Go Cougs Means

WSU Extension offers a CLEAR pathway to helping kids

Students working on kindness poster

CLEAR is just one of the many community-based programs offered by Washington State University Extension, an essential arm of the university that fulfills an historic mission to serve all of the state’s residents. Extension has offices in every Washington county and on the Colville Reservation. Partnering with teachers, farmers, small businesses, and local governments, Extension translates knowledge and innovation into hands-on solutions locally and statewide.

In 1998 a landmark study described how abuse, neglect or instability in childhood can cause ripple effects of dysfunction and disease throughout someone’s life.

The findings of that study were the foundation of more than a decade of work by Washington State University aimed at helping adults help those kids.  

Since 2008 the Child and Family Research Unit at WSU Extension has trained more than 30,000 people who work with children in schools, juvenile justice, social work and health care.

The program is one of dozens that WSU Extension offers in Washington to improve quality of life, advance knowledge and build economic well-being. Extension has offices in every Washington county and on the Colville Reservation.

The Collaborative Learning for Educational Achievement and Resilience (CLEAR) program provides regular coaching and consultation over several years. Adults learn about the range of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and that the more ACEs in a child’s life, the more likely the child will do poorly in school.   

Participants in WSU’s training also come to understand that toxic stress can affect a child’s behavior, and they learn different ways to deal with that.

The intent is to get ahead of the curve.

Natalie Turner-Depue, director of the Child and Family Resource Unit
Students working on kindness poster
Students at Westwood Middle School identify what kindness would look like as an embedded part of their school culture and community, and strategies they could use to practice kindness with intention.
Photo by WSU Extension Child and Family Research Unit

“The intent is to get ahead of the curve,” said Natalie Turner-Depue, director of the Child and Family Resource Unit. That means identifying trauma-affected kids at a young age to hopefully prevent future negative effects on their health, well-being and life opportunities.

The results are encouraging.

Students at schools that have adopted WSU’s CLEAR program experience fewer suspensions, fewer referrals to the principal’s office and a drop in incidents of aggressive behavior.

Turner-Depue said attendance also improves, and there are some indications that test scores improve down the road, though it can be hard to track that over time if a student leaves a school or district.

Another important product of the program is improved morale and retention among teachers, school staff and administrators.

Elementary school teachers Kristy Wilkinson and Scott Stone went through the CLEAR program beginning in 2008.

“It shifted my whole thinking about what my job is,” Stone said recently. “I don’t think I’d still be teaching if I hadn’t gone through that.”

Kids doing yoga in classroom
First-graders at Harrington Elementary practice yoga after recess to help them transition into a more calm, focused, learning-ready state, a routine incorporated by their teacher after participating in CLEAR training. Photo by WSU Extension Child and Family Research Unit

I don’t think I’d still be teaching if I hadn’t gone through that.

Scott Stone, Bemiss Elementary School

They participated in CLEAR at Bemiss Elementary in Spokane, Wash. WSU personnel would visit the school regularly to talk about ACEs and complex trauma. What the school staff learned was that violence, homelessness, substance abuse and mental health issues in the home, plus incarceration, suicide and other adverse experiences are sadly common for kids. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly two thirds of adults surveyed said they had dealt with at least one adverse childhood experience before they turned 18.

WSU training helped teachers, staff and administrators think differently, Wilkinson said.

A teacher previously might have gotten frustrated with a defiant or disruptive child, but “it was a switch from ‘why are you acting like this?’ to ‘what happened to you?’” she said. “I know it’s a call for help, and where before it might have triggered me, I learned how to ask for a break and how to give them a break.”

Instead of looking at a child’s problems or deficits, all adults in the school collaborate on how to help that child. The goal is to give the kids a place where they feel safe and supported, which may be enough to help them succeed in the long run. The approach has also created a close-knit school community, Stone and Wilkinson say.

That trauma-informed mindset is still in place at Bemiss, though the challenge of keeping it going grows greater every year because of turnover.

CLEAR, and the Child and Family Research Unit at WSU Extension, are fully grant-funded, so can only offer programs where there’s funding for them. It’s a high-intensity, “high touch” program with on-site coaching and consulting over a long period, noted Turner-Depue.  

To spread their work more broadly, the unit is working with regional partners in a train-the-trainer model – just part of the evolution and refinement of the program over its 14 years. “We wanted to create training that’s long-lasting,” Turner-Depue said. “We don’t want to become one more thing on the plate. We become the plate.”

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