Emma

Welcome to today's episode on the corner of Homelessness and Childhood Trauma. I'm Emma Hughes. Today's important conversation centers around when homelessness and childhood trauma intersect. I always like to give our disclaimer that homelessness is a complex issue. We've been reminded of this through every conversation that we have had, and we don't claim to explore every part of this intersection, but simply hope that today's conversation will help enlighten and provide clarity to the reality as a whole. Please keep an open curious mindset as you listen and seek to learn, just as we are.

With that said, today we are lucky to have special guest Ryan Oelrich on the podcast. Ryan is the Executive Director at priority Spokane and President of the Center for Trauma and Stress Education, not to mention the builder of a super fun Spokane End Hobbit House, and I just learned that Ryan also has done magic. Ryan, welcome to the podcast.

Ryan Oelrich

So good to be here. Thank you.

Emma Hughes

Tell us a little bit about what brought you to today's conversation. Why would we invite you to speak to us on childhood trauma and homelessness?

Ryan Oelrich

Sure. I think my past experience intersects with this issue in a variety of ways. For the last few years, a lot of my focus with the Center for Trauma and Stress education has been looking at stress and trauma research. We created a program that's we've provided nationally to address stress and trauma with priority Spokane. We formally focused on family homelessness, appreciate being able to work with Joe here sitting next to me. And then also my spouse and I have run a couple projects now focused on working with homeless youth and then also I served as a peer counselor for homeless youth years ago. So I think my, and then also,  I'm somebody who's experienced trauma as a child who has had to go through the journey that is healing and addressing that and that has played a big role in my life as well. So that all intersects to I think bringing me why I'm excited to share space with you here today.

Joe Ader

I'm so excited to hear your story and hear this. I think it's going to be a great, great topic to talk about today. Challenging topic but great topic.

Emma

Yeah. Tell us a little. Bit about priority Spokane. What is that and what do you do?

Ryan Oelrich

Sure. I love what we do at priority Spokane. We look at data and we bring together community organizations from across Spokane County to every three to five years. Look at that data and identify what is a priority for our region that we collaboratively and in a coordinated fashion can work to address. So in the past we both focused on homelessness, really laser focusing on family homelessness and then also during the pandemic focus on behavioral health issues and then specifically on trauma, recognizing that a lot of individuals experienced trauma as a result of the pandemic and everything that was happening at that time and that we were increasingly in need of easy to remember evidence based tools to address trauma.

Joe Ader

And Ryan, each of these priorities that you've done in the past have gained exposure on a national level as well. I mean, it's not just a local thing.

Ryan Oelrich

Yeah. We feel very blessed and I feel very pressured as the ED of this organization, every time we take on a new priority to date, we started focusing on high school graduation rates. We were able to raise graduation rates from just above 50% to over 80% in five years as a community. Then that went on to win us a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national Culture of Health Prize focused on homelessness and the model that we designed right here in Spokane County has been used by other states across the country. And then most recently with our STEP Program that now has been taken on by the Center for Trauma and Stress Education, which I I also work with and use nationally with the US military. So it is really exciting that here in this community in Spokane, WA, we've been able to do some good that's made a national difference as well.

Emma Hughes

So cool. So cool. One of the things that we have learned through our podcast is that if we don't define our terms, almost, it always leads to confusion and frustration. So before we go much further into our conversation on childhood trauma and homelessness, will you define what trauma is? For the average listener.

Ryan Oelrich

Sure. So I think we can define trauma as recognizing that when our brains become so stressed beyond their ability to cope, that's when trauma can occur. Trauma can result from any number of serious or life-threatening events that that attacks our ability to handle stress and overwhelm our ability to handle stress trauma can cause damage, but what's important to know about trauma? Just as we take steps to heal from the flu to take care of ourselves and feel better when we have the flu, we can also take steps to feel better and heal and address trauma.

Emma Hughes

That's so important to know and to recognize that what might be overwhelming for me might be differently overwhelming for you. And so it really can be kind of personal in that sense and because it's personal, then the steps towards healing from it, I would assume also are personal.

Ryan Oelrich

Oh absolutely. And I think something that really, that has hit home as I've been, I have taught trauma informed care classes for the state of Washington for over a decade, and then of course, most recently have led STEP informed trauma trainings. I've had a lot of folks that don't understand how trauma all the different ways trauma can impact you, recognizing that it absolutely affects our mental health, but it also affects us professionally. It affects us. It can affect you physically. It affects your relationships, so has so many effects on our life that we the first step in in addressing and healing trauma is recognizing all the ways it does impact us and that often motivates us to take the steps necessarily to heal, to recover from trauma.

