Transcript: Activating Youth Leadership Along the Continuum of Participation

Laura Buckner 

Hello. Welcome everyone. We’ll let you all get settled. We’re really happy to have you all today. Welcome to our webinar on Activating Youth Leadership. Please feel free to say hi in the chat. Let us know where you’re from. We love to see so many people across the state joining us for these. This webinar is presented by the California Department of Education and WestEd. My name is Laura. I’m part of the WestEd team, and I’ll be introducing today’s session, which we’re really, really excited about. We are here on behalf of the Stronger Connections Project, which is funded by the CDE. We’ve invited Stronger Connections grantees, private schools, and anyone in the state of California who’s interested in the topics that the grant is designed to address, which include safe and healthy learning environments, violence prevention, mental health, safety, and school climate and culture. And I’m going to share a little bit about today’s session and what to expect.

We have 60 minutes together today. We will have participants muted throughout today’s session, but we do invite you to stay active in the chat and you can submit questions via the q and a feature in Zoom. And I want to share that this session will be recorded and posted to the California Safe and Supportive Schools website. And we’ll let everyone who registered know when it’s available. We also do have a PDF of the slides, which I believe we can share in the chat. And we have some resources on a Padlet, which we’ll be sharing later on.

Our session goals today are to help you all grow your understanding of positive youth engagement and some best practices. We’ll spend some time reflecting on some of the great work happening in California, including a deep dive into one example that we’re thrilled to have present here today and to learn from peers and colleagues. So do stay active in the chat if you have something to share about what you are doing, we’d love to hear. Yes, happy to have everybody’s perspectives part of this session today. Since this will be a fairly information packed session, we are hosting an office hour next week, that’s April 30th from 11 till noon Pacific. So that office hour session will include more opportunity for discussion. Folks can be off mute, they can share their videos, and we’ll be unpacking some of what we heard today. And we’d also love for you to come and share your examples and what you’ve learned from doing this work at your own sites.

And everybody who is here today and everyone who registered actually will receive an invitation to this session and we really hope that you’ll join us. And here’s who you will be hearing from today. So Jenny is a senior program associate at WestEd supporting schools, districts and county offices of education with school climate and wellness, trauma-informed practices, youth development and leadership and partner engagement initiatives. Jenny will be sharing about some different strategies for youth engagement and participation along a continuum that’s grounded in participatory systems change. So we’re really glad to have Jenny. And then we have Marlena and Steve. They’re the co-directors of a Nevada County program called Restorative Accountable Youth Solutions or Raises, which is a youth-led alternative to suspension program. And we’re thrilled to have some of the participants and youth leaders of that program here to share about their experiences. And I think with that, we’re really just thrilled to have this incredible group here today. And I’m going to turn things over to Jenny. Go ahead.

Jenny Betz:

Thanks, Laura. Hi everyone. Good morning. We are so glad that you’re here today and I appreciate being able to be here with you all to really maybe provide a little bit of a frame for what the students will be sharing and some of the conversations that you all will be having. And really, we get questions all the time from schools and districts and whoever asking, how do we improve student engagement? How do we improve student engagement? And you know what? There’s not a simple answer. There are so many things involved. So we’re going to use this continuum of participation and use that as a way to sort of look at some of the complexity. So Laura, if we can go to the next slide.

All right, so here is WestEd’s continuum of participation for equitable, healthy and responsive systems. And as Laura said, this is part of a set of resources around participatory systems change. So I’m going to spend a little bit of time talking about the steps on the continuum. So inform, consult, involve, co-design, and co-lead. But first I want to just have us notice at the bottom those guiding principles. So, we have relational trust, power dynamics, experiential wisdom, community strengths, cultural responsiveness, inclusion and belonging, attend to place capacity building, reciprocal accountability, action for equity, and recognize complexity. So, that’s a lot of good stuff that really is behind why and how we would be on this continuum. So, for today, let’s hold a couple of them in our minds that I think will be helpful. In particular, thinking about what power dynamics are at play in any given situation and what part does that relational trust play in this kind of work? So we can go ahead and go to the next slide.

