and accompany me who was a person who works with people who are lived experience. 00:09:45:15 - 00:09:51:14 Unknown Do you feel valued for your lived experience? 00:09:51:14 - 00:09:57:18 Unknown The culture that we are creating now is a much different culture. 00:09:57:18 - 00:10:03:16 Unknown Connecting with peers allows people with lived experience to feel valued and help other people. 00:10:03:16 - 00:10:08:05 Unknown I feel so valued by the recovery community here. 00:10:08:11 - 00:10:42:20 Unknown I feel so valued by the brain injury community here. I feel so valued by my family of faith here. Because I have been able to utilize my lived experience to in-turn help other people. And so that does not only give me a sense internally of a huge value of allowing this pain and these negative experiences to be converted into a huge platform to be able to help other people. 00:10:42:22 - 00:11:04:01 Unknown That's a huge, a huge honor to be bestowed upon, like what you think is going to ruin your life forever is now turning into something that is not only going to help you put your own life back together, but to help you help other people save their own lives and to to live better. 00:11:04:01 - 00:11:15:08 Unknown Special thanks to Monica Wafford and Mychal Cook for sharing their personal stories, thoughts and profound experiences to help improve the lives of those who have experienced trauma. 00:11:15:14 - 00:11:24:13 Unknown The Link Center. Improving Access to Mental Health Services for People with I/DD, Brain Injury and other Disabilities. 00:11:24:13 - 00:11:38:00 Unknown With heartfelt gratitude to Alyssa Johnson for permission to use her powerful music. She says, I forget who it was that said torment makes great art, but I feel like the statement is true. 00:11:38:02 - 00:11:47:03 Unknown Music is a functioning, healthy coping mechanism. I use to handle my trauma, and it has the same effect on the people around me. 00:11:47:04 - 00:12:20:04 Unknown ♪ Dearie my dearie we all need a voice, in a world that convinces us we’re here by choice. Soon as rain falls police make sport, of running us from the awnings and ruining our fort. Oh won’t you save me, save me from the things, that were supposed to save me. me.