Joe Ader

Can you give an example of how you know, maybe a story where a trauma event led to intersections with health and job and everything else for us.

Ryan Oelrich

Yeah, for my own life. I remember before the pandemic, I was on a red eye flight from Anchorage, AK to Portland, OR I just fell asleep. When I woke up to this loud hissing sound screaming, I thought in that moment that the plane was going down. I came to my senses and in the row behind me a fellow was unfortunately having a psychiatric episode and had attacked the people in this row was trying to open the emergency exit door so all us passengers removed our shoelaces. They were used to restrain this individual, keep him from hurting himself or others. We made an emergency landing in Portland, OR. I got off that plane. Just thankful to be on the ground, not wanting to think about it again. Ready just to move on. Well, it was the very next day. I had to get on a flight for work. Showed up at the airport, went through security. But I sat down waiting for that flight, and I felt this intense anxiety. I felt this muscle tightness. I started sweating and I was trying to figure out at that moment what the heck is going on and I did not make it on my flight that day, but as I was trying to figure out my body's response, I realized it hit me that that event that I'd experienced the week before had caused some trauma. That me just trying to forget about it wasn't going to work. That I need to take some steps to, to heal from that intense experience. And I was able to do that because I love flying and I appreciate the support and just the educating myself on steps I could take. But recognizing that my body had a very physical and emotional response to that past experience.

Emma Hughes

What a wild moment I can one that you definitely don't want to have and one that I would imagine that if you had left it unaddressed and allowed it to cause you to never go on a flight again would have dramatically changed your life. At least in a professional sense. So to be able to just recognize before it kind of became this bigger snowball saying let's, let's take a break. Let's assess. Let's unpack the backpack of what this is and move forward. I mean, that's huge. Tell us a little bit about how trauma affects children specifically, especially in the sense of like children may not have the same kind of cognitive forethought around everything that's happening, they might not have caring adults to help remind them to do, you know, the breathing or the unpacking. What is it like for kids experiencing trauma?

Ryan Oelrich

And that's where trauma can be especially damaging for all the reasons that you just outlined. That children are still learning, they're growing, their brains are still developing. So when a child experiences trauma that is not resolved, it's not healed. If they're not equipped with the tools at that age to fully recover, then that trauma can have a lasting impact. I'm someone who, at a very early age at nine years old, was taken from swimming lessons by a stranger and a lot of the worst things you can think about that happened to a kid happened to me, and that I appreciated those that tried to give me the tools at the time, but I appreciate how much we have grown and educated ourselves and come up with new tools because when I was a kid, the tools were not sufficient and there still was this lingering belief that well, if we just pretend it didn't happen, he's a kid. He'll forget to he'll be fine. And I think we have since learned better and we've learned that no, we need to take steps to heal trauma. We have evidence-based tools that can help and I appreciate how far we've come. But for me as a kid it had impacted my life in so many different ways. I used to stutter horribly after the event I was in speech therapy. I couldn't make eye contact with another adult until my 20s when I also was finally able to get additional therapy. It had both physical, mental, professional, all these consequences, but I appreciate the people that I have in my life, who have educated, supported and appreciate my journey, and that it's reminded me that recovery is absolutely possible and we have some tools that can help us recover.

Emma Hughes

Thank you for sharing all of that. I think it's incredibly important, like you said, yeah, to recognize parents, caregivers, guardians, adults that now have a knowledge of what trauma is. It is important to help a child recognize, oh, we aren't going to just push this under the rug. We're going to actually engage the tools. Hopefully even before a traumatic experience happens so that they have those in their toolbox to deal with the inevitably hard things that kids will face.