Thank you. So, the continuum actually isn’t just about students or young people, but that’s the lens we’re going to look at it for today. So it could be about family and parent engagement and participation. It could be about different staff, community things, all sorts of different reasons that we might want to look at the levels of participation of a particular group. So, today we’re focusing on students. So, let’s start with inform this first one here. You can probably start imagining already what might this one be about? What might it look like? This first stage is really about providing as a school, providing frequent, useful, and really accessible information to the people most impacted by the work you’re doing. So let me give you a little bit of an example. So this might be about disseminating information or presenting to groups. So let’s say you do the California Healthy Kids Survey, and you’ve asked students to take it that then when that comes in or when your dashboard data comes in or whatever it is, you go back to students and say, hey, you gave us this information, this is what we did with it, and we appreciate it.

So, they really learn how and why decisions are made even though they’re not making the decisions, how the decisions impact them, and then how they can get involved if they want to do more. So, let’s say we have, and we’ll use this throughout, let’s say we have an initiative out of school to improve the physical space. You can imagine it hasn’t been updated in a long time. It needs lots of help and there’s say a grant to fix things. So, if we think about that, this is really about inform would be we are going to have an assembly and say, hey, students going to, we got this grant and we’re going to be working on things to make the school better. So there we are with inform, and really everyone, if you think about it, could and should be informed about the things that impact them. And, although our continuum starts here at inform, really there are clearly plenty of other steps to even get to that space, but this is our starting point. If we can go to the next slide. Thank you.

All right. The next one is consult, right? So this is not just telling students, let’s say that you’re going to do this new initiative, but asking them for feedback. So what do you all think is needed? And that could be like you do a survey. If you’re working on that initiative, you can ask students for ways to improve the outdoor space. So you can have a anonymous box where they put tips in whatever it is and you’re asking them for what they think about your project. Then as adults, you go and try and implement some of those things. But the key to consult is that we don’t stop there. It’s about asking, but then also closing the loop. So even if you decide, let’s say you go back and decide that we’re not going to do any of the things that the students ask for because we can’t, they’re asking for spaceships or something and we can’t do it, you still go back and tell them, thank you for your information, we appreciate it and this is why we didn’t do what you wanted, or these are the things we did from you, and this is where we really start building that relational trust.

We’re not just taking input from people saying, what do you think? And never coming back to them, but actually closing the loop and really respecting that they’re giving something in those opinions we can go on to involve. Alright, so involve is really about working together in let’s say a committee or an advisory group. It’s about a smaller group providing feedback on the project and really informing the decisions that are going to be made. So maybe in that school our students are part of a planning team. Let’s say they help review the survey results that came back from everyone else and give some feedback they’re really involved in the conversation Involve is about conversation to me when I think about it. And of course not everyone can be involved and that is okay, this is really where we move from everyone to, there’s going to not be everyone, and that’s all right.

This is really also an opportunity because this allows us to get different perspectives and to make sure that then the things that we’re doing are actually aligned with and going to be useful and relevant to the people that it’s going to impact. So this here is our opportunity when we get to this spot to really think about representation and diverse perspectives. So for our advisory group here on the initiative, thinking about, okay, who’s in this group? Who’s missing? Did we just pick the same five students who do everything, and what can we do to figure out who else needs to be here, and who we need to hear from? We can go to the next one. Alright, this is where we really get to share decision making. Co-design is about really co-designing the strategies or the steps that will be taken in this initiative. It’s folks being able, young people in this case, really to contribute to what the plan is going to be and also helps us then make sure that that plan is relevant again to students who will be impacted by these changes.

And I am curious for you to think what might this look like for our school that’s working to improve the physical space? Maybe it could be a lot of different things. Maybe those students decide we’re going to go and we’re going to plan some things that are strategies specifically that students can do to help with this. And then they go try it out, see how it goes, and they come back to this advisory group and let everyone know how it went. Again, this is really about shared decision making and thinking through how are we going to do this and in what ways? And this is really where those power dynamics come into play, and where relational trust is really needed. Because this is where in this case, young people start having really shared power, and that can sometimes upset us as adults or make us uncomfortable.

So this is really where that trust and all of that needs to happen. If we can go to the last one here. So here we are at co-lead. This is really about shared decisions in a bigger picture that would really change how we’re doing things. So again, it could be big picture things. This is maybe where we leave off and say bye to our students who are working on the initiative to make the physical environment better. This may be talking about having student board members part of the permanent district school board, that they’re always there. It’s really what it does, this is going to be even fewer young people. This is allowing us to improve the outcomes of whatever we’re working on. So whatever things the school board is doing, it’s better to have the perspective of young people because then, what you’re doing is more relevant and you have that perspective. And also this is really where we do capacity building, and leadership building, and all of those things. It’s really, again, many fewer people who can do this and they are sort of representing all the folks like them.

