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Jan Isaacs Henry, M.A. is a former psychotherapist who specialized in the treatment of trauma and abuse and is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Kidpower Colorado.
Adapted from the Kidpower International conference presentation: “Connecting the Dots: How does Kidpower as a Prevention/Intervention Model Help Build Resilience” by Jan Isaacs Henry, M.A. and Meredith Henry, LCSW.
As Desmond Tutu said, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”
Kidpower programs use an “upstream” approach that provides young people and their caregivers with tangible skills that help to prevent child maltreatment and to aid in the healing process for those children who have suffered harm.
While these outcomes are sometimes difficult to track, Kidpower’s long-standing history and numerous success stories show that workshops demonstrate a proven prevention, intervention, and recovery/healing strategy.
The core tenet of this work rests in the simple yet powerful belief that all children deserve to be safe.
In Kidpower workshops, young people learn to set healthy boundaries with strangers and people they know, boost their self-confidence, and navigate threatening circumstances. They also learn how to seek help when needed and persist in asking for help until an adult responds appropriately.
Kidpower raises awareness about child harm and involves the adults in a child’s life to buffer the impact of toxic stress. Young people are safest when the communities around them engage in ways that promote safety.
Kidpower safety skills workshops welcome parents and caregivers in the learning process in all formats of our services. Parents, guardians, educators, and other caring adults learn warning signs and statistics about abuse and gain a common language to discuss safety with their children to reinforce the learning process in an emotionally safe, child-sensitive way. Kidpower involves the full circle of parents, school and agency professionals, and youth-serving organization staff to recognize and report harmful behavior, create safe cultures and climates, and teach interpersonal safety skills to the children in their care.
Adapted from the Kidpower International conference presentation: “Connecting the Dots: How does Kidpower as a Prevention/Intervention Model Help Build Resilience” by Jan Isaacs Henry, M.A. and Meredith Henry, LCSW.
As Desmond Tutu said, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”
Kidpower programs use an “upstream” approach that provides young people and their caregivers with tangible skills that help to prevent child maltreatment and to aid in the healing process for those children who have suffered harm.
While these outcomes are sometimes difficult to track, Kidpower’s long-standing history and numerous success stories show that workshops demonstrate a proven prevention, intervention, and recovery/healing strategy.
The core tenet of this work rests in the simple yet powerful belief that all children deserve to be safe.
In Kidpower workshops, young people learn to set healthy boundaries with strangers and people they know, boost their self-confidence, and navigate threatening circumstances. They also learn how to seek help when needed and persist in asking for help until an adult responds appropriately.
Kidpower raises awareness about child harm and involves the adults in a child’s life to buffer the impact of toxic stress. Young people are safest when the communities around them engage in ways that promote safety.
Kidpower safety skills workshops welcome parents and caregivers in the learning process in all formats of our services. Parents, guardians, educators, and other caring adults learn warning signs and statistics about abuse and gain a common language to discuss safety with their children to reinforce the learning process in an emotionally safe, child-sensitive way. Kidpower involves the full circle of parents, school and agency professionals, and youth-serving organization staff to recognize and report harmful behavior, create safe cultures and climates, and teach interpersonal safety skills to the children in their care.
Jan Isaacs Henry, M.A. is a former psychotherapist who specialized in the treatment of trauma and abuse and is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Kidpower Colorado.
Programs are age-appropriate, evidence-based, trauma-informed, and customized to meet participant needs. Unlike programs that use fear-based information that risk shocking or scaring children and families, Kidpower teaches in a fun, engaging manner and works well with different learning styles. Kidpower also serves as an adjunct to therapy/counseling by helping young people who have suffered abuse regain their power, heal, and mitigate future risks of victimization.
Research demonstrates, and our experience validates, that prevention/intervention education programs like Kidpower, can promote disclosure and shorten the duration of abuse, mobilize assistance and reduce victim isolation and self-blame resulting in better mental health outcomes. It may also allow for the identification of perpetrators and reduce future offending (Finkelhor, D., 1995 & 2009, Topping, K. & Barron, I., 2009).