Joe Ader

Yeah. I think one of the things, you know, this episode is On the Corner of Homelessness and Childhood Trauma. And we were talking about the intersection there. We, we've gotten into a little bit of what trauma is, what childhood trauma is. But I just want to share a little bit about why this is so important for homelessness in particular. So there's a thing called ACES: Adverse Childhood Experiences, which is was developed by Kaiser Permanente, and they were actually studying obesity at the time, but they identified that well, a lot of these people that are having these health risks had childhood experiences that were adverse or troubling. And so they came up with these top 10 things that are adverse childhood experiences and I'm putting this in a very light way. You can expand on this if you like, Ryan, but as far as those people who are experiencing homelessness, 89.8% of those who are experiencing homelessness have at least one adverse childhood. That's compared to 38% of the general population and then 53.9% of those that are experiencing homelessness, have four or more ACES in childhood compared to. 5% of the general population. So those that are experiencing homelessness as adult. Have a much higher rate of adverse childhood experiences and so there is a definite correlation between the two that I think often gets overlooked when we are talking about homelessness and we talk about well, substance abuse and obviously mental health. But I don't think people are relating that by and large, back to childhood experiences that are now in adulthood playing out in this way. So I wanted to hear your thoughts on that. How trauma impacts homelessness, childhood trauma impacts, homelessness, and then dig back in deeper into this topic some more.

Ryan Oelrich

Yeah, I think this is such an important conversation to have as it relates to homelessness, recognizing that if you've experienced trauma as a child and we're not given the tools to properly respond, often your brain gets stuck in what we call survival mode that your brain feels because of that trauma, felt threatened and now sees life through this trauma lens of recognizing life hurt me. Now I'm I need to be on at all times, worried and afraid at all times that life might hurt me again. And just think about an engine that's on 24/7. It needs more fuel, parts are going to start breaking down that that engine gets tired. The same with people that if we're on all the time, we're stuck in that survival mode, we're constantly looking through that lens of fear. Life is going to hurt me. That affects our willingness to engage in relationships, that affects our ability to succeed in a job. So all of these have very real effects on individuals facing homelessness. And I think from the public at large, this is such an important recognition that it's so easy to judge. We love to judge. Our brains do it all the time. It's so easy to judge folks who may be experiencing homelessness. But what I teach in trauma informed classes is we want to move away from asking that question, you know what is wrong with these people? Why are they, why are they acting that way but focusing on instead starting with that second question, why are they acting that way? What happened to this individual that's caused these behaviors and we absolutely still need accountability, but that puts a community that puts professionals in a better place as we're moving away from judgment, instead towards understanding of what happened to someone to cause them to act this way that led them down that path, and when we can focus on that root cause, we're in a much better place to come alongside and support people and help them in that recovery journey.

Emma Hughes

That's so good. You've mentioned a few different ways now that recovery from childhood trauma and just trauma in general is possible. Tell us a little bit about what sort of interventions you have experienced or researched and what that looks like.

Ryan Oelrich

Sure. I think the first step is that courageous decision to address trauma. I have led dozens of, we call them STEP at the Center for trauma and stress education. We provide our STEP training, stress and trauma education program and I have led dozens of these across the country for a variety of different population. And I think the first step for so many different individuals is courageously recognizing the impacts of trauma on your life, recognizing if you've been impacted by trauma because there is this thing that we as humans like to do. If we have experienced something that's bad, that's maybe a little painful, uncomfortable we like to either, you know, fight, fight, flee, we like to run away from it. We like to fight it. We don't like to actually do the work to address it, but that is the first courageous step. Recognizing the ways trauma has impacted your life and that's one of the things we do in the step training is recognize that trauma impacts is us, our mental health, our physical health, relationships, our job.

I led STEP for a group of first responders and it was a tough crowd. They had their arms crossed. Police officers, firefighters were not engaging until I started talking about the fact that trauma doesn't just impact us, it impacts those around us. And I had a courageous first responder finally speak up and say, wait a minute. You mean what I've experienced on the job? That might be impacting my kids, my wife and I said absolutely, and that recognition I saw his eyes light up and he courageously shared in front of this group of officers and other first responders. And that's what caused the dam to break that him putting those pieces together that for him, he was thinking, well, trauma just impacts me. I'll just keep it inside. I'm not going to address it. It'll be fine. It'll just go away eventually. But him having the courage to share. Oh, my gosh. I've been having problems with my wife, my kids, recognizing that impact was a first step for him. But also, of course, one-on-one therapy. There's a variety of different therapies you can look into with a professional. And then also at the Center for trauma. This education we offer a a STEP training that also is a great first step, provides some great evidence based tools for addressing trauma.

Joe Ader

And when you say STEP, what does that mean?

Ryan Oelrich

Yeah, STEP stands for stress and trauma education program. Some great evidence based, easy to remember, easy to use tools and skills for reducing stress which we know can just monitoring our stress level is a great way to present prevent trauma but then also if you have experienced. Taking some of those first steps to heal and address it.