As we hear from our students today, and as you think about the work that you’re doing or thinking about doing in your schools and districts or counties, I want you to go back and think about that relational trust and the power dynamics at play because they’re always at play. Even if they’re little things, even between adults, there’s something else then and just be noticing because sometimes noticing is the most important piece. And really, again, there are a lot of things here and a million different pieces and variations to any of them. We’re not saying that everything you do has to be moving with young people, has to be moving up this continuum. There are some ones that we should definitely do. We should be asking young people what they think about the things we’re doing as adults, we should let them know what we’re doing.

Those are pretty easy, although not always what we do, even as other adults. Sometimes things happen from a leadership perspective and all the staff are going, huh, where’d that come from? It’s the same kind of thing. And then involving co-design and that co-leading is really more complex in how and why we do that. So that is then also that last guiding principle, which is really recognizing the complexity. There are so many things going on. There are so many different groups we want to hear from and parameters on whatever project we’re working on. All of those things make this more and more complex also as we go through the continuum. And that is something that the more we have young people really participating and sharing power is something that we as adults have to just be like, okay, this is complex. There are so many things going on and around this and to make this a priority and that’s okay.

We don’t have to have an answer for everything. We don’t have to have the solution for everything. We really, in community with students, can work through this together and figure it out. So as you look at all these and maybe think about how they relate to your actual context back at your job or school or whatever, we hope that this is a helpful way to look at it and a helpful way to think about the nuances of student engagement or family engagement or whatever, that there really are these different ways and there’s no one solution. So now I am very pleased to introduce students from Nevada County here in California and the RAYS program. They are doing amazing work, there they are. We’re happy to have them and I hope you all enjoy. Thanks everyone from RAYS. You all are awesome and I’ll pass it to you.

Steve Hansen and Nevada Union HS RAYS Team:

Alright, well this is, I’ll come to the front. Hi everybody, I’m Steve Hansen and along with my colleague Marlene Mahurin, we run the RAYS program here. I’m going to get off this video real quickly because the students are here as the stars of the show. So I wanted to let them present about what RAYS is, but first I’d like to have them introduce themselves and then I’ll just let them take it away. I’m going to slide out right now, and we can start over here on this and with Devin. Hi, my name is Devin, I’m a Junior. Hi, my name is Charles, I’m also a junior. I’m Graham, I’m a sophomore. I’m Ziggy, I’m a sophomore. Hi, I’m Kendall. I’m also a junior.

Nevada Union HS RAYS Team:

Alright, so the students, Marlene, did you want to say hello too? Sure, I’m rolling in.

Marlene Mahurin:

Hi, I am Marlene Mahurin and I work with Steve and these amazing students.

Steve Hansen:

Alright, we just have one question that we want to answer today and that question is what is RAYS? So I’m going to go ahead and hand it over to the students.

Charles Hansen:

Alright, so one big leading question is what is RAYS? RAYS stands for Restorative Accountable Youth Solutions. And it’s really just a big alternative to suspension or more punitive discipline programs. Everything involved with raises is led by students just like this presentation right now. And RAYS is really different from on-campus intervention or suspension because we’re really trying to support these students rather than just punish them for what they’re doing. So a lot of other punishment options, they’re really pushing these students away for stuff that they’ve done wrong, but in RAYS we’re really trying to bring them back into their community and so they can build off what they’ve done wrong.

Ziggy Zirpins:

So you might be wondering how RAYS works. I’m going to tell you a little bit about it. It starts with a student making a poor choice and then they get the option to go through our program. Like Charles said, it’s different from OCI or suspension. And there are a few things that are really important to going through RAYS and one is that the student must choose to be here. They aren’t being forced or anything to come. And another one is that they must be taking accountability for the actions. They can’t be blaming other students that may have been around. They have to be fully accountable. And then the last one is that they’re open to repairing any harm that may have been done to the people involved in the situation.

