A new white paper from InsideTrack offers actionable steps for building resilience.
For workforce participants and the staff who support them, trauma and stress are an unavoidable and growing challenge of everyday life. This unsettling truth was the inspiration for a just-released white paper from Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW) and CAEL’s fellow Strada Collaborative member InsideTrack: From Crisis to Resilience: Addressing Trauma and Toxic Stress in Workforce Development. This impactful white paper explores the topic in depth and provides actionable steps and trauma-informed, healing-centered solutions that organizations can put to work right now.
Fueling Positive Change Through Coaching
I started working as an InsideTrack coach in late 2010, just as the country was beginning to recover from the Great Recession. With an unemployment rate just above 9%, millions of homeowners were underwater on their mortgages, if not in foreclosure. At that point, I was working with InsideTrack partner Brandman University (now known as UMass Global), a nonprofit university in California that offered evening, hybrid and fully online courses for adult learners. Because Brandman also specialized in serving military-connected students and veterans, I quickly had to get up to speed on the U.S. military—everything from acronyms and post-9/11 G.I. Bill policies to the skills needed to work with service members and their families.
Tasked with helping newly enrolled Brandman students get off to a strong start, I often worked with service members. These students had sacrificed so much for our country, with many of them serving multiple active-duty tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Along with losing friends, some had become disabled, and many were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). On top of these hardships, they were returning home from service at a particularly challenging time, finding neither jobs nor prospects awaiting them.
The bright side to this was that the post-9/11 G.I. Bill included a monthly housing allowance for full-time students. So, even where there were no job opportunities, enrolling in college meant these veterans could provide housing for themselves and their families. Sounds great, but the hitch was that many veterans had chosen the military path precisely because they disliked school and never planned to earn a degree. Desperate times call for desperate measures. So, with job opportunities scarce and the need for housing high, going to college after serving became a logical next step.
Because my coaching roster included so many veterans, learning how to best serve people with PTSD was a necessary part of my training. Through hours of coaching conversations, I learned important lessons on what to do to help them:
- After a phone meeting, follow up with next steps via email, as PTSD affects declarative memory.
- Clearly verbalize what will happen during the meeting, as uncertainty can be perceived as a threat.
- Validate the student’s feeling that the classroom may not be safe and create a plan together to increase their sense of safety, as hyper vigilance is normal for those who’ve seen active duty.
I found coaching veterans to be incredibly rewarding, and I like to believe that I positively impacted many of their lives while supporting them through the highs and lows of school. But what I didn’t fully expect was the huge effect these veterans would have on my life and career. As a result of those interactions, my focus shifted to creating work and learning environments supportive of people in all their human complexity—places where human resources could offer holistic assistance.
A Universal Need for Trauma-Informed Support
Nearly a decade and a half later, my colleagues and I still rely on trauma-informed coaching skills. The foundations of the skills are the same, but the context in which we apply them has changed; coaches now use trauma-informed, healing-centered engagement skills with all learners, not just veterans.
Interest in this topic was already growing nationwide by the time COVID-19 hit. In its unprecedented chaos, the pandemic shone a spotlight on the urgent mental and emotional challenges many across the country face, including in the areas of workforce development and education. It’s not surprising, given the number of adult learners who have experienced some form of trauma over the past few years. Struggling to handle the relentless demands of day-to-day life, who wouldn’t find a postmeeting email laying out the next steps incredibly helpful?
Today, all InsideTrack coaches and partners using InsideTrack’s professional development services receive basic training on trauma-informed and healing-centered engagement skills. There are also advanced tracks for those looking to learn more about support through chronic and persistent trauma.
While preparing for and writing From Crisis to Resilience: Addressing Trauma and Toxic Stress in Workforce Development and Education Systems, I spoke with several practitioners engaged in the public workforce system as well as those serving high schools and colleges. These conversations only underscored the importance of this work. It served as a reminder of how many of us are striving to provide a safe and empathetic place for others to grow, learn and explore their life’s passion. What’s needed to make this happen? Making sure everyone has the right tools.
Leading the Way from Crisis to Resilience
Having spent decades working with learners impacted by trauma and toxic stress and now supporting workforce development organizations doing the same, InsideTrack coaches have witnessed the power of coaching time and time again. Their firsthand experience has demonstrated the impact of InsideTrack’s proven coaching methodology on workforce participants, learners and the staff members who serve them. This white paper is important and timely because the need is greater than ever for easy-to-implement frameworks and resources that can take learners from a state of crisis to a place of resilience. Healing-centered support creates opportunity, facilitates economic and social mobility, advances equity and enhances well-being. While these are all important aspects of InsideTrack’s holistic coaching methodology, that last one is particularly close to my heart. Addressing mental, physical and emotional well-being—for workforce participants, learners and those supporting them—is essential for individuals and organizations to not only succeed but also thrive.
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