Emma Hughes

You just you did something here that I actually, in my mind, I want to just call out cause I bet there are listeners thinking the same thing. There's a difference between stress and trauma. What is the difference between stress and trauma? I feel like people use those terms interchangeably.

Ryan Oelrich

Sure, sure. So stress, we think of stress happens first, but when we reach beyond our ability to cope with stress then that's when that break can happen and that's when trauma can occur. So stress, if we are very mindful of our stress levels recognizing, oh my gosh, this week I have a high level of stress, it could be just one little thing that can push us over that, that, that stress threshold and into that dangerous trauma zone. So being mindful of our stress is a great first step for preventing trauma.

Emma Hughes

That's really helpful. And a good reminder too that like I know for a fact, there have definitely been times in my life where I'm driving home from a long, stressful day at work and I get cut off or something happens, right? And typically, my normal self would be like wow that was annoying. Onwards and upwards. But then there are days on those long days at work where that small exact same situation all of a sudden is now like the straw that broke the camel's back and now I get home and I'm grumpy and I don't want to, you know, whatever. Right? So what you're saying is by reducing our stress, we lower the potential.

Joe Ader

The straw that broke the camel’s back.

Emma Hughes

Yeah, that.

Ryan Oelrich

Something else you touched on there and that recognizing thinking about the people around you when that, that rogue camel, you know, stormed in and had the straw break. But recognizing that for people around you, they may see the same thing, think, you know, she has gone through the same situation before. Why is she so upset now? Why is this different? Not recognizing all the other factors that maybe happened to you in that day, and here's the other thing that we can do to help both reduce stress and heal trauma, and that is connecting and sharing with one another in a meaningful way how we're doing and also talking about trauma carefully, strategically, but talking about trauma that helps remove the stigma that still is attached to trauma. And also helps us, we have all this data that shows how just through connecting with other human beings, being able to meaningfully communicate how we're doing helps us reduce our stress levels and a good rule of thumb as far as how we carefully share if we've experienced trauma, we want to share the message, not the mess.

What we don't want to do is re-traumatized people, if we've experienced trauma, we don't want to share that trauma with others we want to meaningfully express our need and that we've been through something so we can get support so somebody else can empathize without sharing anything that that's too gory or that might traumatize someone else. We want to share the message, not the mess and then think about what is my, my need here? What is the need that I need from this other person. Is it just them to give me a hug? Is it, can you just listen to me for a few minutes, share that I've been through something that's hard, but be very intentional on how you share. Sometimes people, when it comes to sharing trauma, just start venting and we have data that shows that venting often isn't helpful either for the person venting or for the person trying to support. So we want to be very intentional with how we share.

Emma Hughes

I would imagine, who we share with because at a certain point, like trauma is messy, but it sounds like finding the right person to share that mess with maybe the licensed therapist, for example might be the right person for mess conversation and then your average community, your supportive friends and family. Maybe that's more message, less mess.

Ryan Oelrich

That's a good point. We want to be careful about who we communicate to. We want to be mindful of is this person in a realistic space to affirm, to validate what we're experiencing.

Emma Hughes

As we continue this conversation, I did want to just take a little step back. If you're finding this conversation difficult or triggering in any way, I want to empower you to ask for help in the description of this episode you'll find a list of resources available to you to hopefully kind of get you started going in the right direction. I sincerely hope you find the courage to embark on this challenging, yet rewarding journey of healing. With that said, let's jump back into the episode.

Joe Ader

I was, I was curious. Do you have an example you can share that would explain that a little bit more? Sharing the message versus the mess on a on a situation or anything that might be helpful with that.

