Speaking with Michael J. Schultz, EdD, author of the upcoming second edition of Systems Consultation when Trauma Strikes
This interview will appear in the next issue of CWLA’s Children’s Voice magazine.
What inspired you to write this second edition of Systems Consultation when Trauma Strikes?
Thank you for the opportunity to talk about our shared learning since the original book’s publication in 2021. I am first inspired by the creative contributions of our publishing team, the committed circle of helpers at CWLA, and the active participation of associated professional networks in various educational forums, teaching seminars, systems consultation, and organizational coaching and mentoring. As an interdisciplinary collective, we strive to engender hope, collaboration, and change in real time and in tangible ways.
We are further inspired to write this second edition based on the experiences, feedback, and interactions of participants during and following implementation of systems consultation, education and training, and crisis intervention conducted over the past three years. We are mindful of the privilege of engaging and honoring extraordinary people, dedicated professionals, and diverse organizations who diligently seek to educate, protect, and support children, families, and communities every day. These private and public representatives of the “helping system” often do their work unseen, and without fanfare. With adequate resources, enduring respect, and timely facilitation, we have been amazed at the capacity and willingness of participants to remain professional under highly stressful circumstances, team-oriented amid complexity and uncertainty, and resilient in the face of heartache and human suffering.
Simply stated, our cohesive and integrated work is tailored to “take care of the people who take care of the people.” The aspirational and practical cornerstones of hope, collaboration, and change we highlight across interpersonal context are about validating the “person of the professional,” building upon and enhancing existing competencies and strengths, and moving folks in crisis and under pressure from “me-to-we.” As one participant leader so clearly articulated, “when we do things together and respond to crisis most effectively and respectfully, no one goes it alone.”
The heart, soul, and impact of the Five-Step Approach is predicated on the inclusion, motivation, and resolve of those we serve. Accordingly, our work aims to set the weather for empowerment, healing, and productive relationships, with the understanding that collaboration is the bridge between hope and change. At this critical moment in our political and psychosocial development, we face stark partisan forces, obvious criminality and abuses of power, and compelling choices — factors which influence the future of our world and the helping system in profound ways. We will consequently close the Second Edition after the 2024 election once votes are cast, tabulated, and certified. The implications for our work, our rule of law, and our democracy will determine ways in which the Five-Step Approach can best serve our clients and professional communities moving forward.
What central new information will be included? What are the most significant updates or changes?
We focus on the application of the Five-Step Approach in the second edition by describing four conditions for effective implementation and then highlighting the nuances of three distinct case examples. These four conditions include: (1) authorization and active participation by local leadership throughout the process; (2) inclusion of interdisciplinary professionals within and across the agency; (3) timely communication and coordination before, during, and following interventions, and (4) adequate follow-up by internal leadership and designated response teams.
The three distinct case examples demonstrate the fluidity and utility of the approach, with the caveat that “one size does not fit all.”
The first case is about the use of coaching and mentoring while applying the Five-Step Approach with a police officer following the shooting death of two of his colleagues and the serious injury of a third. The Officer provides a powerful reflective piece as part of this new example.
The second case describes systems consultation with a state-run Department of Children and Families who initially sought guidance and support following allegations of abuse and neglect in a juvenile detention facility. The case features the multidimensional assessment and intervention process, which culminated in systems transformation throughout the whole of the child welfare and juvenile services agency over a three-year period.
The third case illustrates a virtual four-session teaching seminar offered to administrators, clinicians, and educators across the country about systems intervention when gun violence strikes. This example is a collaboration with CWLA and Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence (TU), and emphasizes prevention, intervention, and postvention considerations. CWLA’s important relationship with this grassroots coalition of advocates, educators, mental health providers, policymakers, and survivors has called attention to the harsh reality students, families, faculty, and communities face every day. Faculty from Newtown, Connecticut, offer their reflections about the seminar to enhance the description.
The second edition includes linkages to a national network and the federal government’s new Office of Gun Violence Prevention, established by President Biden and Vice President Harris in September of 2023. CWLA’s National Conference in April of 2024 introduced these partnerships and provided a platform for various colleagues to engage with one another about ways professionals can prevent, assess, and intervene on numerous dimensions to mitigate and minimize the harmful effects of gun violence across the country.
During the past three years, many of our participants expressed the need to access evidence-based and practical methods to enhance their existing ways of working. We emphasize that our Five-Step Approach is a framework which can be applied across context and according to the existing preferences, resources, and skills of interdisciplinary professionals. Our experiential methods and therapeutic tools permeate the case examples and promote organizational learning, enduring support for the workforce, and team cohesion within and across interdisciplinary networks.