Childhood experiences, both positive and negative, have a direct impact on future violence victimization, health outcomes, and life opportunities. Individuals who suffer childhood toxic stress are at heightened risk for lifelong mental and physical health challenges such as: chronic health conditions (mental illness, obesity, diabetes, depression, suicide, STDs, heart disease, cancer, stroke, etc.), risky health behaviors (addiction, smoking, alcoholism, drug use), decreased positive life outcomes (lower graduation rates, achievement, lost time from work, incarceration, homelessness), and even early death (20-year reduction in life expectancy).
Emerging research, including innovations in brain imaging technology, has shown the experience of neglect, abuse, violence and trauma can affect a child’s molecular structure and distort their DNA.
Nadine Burke-Harris, a pediatrician, best-selling author, and former Surgeon General for California, in this TEDTalk, provides a compelling explanation of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), toxic stress, and their relationship to health over a lifetime.
The wide-ranging health and social consequences of childhood trauma underscore the importance of prevention. While the consequences of childhood trauma are significant, there is hope.
Research shows positive childhood experiences (PCEs) combat the effects of childhood trauma. PCEs are experiences in childhood that build a child’s sense of belongingness and connection. PCEs predict positive outcomes, including good lifelong health and school success. Even if a child has experienced traumatic events like being bullied, loss of a parent, exposure to domestic violence, or abuse, experiencing PCEs can protect children from developing long-term negative effects. (Sege, R., Bethell, C., Linkenback, J., Jones, J., Klikea, B. & Pecora, P.J., 2017)
Kidpower addresses trauma by reducing risk factors and enhancing protective factors. Children and teens gain a sense of increased control, agency, and self-efficacy, all of which are important protective factors. Kidpower’s Positive Practice Teaching Method coaches students to rehearse skills through role-plays tailored to their ages, abilities, and life situations. For most students, this increases their confidence and their ability to recognize and respond safely to challenging situations. Kidpower programs help children effectively respond to abuse or bullying, including identifying trusted adults to approach for help, and having the language to communicate successfully.
How does Kidpower provide trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive care?
Trauma informed care is defined as practices that promote a culture of safety, empowerment, and healing (L. Elizabeth Lincoln, M.D., Harvard Medical School). Care that is trauma informed involves prevention, recognition, and response to trauma-related difficulties (D. Novick, M.D., Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania). Kidpower’s overall and consistent vision is to create cultures of safety and respect for all.
Kidpower prioritizes trauma-sensitive care and embraces the following core protective factors (Henry, J., 2017, Orr, K., 2017):
1. The curriculum. The curriculum focuses on safety with people kids don’t know and people they know including people in positions of authority, peers, and people children trust, love, and care about. Emotional and physical safety skills are addressed in each workshop. The language and curriculum sequencing is intentional in order to be emotionally safe, age-appropriate, and positive. The landscaping of the presentation from the room set up to the flow and order of class is specifically designed to help students feel successful and confident. Children need to hear that abuse, bullying, and other harm done to them are never their fault. This is accomplished through storytelling, modeling, and demonstrations. Instructors are trained in trauma sensitive care, and receive ongoing supervision and continuing education. The learning approaches are tailored to be developmentally appropriate and inclusive of all, including those students with disabilities. The curriculum is adapted when needed and evolves to ensure it is appropriate for the students in the room and relevant to the types of safety situations students may experience. Kidpower consults regularly with mental health professionals, education staff, and youth to ensure the curriculum is current.
2. Establishing and maintaining safety. From the first point of contact, students and families are welcomed with warmth, acceptance, and compassion. Kidpower creates predictable, supportive learning environments where students feel safe and respected emotionally and physically. We also help students create plans outside of the classroom in order to be safe in multiple settings including home, school, their communities, and online. Students are taught about their worth and value and to address shame with self-compassion.