Ryan Oelrich

Yeah, absolutely. So in our STEP training, we encourage folks to both accurately express what they're going through, but also recognize that it's a two way street when you're sharing, that we also want to provide validation and so thinking about, am I in a place to do both of those when I choose to courageously share. But often we find that people are reluctant to share and the number one reason, we actually did a survey on this, the number one reason that people share, you know, what if I'm having a really hard time if I've been through something, the reason I'm not going to share is because I'm worried that by sharing, it will be a burden on somebody else. And yet we also have data that shows that the majority of folks, if somebody's had the courage to share with us to accurately express, hey, I've just been through something tough, data shows that most people are thankful. Oh, wow, you trust me enough. You had the courage to share that thing. And the other thing that's so important about sharing is that it also helps remove the fear from the situation and also it can lead to somebody else recognizing, Oh my gosh, you experienced that. I've been through that too. Thank you for sharing that with me. But I think, you know, we've done a lot of research around do how careful should we be about who we. There with and we don't want to traumatize other people, but if you're spending a significant amount of time with someone like colleagues, that's often folks say, well, I should, you know, I should accurately express to my spouse, but I should hold back if if it's with my colleagues or friends, you know, just friends and fans, just my spouse and family. But these are people who you spend a meaningfully amount of time with who you work with, some level of accurate expression actually could really be helpful, because if you're having a tough day at work, you have to work with colleagues. They may see that and they may jump to all sorts of conclusions. So you having the courage just to share, you don't even have to share a lot, but accurately express, hey, I'm having a tough time right now. I don't even have to go into detail, but you having the courage to express some primary emotions. Hey, I'm feeling sad today. Just to give you a heads up. Can do a lot of good. Can help connection can help reduce those stress levels and also we always share this with businesses and organizations, helps improve, improve productivity and overall staff morale.

Joe Ader

I think that's, I mean that's so telling and so interesting. We've, we definitely have experienced that in the work that we do at family promise and originally that those open conversations were, you know, thinking to be helpful for the guests that we serve. And it turns out that we have a lot of those conversations amongst staff and really become a support group for each other almost in… Hey I'm dealing with some some stuff or, honestly, a lot of lately has been I suppressed a lot of stuff when I was growing up and now it's coming out and it's coming out in a way that I don't know how to deal with. And so I would, I'll just speak for myself. You know, we've been going through a period here where we're you had a lot of n aces. I'm probably like a four or five out of the 10. My wife is like a nine. We did a lot of numbing as children and. Just ohh you just. Compartmentalize that and and pretend like it didn't exist. But now, as adults, we're like, oh, we don't have this ability or or me in particular, I don't have this ability to really identify. This is the emotion that I'm feeling and that I'm allowed to feel that. And I actually directed me to one of Brene Brown's books. And she had this quote in there that said we cannot selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions and just talking about that and just realizing, yeah, you know, sometimes it's because you. We have been numbing the painful ones because of our childhood trauma. We're actually not fully experiencing the joy, peace, love, those types of emotions either because we're trying to prevent that pain from coming back up and dealing with it and so. What's been interesting is a lot of those conversations that. Directing me to these resources and stuff like this. Have come through workplace conversations rather than in other places, so yeah.

Ryan Oelrich

Sure. And for me, as hard as it is to wrestle with these things and. Have to dig up past traumas. I I am excited. If there's one silver lining I see coming out of the pandemic, it's folks courageously stepping up and realizing I want to be a healthier human. I want to better connect with others. I also want to better serve my community, and I recognize by not doing the work to heal myself. I'm robbing those I love of me because part of me is still tied up in these other things, and so by doing this work, we're showing how much we love ourselves. Those we're partnered with in Life and in our communities being able to fully show up.

Emma

So as I mean Full disclosure, as someone who's experienced childhood trauma myself. I kind of wish that the the recognition and the processing that comes as a result of acknowledging childhood trauma would almost have like an asterisk disclaimer kind of a.

Ryan Oelrich

OK.

Emma

You know. It looks really good in a brief overview of like on the other side is joy and hoping all of these things, but the journey to get there is can be brutal. How do you know when it's a good time to address childhood trauma as opposed to? Like, maybe my life right now is a little bit rocky, a little bit chaotic. How do I know? How do I know when I should address trauma and maybe when I should maybe focus on getting myself to a point where there's stability in life and maybe I can engage it at?

Ryan Oelrich

That point, speaking just from my my perspective here, I'm not sure there ever. There's that, that ideal time, right. And you're right, the journey can be absolutely, bro. No, but I appreciate all the folks that I have watched on this brutal journey who have found that that as hard as that journey is that it gets easier, that they have found some profound truths on that journey along the way that it's worth it. But you're right. It's hard. Hard and I do appreciate in our step training we share one tool we called a motion wave surfing. Recognizing that there are times when that are not ideal when work is really hard, when you have something else going on, when you have limited energy and you're thinking, Oh my gosh, addressing my trauma, it takes so much and I have so much else going on right now and that's where thinking about the emotions. Experience as a result of trauma as well. And recognizing that those waves are going to come in, sometimes they're going to be big. They're. Going. To be hard, but we need to courageously choose to surf them, not run from them, but we can also take a break from surfing. We can set our surfboard down and recognize, hey, these waves are going to come back. But right now I need to put this surfboard. And I'm going to remember, right? Set it. I'm going to focus on some other things, but I'm going to courageously commit to coming back and surfing more of these waves, not running from them, not trying to block them or hide from them. I'm going to surf these waves through to fruition because the thing about waves, why it can be helpful to think about emotions as waves is that waves don't. Come don't last forever that they're going to come in, they're going to Crest and they're going to go back out. And so that recognition gives us a lot of courage to keep surfing.