Graham Lawell:

Some common reasons that students get referred to RAYS is students struggling with substance use, so that could be drugs, alcohol, vapes. Truancy, so not coming to school, cutting class, or just not showing up to class, disrespect shown to a staff member or adult on our campus. Vandalism towards our campus, destruction of property. We don’t often do RAYS circles for fights or violence of any kind. Students that lack accountability for their actions and students that are assigned to RAYS, like Ziggy said, they have to choose to be here.

Kendall Bentley:

So the RAYS circle is one of the first steps of our RAYS program. So once a student chooses to go through RAYS, a circle will be held with a student team, one to two RAYS staff members, and one student who is completing their future circle. That topic will be built on a bit more later. Out of this student team, a student leader is selective and the team will follow a script and just ask questions and really get to know the student, so that when we create a restorative plan for them, it’ll be the most successful plan possible.

Devin Peterson:

All right, so now we’re going to go ahead and discuss what that restorative plan is. So, as we said during the circle, the team gets to know the student the best and creates a plan. And this plan consists of one thing from each of these four quadrants you can see here. So the first quadrant is future circles. Every student going through RAYS get to essentially come back and sit with the student team and help support another student going through RAYS. And the whole idea of this is just to show the student that they’re not alone in their struggles, and that some people may be going through similar things. And also to hopefully since they’re going through similar struggles, they may be able to help in the circle as well.

Charles Hansen:

The next quadrant of the restorative plan is the repairing harm aspect. So every student will make a plan to repair the harm that they’ve done to others by their choice or actions was usually done through a structured conversation. So for example, if a student was caught vaping in a classroom or doing something bad in the classroom, they would usually have a structured conversation with that teacher in order to repair the relationship that they once had. Again, this is just bringing them back into our community rather than just pushing them away from them.

Ziggy Zirpins:

The third quadrant is the community engagement. So during our circles we will get information from the students like their passions and interests when we’re asking the questions and then we will pick a project that aligns with those interests. It’s not community service. And, as an example, there was a person who was very into arts and crafts, and they led a arts and crafts project where they gave those things out to their favorite staff members or things. So it’s giving back to the community.

Graham Lawell:

The last of the four quadrants in the student’s plan is support services. So every student will receive counseling with our RAYS counselor, which is really supportive to them. And then every student has the opportunity to receive education and support for reducing or stopping their substance use, and receive academic support or tutoring for school. But they can choose to do that if they need it.

Kendall Bentley:

So to complete the RAYS plan, the student has 30 school days and the support of their student supporter and the RAYS staff on this side. We also have some photos in the top left. We see a student going through a future circle. And they’re being, they’re either, including into the conversation or just sitting and watching and seeing someone else go through the same process. In the top right, we see a structured conversation between a student and some staff members. This one is being led by a director, Steve, but a lot of them now are being led with the student supporter there too. In the bottom left, we see a student doing a bracelet making and giving those bracelets back out to the staff that they may have offended with, and anyone that they want to give it to. And on the bottom right, we see a student getting academic support from their student supporter.

Devin Peterson:

So you may be wondering why should a student choose RAYS instead of OCI or suspension? A big part of RAYS is that it’s all done within school, so they don’t get pushed away like OCI or suspension. And it kind of just stresses the idea, like Charles was saying before, that we want to just bring them back into our community. They also have an opportunity to give back in a positive way through the community engagement and the structured conversations just as a way to start a cycle of positivity. And then they’re also to repair harm and just overall feel better going forward with their lives. And then the last great thing about RAYS is that they get access to support they may not have had before counseling or tutoring. So some of these kids just really don’t know where to start to ask for help and RAYS is kind of their first step into that help.

Charles Hansen:

All right. Well, that’s going to conclude our presentation where I guess we’re open for questions now.

Laura Buckner:

Thank you so much for sharing about the RAYS program. I think our first question for you all, and any of you sitting there, can answer is just how did you get involved and what kind of drew you to participate in the program?

Ziggy Zirpins:

So how I got involved was I got recommended by another staff member on our campus to go sit in a meeting to see what RAYS is all about, and then I was very interested in the program and interested in helping these students who are maybe struggling, so I chose to join the team. That’s how I got involved. I don’t know if anyone else has a different experience.

Devin Peterson:

I had a pretty similar experience to Ziggy. I was also nominated by another staff member. And honestly, I’ve never seen a program like this before, so I just thought it was a really great way to help kids in a way I haven’t been able to before.