3. Relational engagement. Connection and relational engagement are key components of resiliency. As more is known about the impact of trauma on learning and healthy development, there is a move from the question, “what’s wrong with you?” to “what happened to you?”(Perry, B. & Winfrey, O, 2021) Kidpower recognizes that behavior may actually be a symptom of deeper harm rather than intentional defiance or disrespect. Kidpower focuses on positive, strengths-based interventions that are affirming rather than punitive, shaming, or blaming. We value the capacity, experience, culture, perspectives, and knowledge of each person we serve. Healthy relationships and emotional safety are key components of the curriculum.
4. Building capabilities and hope. The curriculum is designed to build competence with skills. It is success-based learning; all students learn with graduated building blocks, step by step, so that each child experiences mastery. The teaching approach is positive, fun, and hopeful. As mentioned above, students and their adults learn to create safety plans in many situations with a focus on effective management of future interactions. Abuse takes away kids’ power. Learning to set clear, strong boundaries in a supportive environment helps to create agency and restore kids’ power. Some classes include physical self-protection skills which helps students experience their bodies as strong and powerful. This can help address the helplessness and hopelessness that often follows traumatic experiences. It also reinforces strong verbal boundary-setting skills.
5. Acquiring affective regulation skills. Kidpower instructors are trained with co-regulation tools to help students be more in control when managing their emotions. Students are taught to respond to conflict and identify triggers in a healthy, safe way and there are modulated practices for effective communication. The curriculum includes management of feelings when students are hurt by words or behaviors. They are also taught to get help if they need assistance with their own self-regulation.
6. Participation and enhancement in their own learning. Students rehearse each skill presented and watch their peers practice for optimal learning. Learning is engaging, experiential, and accomplished through practice and role-play rather than through observation or assembly-style. This is how kids learn best.
7. Involvement of multiple systems to provide competent supports. Kidpower students are adequately supported before, during, and after class. In some cases, we communicate with therapists and caseworkers before our more comprehensive classes to determine readiness for class and follow up with feedback when appropriate. We involve parents, school professionals, and social service staff in the learning process to reinforce and deepen skills acquisition. In a broader sense, we change the way safety is taught by focusing on empowerment rather than fear. Kidpower teaches kids to actively identify multiple adults from whom they can get help, practice the language to use when telling, and persist in telling until they get the help they need. Kidpower also teaches adults how to listen and respond to disclosure.
8. Involvement of the body. Research demonstrates that trauma registers on a brain and sensory level in the body and that the healing of trauma must help students restore power in the body when it has been taken away (van der Kolk, B., 2015, Rothschild, B., 2000). Kidpower instructors coach our students to be and act aware, calm, and confident; use clear, loud voices; and move away to a safe, welcoming, supportive adult. Practicing these skills helps students to engage kinesthetically with individual control. In our classes that include physical self-protection skills, feeling competent in one’s body can be life-changing for students who have endured traumatic events. Short, patterned, rhythmic movement with positive coaching is key for children who have experienced trauma, and all students benefit from movement as a way to integrate learning.
9. Assistance in making meaning of students’ experiences. Adults practice skills with students. In addition, students can self-generate scenarios that apply to their own lives. Materials are available after workshops to continue to reinforce, personalize, and make meaning of students’ experience to address subsequent safety issues.
While the above protective factors are designed to be sensitive to those young people who have experienced trauma, we know that all individuals benefit from Kidpower’s overall pedagogical and philosophical approach. This has been Kidpower’s teaching approach since its establishment in 1989.
In the powerful video below, Laura recounts her daughter’s and her own experience with Kidpower. She describes the care and sensitivity demonstrated by Kidpower staff years ago and credits Kidpower for saving her daughter’s life by helping her regain a sense of control after her trauma.
Published: September 1, 2023 | Last Updated: September 1, 2023
Jan Isaacs Henry, M.A.
Jan Isaacs Henry, M.A. is a former psychotherapist who specialized in the treatment of trauma and abuse. She is Executive Director and Co-Founder of Kidpower of Colorado, which has provided workshops to children, teens, parents, and educators since 1994. As a Kidpower International Program Leader, Jan’s contributions have greatly increased the quality and scope of our programs and curriculum worldwide.