Emma

Well, it makes it feel less overwhelming, which is the whole basis of trauma. If you recognize like, oh, this will end, this will take a pause. This will shift. I will get through this kind of those mantras that you can repeat in your mind. It allows you to be like, OK, we can do this. We've done hard things. We can do more hard things, we can surf, we can fall and get back up. We can take a break. I love that. I love that analogy.

Ryan Oelrich

Yeah.

Joe Ader

That's a great analogy.

Emma

We've talked a little bit about childhood trauma, trauma in general, interventions for trauma. If I am a. If I'm in a position where I'm leading an organization or I want to engage with those around me in a more trauma informed way, what are some things that I might try to focus on?

Ryan Oelrich

I think as a leader, having been in this place myself, something that's been important to me and I think different people have different approaches, but something that's been really important to me just to remove the stigma around trauma is being able as a leader to share, “hey, I've experienced trauma and I've continued to do that work and that journey to heal my own trauma.” Recognizing that trauma has impacted me and my leadership abilities. But my being willing to share that with others helps remove the stigma and also then creates normalcy around, we go through some tough stuff. It's hard. Instead of trying to hide or pretend like it doesn't happen, doing the work to talk about it, to address it. And so modeling that as a leader that I've been through some stuff I'm doing that work to address it. Also I've been at a place in my own journey where I haven't always had answers, and being willing and courageous and it takes courage, especially as a leader to share, you know what in this situation, I don't yet have the answers. Would you be willing to work with me as we seek out those answers?

It's been fascinating to me at the Center for trauma and stress education. I've worked with a few organizations that have had us just assess their company now have their staff go through a stress and trauma training and do evaluation trying to figure out why they have the staff morale problems that they do and the number one reason that that routinely rises to the top is staff say we're not being heard, no one's listening to us, and then at the top leadership saying, well, we can't listen to our staff until we figure out the problem ourselves. Until you know, our staff have all been through a really hard time, often some trauma, if not trauma, real intense stress. Instead of talking about it and working. Together, too often, we instead retreat into our silos. Leadership retreats into their silo, while we need to figure out all the answers before we can partner and listen. But what we found is that those answers usually come through courageous listening. The healing also, if we've—if your organization has been through some stuff together, healing comes through having the courage to connect and talk about it, not shut down. But that's a hard thing to do.

Emma

One of the things that I remember someone saying to me at one point when I was asking kind of how do I be a better leader was, she said to me, she said, “Emma, you cannot take someone where you are not willing to go.” And specifically in this context, the idea of, you know, someone comes to you, friend, coworker, employee and they share something really hard that's going on in their life. If I am uncomfortable because I haven't dealt with that same hard issue that I've experienced in my life, I'm going to say things like, oh, well, just, suck it up. You know. Just ohh yeah, that's really hard. Good thing it's sunny outside today, you know, kind of this, pushing it off to the side, this kind of I'm uncomfortable with it and now I am communicating my discomfort to this person who has courageously brought forward this, you know, this thing you almost have to be willing to be uncomfortable yourself. Not, you know, deeply uncomfortable, but just kind of address your own stuff. So you can hold that space for others.

Ryan Oelrich

Joe, I think one of the things I most—many things I admire about you and appreciate about you. But as I have watched your leadership over the years, I have so appreciated your approach to this subject and how you've modeled that in your leadership sharing. In both your personal journey, but also I've heard from your staff that you're willing to include them in that process. Can you talk more about what that looks like for you?