How has recent policy-making related to child trauma and child welfare impacted this new edition?
The new edition emphasizes action-oriented, collaborative, and experiential learning across interdisciplinary settings. Trauma, healing, and justice are about validating suffering and harm, enacting rational policy, and living the impact in real time. Good policy badly implemented is bad policy. In the second edition, we take a more deliberate and measured political stance because the stakes are so high, and the obstacles are in plain sight. As public servants, we must think systems wherever we are and forcefully advocate for comprehensive and bipartisan support for timely access to healthcare, affordable housing, living wages, child tax credit, paid family leave, quality education and training for our workforce, women’s rights to choose with families and physicians, sensible policies to minimize and reduce gun violence and increase community safety, wide-ranging immigration reform, freedom to express one’s love and identity with equal protection, and voter’s rights, among others. As you can readily see, these specific policies and humanistic values are interconnected and reflective of our Constitution’s promise of equal rights under the law and our individual rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Since the first edition’s publication 2021, children, families, and communities have continued to face myriad traumas: a continuing global pandemic and its aftereffects; violence in schools, homes, and communities; a contentious political environment and political violence; economic insecurity, and much more. How does the new edition speak to our current climate?
To expand on our previous question, we must consider age, culture, development, economic status, family background, learning style, gender, medical conditions, race, sexual orientation, spirituality, and stressful circumstances in all we do as educators, helpers, and public servants. That is, our educational and therapeutic responses must consider the context in which crisis and trauma take place, with an emphasis on the present and future. Grief and resilience live together and are integral to the human experience. We strengthen our resolve as people and a nation by creating spaces for relaxation, healthy relationships, and quality work-life balances. The conditions you describe in the question are by and large human-made and within our power to change. The second edition is about personal, professional, and organizational ways to generate autonomy, belonging, mastery, and generosity as cornerstones for coping and thriving in our current environment.
Where and how would you like to see the information in this new edition applied?
I believe our helping organizations, private and public, are yearning for dedicated leadership, enduring support, and stability. Healthy groups, organizations, and teams are characterized by common values, inclusive decision-making, and appreciation for the various roles and responsibilities of each member of the team. Crisis and trauma can strike anywhere, at any time, and to the most experienced of professional teams. Private and public helping systems, like child welfare agencies and schools, have little influence over “what is happening in the moment and what arrives on our doorstep and in our classrooms each day.” At the same time, interdisciplinary professionals and their organizations have a great deal of influence “about the ways in which we prepare and respond” to complicated conditions confronting our students, families, and communities. These are the inflection points that I hope the new edition will engender for administrators, practitioners, and policymakers. Developing and sustaining healthy, productive, and vibrant workforces, under highly intensive and stressful circumstances, requires our capacity and willingness to counter chaos with calm and stability, indifference and burnout with compassion and competence, and trauma with empowerment and healing.
As we move toward the second half of the 2020s, what is your hope for the systems and individuals that work together to serve children, families, and communities?
First and foremost, appreciation and respect for what educators, helpers, and public servants do every day. Appreciation and respect are best realized by adequate funding, quality education and training, and dedicated partnerships with families, communities, and other members of the helping system.
Second, these same people and professionals must recognize the interacting systems in which our clients, students, and communities are a part. We do not do this work alone. I hope that the second edition can once again highlight the creative and inspiring skills and resources we have at our fingertips. I am particularly hopeful that we can incorporate art, athletics, drama, music, nature, and all our human talents as methods to connect generations, interpersonal networks, and our evolving multicultural democracy.
Third, and along these same lines, I remain keenly aware of our dynamic workforce and the challenges and complexities of recruitment, retention, and continuity of service. Administrators and leaders struggle to counterbalance change with stability, while at the same time, integrating interdisciplinary professionals with different levels of experience, training, and philosophical beliefs. My best hopes lie in the power and efficacy of intergenerational value and respect, which can come in the way of more routine and structured opportunities for coaching, mentoring, and team decision-making.
We continue to marvel at the good minds, hearts, and dedication of our helping professions, and those who seek consultation, support, and intervention when trauma and interpersonal stress invade their life space. Our work as facilitators of health, well-being, and team cohesion is about setting the stage for relaxation and mindfulness, self-awareness and reflection, interpersonal connection, and fun with families, loved ones, and colleagues. After all, wherever we are in the helping system, “reaching out and joining with” our clients and colleagues via imaginative and playful means often leads to “civility, experiential learning, and therapeutic ends.”