Kendall Bentley:

Yeah, I felt like it was just same process. I was recommended by a staff member and brought into a flex period or a free period where we all got to figure out what the program was about. And I just thought it was really interesting and also felt like it was a really great way to be able to actually make a difference in my community and give back in a very positive manner.

Laura Buckner:

Thank you for sharing. You talked about some of the different roles that folks involved might have. I was wondering if you could share a little bit more about the roles that you’ve taken in the program, and what those experiences have been like for you.

Graham Lawell:

On every circle there’s going to be about five student members that are a part of RAYS and everybody’s very equal. Anybody can ask their own questions, anybody can do anything. Those are all the group members. And then there’s also one student leader on every circle, which we’ve all led a few circles before, so that’s another level. You ask some more questions, you kind of direct the conversation, and then you can also be a peer supporter for the student after they’re done with their circle, so then you help them in the future and help them after the circles concluded. So those are kind of the different places that people can contribute.

Ziggy Zirpins:

I can also add on a little bit about the peer supporter. When we’re doing our circles, we’ll have a peer supporter chosen that may be able to help the student. So, for example, on one of the circles, I was chosen as a peer supporter to help with someone who was struggling a lot with math because I was good at math, and I knew I would be able to help. So they will pick a peer supporter that is aligned with what the student may be struggling with, and then can help with that.

Devin Peterson:

To add on to the peer supporter thing, it could also be a student with similar interests. For example, my first peer supporter or peer support person, I played volleyball and the kid was very interested in volleyball. So I was chosen to be his peer supporter just because we had some sort of connection and we were able to get along pretty well because of that.

Laura Buckner:

Thanks for sharing. If anyone cares to share more of the experience of being a peer supporter, what has that been like for any of you?

Devin Peterson:

The experience of being a peer supporter is really fulfilling because you just get to see the student bounce back. And we catch them when they’re kind of at a low point. And then I think I can speak for everyone when I say anyone that goes through RAYS always comes through in a better state of mind and just overall a lot better.

Ziggy Zirpins:

It’s just really nice to see the improvement in the student and know that you got to help out with that too. It’s like Devin said, it’s fulfilling in a lot of ways and for example, watching a grade in one class shoot up drastically from, I think I saw one go from 14% to a 70. So it’s really fulfilling.

Laura Buckner:

You can really see the impact right in front of you. That’s wonderful. I guess this is kind of like you, I’ll touch on it a little bit, but just curious about the ways that the RAYS program has been beneficial to the students who participate in it. Do any of you have other examples or stories about the benefits that you’ve seen in this program through your involvement?

Kendall Bentley:

I’ve definitely seen a lot of positive changes. We have a lot of vaping offenses. And many times with students going through this program, we see them realize that maybe I should start thinking about quitting. Or just slowing down a little bit, and at least stopping that process in school. So it really brings a positive impact in that kind of situation. I’ve seen that happen a lot for students.

Graham Lawell:

We’ve already kind of touched on it. But I think just making the student feel like they’re seen and just people are there for them is the biggest impact because high school’s hard. A lot of kids feel really alone and they don’t really know what to do. But when they get put in RAYS, and they have counseling and tutoring, and they can learn about their substance use, it really just lets them know that people are there for them. And I think that really impacts them more positively than anything else. They don’t feel alone anymore.

Marlene Mahurin:

There’s questions in there, they’re monitoring.

Laura Buckner:

Oh yeah. We do have some questions coming in from the chat. Thanks for reminding me to take a look. There’s some just folks asking about how do you fit it into your school schedules? When do these take place and are students missing class or just how does that kind of work for you and for the students who are participating in it?

Ziggy Zirpins:

So during our school day, four days out of the week, we have a free period where it’s called Flex, and we can schedule into any of our classes to get academic support from our teachers. If any class that we want to schedule into, we can go into that. So all of RAYS happens during that flex period with the exception of counseling. But it all is happening in there and we’ll have the student scheduled into our flex period and the team members also scheduled into the flex period.

Laura Buckner:

Awesome. That’s great that it can be scheduled into your days, so it’s not conflicting with other activities or night time things.

Ziggy Zirpins:

Play sports and stuff.

Laura Buckner:

Right? Yeah, absolutely. You kind of talked about the benefits, but I’m curious if you, do you stay in touch with the people who go through the program and have you gotten to see or hear any of their feedback about the experiences that they had? This is based on a question from the chat, but I kind of rephrased it.