Joe Ader

Oh, wow. Yeah. You know, it took it, took me a long time to... like into adulthood before I even realized that I had childhood trauma and and it was very I mean it's very clear physical abuse, sexual abuse, very clear things. But when you just compartmentalize them, you think that they're gone. Like, you think that you dealt with them because it's not like I don't. I don't feel. I'm not thinking about that. I've forgiven, you know, the person that did that to me. And it wasn't until and it was actually through my faith I was a missions pastor at a church in Texas and the leadership required everybody to go through a 12-step program, which I aas, you know, I was walking in thinking, “well, I'm not an addict. I'm not an alcoholic. Like I'm not going to get anything out of this.” Which is pride right off the bat there. But through that process of going through step studies, it was like, "oh I do have stuff that is underneath that is making me, you know, react in a certain way.”

I was on like the final session with my sponsor and talking to him and it just kind of came up. Oh yeah, and I have this abuse thing, but it's OK. I've forgiven the person and the sponsor was looking at me with his, like, bright blue piercing eyes. And he was just silent. And like, so it was like, awkward, like, you know, when somebody so silent that you want to confess stuff to just because there's something there. And then he just said,  “well, have you told them that that you forgiven them?” And I was like. No, we never talk about it and I'm still in relationship with this person. I was like, we've never talked about it in you know, whatever, 15 years at that point. And then it I realized I hadn't actually dealt with it because I couldn't have that conversation. And so it took another three years, in another time through steps before I got to the point where I I need to have this conversation, I need to let this person know that I have processed. I'm not sweeping it under the rug and I'm going to forgive them. And so it it turned out to be this beautiful story where I went and met with them and right as I was about to confront this trauma that this person had done to me growing up, they start talking and say, well, I'm doing the steps thing. And one of the steps is to seek amends, and so I just wanted to say I'm so sorry for everything that happened between us when, when you were a kid and and I was like, well, tell me more, what do you what do you mean by that? And and we had a very open conversation.

It was almost like this miracle thing where I had been afraid to have this conversation and all of a sudden they brought it up the exact same moment I was there to have that conversation, and so that was really helpful. But in my, after that I realized, particularly in the shelter by sharing my own experience. It allowed others the comfort to come forward with that, and I remember one time in particular. And this was more than a year after this family had come through the shelter, but the father was helping me put Christmas lights up at my house. And so we're on the roof and he just said hey, “I need to ask you something. I don't know how you could forgive because I don't think I could ever forgive my dad.” And then he starts crying and we're sitting on the roof of my house having this conversation. But it was like, he's obviously been thinking about that for over a year. From the time I brought it up in the shelter, just in a mass meeting with everybody of you know, we all have traumas and things like that. And so I think being open about what's, what you've been through without being, without being like one upping somebody on how bad your situation was, which I've also seen that happen but just being open and being like here's... I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm a couple steps ahead maybe and if I am then let's have a conversation about it has been helpful. Emma could talk more about how that plays out on the staff side with us, but as far as on the with those that we serve in, in homelessness, that's the way that I try, tend to approach it rather than. I know everything and I've never experienced anything, you know, trying to pretend like that very clinical setting.

Emma

I mean I would just say you're very transparent. There's a sense of you really own your history and you own your story and you say like this is me, you're not—you employee, are not responsible for me in my life. I'm responsible for me and I care about you. I want to see you succeed. Here we go. Let's do it. I don't know. I think you just. You do create a very open space and I think that goes a long way.

Joe Ader

Thanks. Well and then also we have conversations about it, our guests are dealing with this all the time are a lot of our staff come from backgrounds of homelessness. And so they're dealing with the same stuff that our guests are dealing with. So bringing people like you and to train our staff is one of those things that we're actually getting better at and I I think it's something that has definitely been super helpful. What's interesting to me is what people get out of it. Some people will key in on one part of a training and others on others. And sometimes I'm like I don't even remember that. But that's awesome that that is helping you in this way.

Emma

As we start to move towards wrapping up this conversation, what things did we not ask you about that you would like to share more about?

Ryan Oelrich

I think I just, I keep wrestling with just the intersection of homelessness and trauma and what I think about what to focus on for your, for your audience, who might be listening. It's courageously choosing to empathize again, really thinking about how quickly we jump to judgment. And especially around this, the homelessness issue in our community, I've worked on this issue. I have watched how our community has responded as well as communities across the country. And it's so easy to judge, but that judgment is rarely helpful. Does not lead us to a solution. And so I think folks really wrestling with well, wait a minute, I can keep judging. That's easy. But am I willing to be part of the solution? And I think the first step is courageously leaning into why what are the reasons why we see families and children facing? Homelessness. In our neighborhoods across the country and, of course, one of those reasons is trauma. Now, other reasons to affordable housing, we could go, Joe could give you the list. But recognizing that we need courageously ask what happened to this person, not just jump right into judgment, but what have they. They've been through that has perhaps led them to that place. That then puts us in a much better place to empathize and to understand, and then we're in a much better place to take action and to make a difference.