Devin Peterson:

I can answer this one. So one of the kids I was student supporting for, I tried to keep in touch with him from time to time. It’s been about two months since I supported him, and apparently he actually liked the program so much that he’s going through the process to try to join it. So that’s a big plus.

Laura Buckner:

That’s wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. And what kind of training does it involve for you? It sounds like you talked about you attended a class or a session to learn about it and then you wanted to get involved, but I’m sure there’s a fair amount of training that you go through before you’re leading circles and becoming the peer supporters, right?

Kendall Bentley:

Yeah. Well, especially in the beginning, we do a lot of flex periods, which it’s just our team. And we’re working together with our team and doing practice circles where we have one member just pretend that they had a violation. So we can practice getting fluidity in a circle and just making sure that everyone feels confident enough that they can lead a circle, and just feel that they could speak up in it. And also, we had an optional field trip at the beginning of the year where you got to go and train with not only our group, but the other schools that use our program. And just get a more in depth training with bigger groups of people and more variety and get to know more people that are going through the same program that we are.

Laura Buckner:

That’s right. This is a countywide program, so there’s multiple schools in your area that are implementing it. That’s awesome. I’m curious if you don’t mind sharing about any things that haven’t gone well or challenges you’ve been experienced and maybe what you’ve learned along the way. Is that something you’d be willing to talk about?

Charles Hansen:

Yeah, I would say one of the few challenges that we face in RAYS is sometimes students that are going through RAYS, are really like they come to the circle, very shy. Obviously they just got in trouble and often times they feel really bad about it, and they’re coming into the circle with a lot of people they don’t really know. Sometimes it’s really hard to break that shell off people when we start asking questions and talking to them a little bit. But more often than not, they come out of it very social. You’d be surprised how much they want to talk about everything.

Ziggy Zirpins:

There have been some students though that have chosen the RAYS program because they don’t want to. They’re only choosing it because they don’t want to do the OCI or suspension. And they will come in and every question we ask will be just like, yeah, yeah. And that will be sometimes really hard to figure out the plans and stuff because we are gaining barely any information on the students. So like Charles said, that can be really hard to like yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Kendall Bentley:

So in our circles to try and combat the issue that some students might not want to talk. We try to start with really soft questions, just like hobbies, interests, and then we slowly get into the more deeper questions as they start to open up and start to feel more comfortable. They’re not being just rapid fire questions. Once they get more comfortable, we start to ask the deeper questions. But we just start with, what are you interested in? What do you do on the weekends? Do you enjoy hanging out with your friends all the time? Stuff like that, that just really makes it easy for them to feel safe in our circles.

Devin Peterson:

And going back to that training question, that’s something that we practice so that we have a nice flow going into the circle. And it’s not a lot of awkward pauses and questions coming out of nowhere, just to make the student feel as comfortable as possible.

Laura Buckner:

Yeah, I can imagine that there’s some barriers up at first, even though they’ve agreed to participate and it’s something they want to do. It’s like there’s, there’s a lot of emotion and potential barriers there. It’s wonderful that you’re able to, Jenny talked about relational trust and building that, and it feels like that’s really important here with your program. How has the program impacted you as leaders? I mean, obviously there’s a lot of impact on the students who have gotten in trouble in some way and all of that, I’m sure, but also I’m sure you all have had your own experiences. I’m curious if you’d care to talk about that.

Ziggy Zirpins:

So I have one thing I want to add. When I feel like going into these circles and listening to these students talk about their lives, their home lives, or their school lives, or some of the struggles they may be facing, really opens up my mind to the fact that a lot of these students that I might’ve seen before as just bad kids are also, they all have a background. They have something that is affecting their life, that is making them feel like they need to be doing these things that they’re doing. And it really gives me a different perspective on all of that, going through these circles, and seeing all these students and hearing about what their lives are like.

Charles Hansen:

Yeah, I’d say a big positive with RAYS is every time we have a student circle, sometimes it’s nerve wracking going in and helping one of these students. But every time I’ve left a RAYS circle, I feel like I’ve left truly helping someone through a hard time in their life. And I think that’s really rewarding from just a personal standpoint, knowing that you truly help someone through something that they struggle with.

Kendall Bentley:

I would also say that it helps build a lot of community. A lot of people that I don’t think I would ever really talk to, I’m now having meaningful conversations with. And I’m getting to know them, whether it’s the other people in my circle, whether it’s the student themselves. It really opens up your eye and it gives you a lot more community in your school.

Ziggy Zirpins:

I also had one of the people that I was a peer supporter for, every time I see them in the hallways or during passing period, they’ll always smile at me and wave and try and say something. And it’s like they remember me and I did cause a positive impact on their education and life. So it kind of just makes me happy to see that.

Graham Lawell:

Yeah, I think it’s really powerful for us on the team too. You genuinely feel like you help somebody and you can just, it really engages you in your community. It makes you feel better to be helping other people. It’s really special.

Laura Buckner:

Yeah, it sounds like it’s building connection all around for you and for the folks who go through it. I love that. Let’s see. There’s some questions in the chat that are maybe a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of the program. But somebody was asking about why fights are excluded from this, and if there’s alternative approaches in those situations.

Graham Lawell:

So just over time we realized we really, the accountability is a big part of RAYS. They have to take accountability for their actions and also they usually speak to the person that was impacted. With fights and violence it’s usually like, oh, they did something. This happened. It is really hard for them to take accountability for their actions, which that’s not like us brushing them off. But I think we can’t give them the full support that we think they need for that. I just think we’ve realized over time that if you don’t really have that accountability, which often times with fights and violence, you don’t. You’re not going to get the full benefits of the program. So I think the accountability is a big piece.

Ziggy Zirpins:

It’s a lot of just, he did this, she did this, I only did this because they did this. So it’s just like, yeah.

Kendall Bentley:

We also aren’t able to get out harm reparation factor. Because it’s not fair to put the person that may have been a victim in this situation back and re-traumatize them. So we just find it a lot easier that we just don’t really include fights and let the school deal with that.

Laura Buckner:

Yeah, that totally makes sense that it’s just not a great match in this situation for cases like that. Somebody was asking, and they wrote sort of a long question. But it had to do with confidentiality and maybe needing to break confidentiality, and how do you as a peer support network navigate if somebody is telling you something and you’re like, oh, we really need to involve somebody to really step in and help in these situations. And just if that’s an issue for any of you.

Devin Peterson:

So I don’t think any of us have had to deal with that yet. But everything that we talk about inside the circle stays completely confidential. We make an agreement at the beginning of the circle to not talk about anything discussed within the circle. Just so that student knows that whatever he says is confidential and he can speak in confidence, he or she can speak in confidence. And obviously if there are some things that if you’re student supporter, you’re talking to the kid and there’s some things that cause red flags, we would go to Steve or Marlene, and kind of just discuss with them like, hey, what’s the next move here? Also a big part is our counselor, Laurie, she will meet with them at least three times. And she will kind of get a feel of what’s going on because a lot of students will open up to her more than student supporters.

Laura Buckner:

Thank you. It’s great to hear that there’s a whole network and there’s kind of parameters in place for dealing with those kinds of things. I’m sure that’s nice for you all to have as well, so that if something comes up in a conversation, you can be supported by an adult or the counselor. There was a question about how many chances do students have to attend or participate in RAYS before they might have to be suspended. Or, is it a one-time thing and then if there’s repeat or similar offenses, what happens then?

Nevada Union HS RAYS Team:

RAYS? We don’t have an exact limit. I think the most amount of times that student has gone through is three times, and that’s been three separate years. So different schools also. But, the weird situation, we don’t ever really have too many people come back through. We have a few, two times, but the one that we see a few times is people re-offending right after they got out. And in that situation, then the circle that they had before, we’ll get back together and try to figure out a way to system that, sorry, a system that builds on what they did before. So a community engagement project that will build on what they already did, and just how they can refix this instead of having to do the whole process again.

Ziggy Zirpins:

I think they also get referred back to our coordinator too, and administration sometimes.

Steve Hansen (47:37):

We provide additional support.

Laura Buckner:

That makes sense. And it’s really cool. I mean I’m sure even if somebody is coming back to the program, they still have that experience from before with them. And so the fact that they’re able to build on it and maybe they just need another time through or another opportunity to strengthen the skills that they’re learning, they do it. So there was a question, and this might be for Steve and Marlene about the origins of the program and just how it all started. Where did admin get the idea for it? I don’t know if either of you could jump in and share a little bit about how it all started.