Emma

Well, and to build on that, something else that you were really encouraging was this true belief that it is impossible to heal from trauma. So, it's it sounds like joining and listening with people listening, giving empathy, allowing yourself to courageously empathize with those experiencing homelessness and believing that it's possible to deal with some of that. Comma and work through that may. May give a sense of hope. I think sometimes it's easy to look at the big issue of homelessness and you know, it's always going to be, it's always going to. Be like this, there's no. You know, future that's not true. We can heal from so much, including the experience of homelessness itself. And so that's huge to know that things could be different.

Ryan Oelrich

I think recognizing that both trauma can lead as Joe talked about, ACEs, make somebody more likely to experience homelessness, but then also recognizing homelessness itself can absolutely be traumatizing. And so just that understanding is helpful.

Joe Ader

Absolutely. Homelessness is traumatizing. One of the things that we are doing as an organization is really revamping and really focusing in on which interventions could we possibly do that are the least traumatic towards our children. In prioritizing those towards because we deal with families with children, how can we prioritize those interventions and really focus on that? And what we've discovered is a lot of our government funding is not designed around that. It's designed around, you know, a mass shelter model which is not the most trauma informed model. Whereas you know smaller sites spread out in different neighborhoods is a different model but is actually less traumatic. But if you can keep families in their existing housing, then that's the least traumatic as long as it's safe.

Ryan Oelrich

Not at all.

Joe Ader

You know, and so we're trying to push the conversation in that direction. But what's interesting to me is. Those old solutions, those snap judgement solutions, let's put everybody into a warehouse are also the most traumatic solutions and they cost the most. At the same time, so they're like they're not good for the people. They're not good for the pocketbook of a community and they produce more future impacts rather than focusing on some of these things. So Ryan you've mentioned several different trainings and tools in this conversation. Where would somebody that wants to learn more, where would they go to find out more about these tools, the steps program that? Talk about in other.

Ryan Oelrich

Sure. So for the step training, the stress and trauma education program is provided by the nonprofit Center for Trauma and Stress Education. So that's C TSE programs.org. And then there are also some wonderful therapies specifically designed to address trauma. So if this is something that you think you need more support around I would talk to a therapist around what specific therapy might be best for you.

Emma

Awesome. Ryan, thank you for everything that you have reminded us of taught us about shared good reminder that we can all be a little more trauma informed a little more trauma sensitive and and be courageous extending empathy, withholding judgment, believing it's possible to change, and engaging with one another in support of community. Thank you for everything that you shared.

Ryan Oelrich

Thank you, Emma. Joe, always a pleasure. Appreciate you.

Joe Ader

Yeah. Thank you, Ryan.

Emma

Thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. We want to thank Ryan for sharing his story, for giving us the opportunity to learn more and for teaching us techniques and ways to be more trauma informed in our day-to-day lives. I also want to invite you to save the date for some amazing things happening at Family Promise of Spokane. In the coming months, we are rolling out our Summer Series, which is made-up of two events. The first one, June 27th, is an understanding poverty workshop. An opportunity for you to learn more about poverty, about how it affects our brains, and how we live in response to it. There are two times for that: 1:00 PM and 7:00 PM. You can learn more on our website.

Also, the 2nd event happening in the Summer Series is a live recording of this podcast where we will actually have a panel of guests sharing about their experience in homelessness. A really unique opportunity that's on August 3rd at 10:00 AM. You can find more information on all of the Summer Series events and other opportunities to sustain this important work on our website familypromiseofspokane.org or in the description of this episode. Last, but definitely not least, we want to extend our gratitude to Spokane Public Library for this amazing recording space. Thank you to our producers, Gwyn Griffith and Cheree LaPierre. And lastly, a big thank you to you. Thank you for listening, for being willing to learn and for always stay curious until next time. This has been on the corner of homelessness and.

Joe Ader

You do good at holding a mic, though I can tell.

Ryan Oelrich

You that when I used to perform magic shows that was before we had headset mics, so I had to hold a mic. So lots of good practice in the early magic days.

Emma

I already have questions. This is going to be such a great conversation.