Marlene Mahurin:

Yeah, sure. So there are similar programs in other areas and I had visited one in Marin County that was amazing. And so we got the idea to do something similar here. Our community is a little bit different than Marin, so our program is not the same as that. That was a little bit heavier focused on sort of pure court, more legal. And this is all school-based and we made quite a few adjustments to what we saw there so that it fits better with our school. But there are programs in Oakland, there’s programs in Marin as I said. There are a lot of restorative based programs down in San Diego. So there’s definitely other programs like this, but this one is unique to our population.

Laura Buckner:

Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Is there anything else that you all would like to say or share about your experiences or just what it’s been like for you to be part of this RAYS program?

Kendall Bentley:

I’d say it’s overall such a positive impact that it’s had on my life. And probably one of the best decisions I made was to join this program, and to just be able to give back to my community in a more direct and effective way.

Devin Peterson:

Yeah, I think it had such a positive impact on me that now that I might be going to college soon. It’s kind of opening up career paths for me in this sort of field work. So I think that’s the biggest thing for me.

Laura Buckner:

Wonderful. Well, thank you so so much for sharing your time with us today. We have a quick opportunity for everybody, all of our participants, to pause and reflect a little bit. And we’d love for folks to share in the chat what insights or aha moments stood out from you from what you’ve heard and seen today. And if you’re sort of thinking about how can I take this and use it in my own work, I think we’d love to hear. So please take a moment to type into the chat. Yeah, any of those aha moments connections that you’re making. Thanks Rosalba. She says, thank you for sharing. You’re doing amazing things. I totally agree.

Jenny says, I wish there was a similar program at my high school when I was there. Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of us may feel that. Linda wrote how this program helps students feel seen and not alone. So true. You guys are world changers. I love that. Please feel free to keep typing into the chat and really encourage everybody to take those aha moments and see how you can implement or enact something in your own spheres. We’d love to hear and see the work that you do that kind of builds on all of this. So, I do want to share as we’re in our kind of final minutes of this session that we do have a session coming up. Actually before I talk about this, we also have some resources to share, which I would love to pull up. It’s a Padlet on which you can find the session slides and the link to the RAYS program website.

It’s wonderful. I encourage people to check it out. And there’s also some resources that have to do with the framework and the continuum that Jenny shared that it’s sort of based on. There’s information from the Restorative Practices Institute, which we know that Nevada County team have relied quite a lot on in terms of developing their program. So I encourage you all to check out the Padlet. And there’s also information about the Stronger Connections program, which is sponsoring this webinar and presenting it today. So thanks Rebeca for putting that in the chat. Those are wonderful resources and we hope you’ll check them out. And we also have a Zoom poll that will be coming up very quickly. Please let us know how we did. We hope we answered some of your questions and provided some insights. So please take a moment to complete the Zoom poll that’s popping up in your window and now to the information you see on your screen.

As I mentioned in the beginning, this is part of a series of virtual sessions related to the Stronger Connections grant that’s available to all educators in California. And the next one will be on May 22nd. And we’ll share about evidence-based behavior systems and positive Behavior interventions or PBIS and supports and alternative settings. There’s a link that we can share for that in the chat for you to register. And there will also be a follow-up Office hour on that one. I’ll just mention again that this session once is recorded and we’ll send a notification to everybody here today once that is posted.

And finally, I just want to remind you that we do have our office hour next week, Wednesday, April 30th from eleven till noon. That’ll be an opportunity for you all to come back and discuss what you’ve heard today. A please feel free to bring your colleagues if there’s something you want to share or learn more about, let us know. And that’s an hour for us to have a conversation and deeper discussion together. So we hope you’ll join us for that. You’ll be receiving invitations via Google Calendar that you will have a link to join that. And of course you may contact us. There’s a WestEd Stronger Connections email and also a CDE email. Send a message to both of us and we’ll be sure to respond from whichever sort of entity is most appropriate to be in touch. So I think I will wrap it up. And I just want to say a really, really big thank you so much to the folks from Nevada County today. We really appreciate you being here. Thank you, Jenny, for sharing some of the framing information. And if there’s any final questions or anything, I think we can stick around for a few minutes. But otherwise everybody please go out and have a wonderful afternoon. Thank you so much.