Trauma-Informed Design for Safer Schools | Kerri Brady of Huckabee

One of the most commonly dysregulated spaces is cafeterias. Traditionally, we are very institutional with our seating. We are institutional and durable with our finishes. We want to make sure that child nutrition staff members have the easiest opportunity to quickly turn around a cafeteria and prevent bugs and pests. And I'm not suggesting at all that we abandon that tenant in our design. But we also can't abandon what children and people need in a high density, very loud, very chaotic space where it not only is an opportunity for them to nourish their bodies, but it is an opportunity for them to practice skills. But when we don't put the right acoustics in a space like that, it is too overwhelming for a lot of students. And so when those students get dysregulated, you have some percentage of students whose prefrontal cortex is dark.

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Foreign welcome back, everyone, to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. With me today is Carrie Brady. We are going to dive deep into supporting mental wellness through school safety and trauma informed design. Carrie is the Vice President of Educational Practice at Huckabee, which is an architectural firm. She is also an author and a board member for the Texas School Safety center and involved with leading the design of a new elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. I just want to start this by saying to the audience, there is so much to school shootings that I think hit all of us very strongly. And I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that and to talk about the fact that we are not, in this episode going to be talking about school shooting specifically. We're talking more about ways to look at preventing and designing spaces that can be trauma informed and supportive of all students. But I did just want to take a moment to acknowledge that sometimes this is a touchy topic for people. So if that is you, I wanted you to know kind of the scope of where we're going with this. We all know that these happen too often. And I really want to dig into this connection that you are making, Carrie, with How does architectural design, what in the world does that have to do with creating a space that can work to be preventative toward a school shooting,

jumping in to school safety and security? And I very much appreciate your comments. I always remind people when I find myself in conversations around school safety and security that that Term is not synonymous with active school shootings. It's a much broader term. And so I very much appreciate the notion of setting the tone, that, yes, it is a component of the conversation and something that we need to be intentionally designing for. But there are a host of risks that school districts or school institutions need to address so that their risk threshold is much tolerable. And so a way of doing that is to take a more comprehensive approach to thinking about school safety and security. And, you know, we talk about the five phases of emergency management. And so for people who are not familiar with those five phases, they are prevention is the first one. We have mitigation, so mitigating risk preparedness, so making sure that everyone and everything is on the ready. So that might be training, that might be making sure that batteries are charged. It might be drills and exercises. It's a number of things, some of which might be related to design, most of which are more operational. And then we have response. So from the moment an emergency starts, that could be any kind of emergency. It could be an active threat, but it could be a medical emergency. It could be inclement weather with a high risk of property damage or, you know, injuries from facilities sort of damage, things like that. From the moment that emergency starts to the moment that emergency is no longer a threat to property damage or to people, then that's the response phase. So it's the most temporary, it's the shortest, but it's the one where the time is of the essence. And so we want to make sure that we can get people to move as quickly and the building helps them to do that so that the building isn't fighting what people are wanting or needing to do to get to safety. And then we have the recovery phase. That's the fifth one, which is recovering from an emergency that occurred. And sometimes for school organizations, that recovery phase might show up on campus, but the impact may have happened over the weekend. It doesn't necessarily mean that all recovery efforts are connected to emergencies that occur on property. It might be that a student was impacted or a family was impacted or teacher was impacted over the weekend. And so students and staff are then impacted when they show up to school or to work on Monday. And so you may hear that your local learning institution has grief counselors on site for a few days or for a week to help support recovery efforts. If an emergency occurs on property, that might look like a renovation project, which could take up to two years. So your recovery phase is really contingent upon the emergency, what it was when it occurred. What the damage is and if it even happened on property. So we want to be supported and designed of all five of those phases. But as a design community, we've really worked hard to be present and as big a contributors as we can be in mitigation and in response. And so mitigation, though, implies that the emergency is already happening or is inevitable. And so what I want to, you know, impress upon people is there is a category of threats of property damage, harm to people, or disruption of operations that are inevitable. Mother Nature is one of them, right? Inclement weather will happen, accidents will happen. So those things are not preventable. And so we do the very best we can to mitigate, because when it happens, not if, but when it happens, we want to make sure that the design can mitigate those losses and help in the response and also help in the recovery efforts. And so this conversation is really about pulling up a seat at what I call the prevention table, because there are a lot of really incredible people working on prevention. So whether it is educators and administrators, school based law enforcement, mental health professionals, you know, the medical community in general, emergency responders, there's all sorts of people who are at that table working feverishly and doing incredible work to focus in on these prevention efforts or prevention and intervention efforts. But the design community hasn't traditionally been there. And so instead of waiting for an invitation, I'm advocating for folks to make the table a little bigger and for the design community to, as they say, what, pull up a folding chair and advocate for a little room in the conversation. Because I do believe that we bring value to that. That conversation that we haven't traditionally been a part of.

I love that. I don't think it's something that people always naturally think of to invite someone from an architectural design perspective to that table. So I'm curious if we can kind of dig into what is some of that value that you do offer to

that conversation, specifically to school design? I had an opportunity to be a part of a pilot research project conducted by the Trauma Informed Design Society in conjunction with Boston Architectural College. And they developed a toolkit with 12 domains that touch on this notion of what are the different ways in which we can design spaces to be more trauma informed. In reality, what we are talking about are spaces that commonly emotionally dysregulate children, which we know happens because they are still developing their emotional maturity at their ages, even up to 18 and beyond when they in high school. So they are more commonly dysregulated than, in theory, adults. And what are the most common spaces that they do get dysregulated, and what are the ways in which the environment that they're in contributes? This is not. We are the whiz bang solution. This is not, you know, we have it all figured out and know exactly what to do. This is, we bring a perspective and an expertise, and we think there's value in injecting it into this conversation so that it is done in collaboration with mental health professionals and educators and law enforcement and everyone who's already a part of that conversation. And so we want to better understand the ways in which the environment contributes to dysregulation. And what are the ways that those spaces can minimize or lessen the severity or the frequency of emotional dysregulation for everyone, not just students, but the adults in the building too? Because adults get emotionally dysregulated as well, and occupants in general. So whether that's parents and families, if that's general, community members, business partners, taxpayers, anyone who would engage in a school facility, we want to be thinking about their lived experience, their point of view, the ways in which the environment might contribute to dysregulation. And so how can we design better so that they are more supportive spaces, more conducive spaces, but also how do we think about places? So a space within a space or separate spaces that people can peel away from the dysregulation and the situation at hand and go do one of two things, calm their nervous system. So how do we communicate with the amygdala and say, it's okay, you are not actually in danger right now? And so how can we help to calm the nervous system and use design to do that? But also how do we put components, equipment in those spaces as well, or make them available to people so that they can metabolize the cortisol and the adrenaline that's been dumped into their body, as our lovely caveman brain and nervous system does? And so how can we help them metabolize that faster so that they can plug their prefrontal cortex back in and get back to doing executive functioning things? Because learning is an executive function. And so the more that we have children with their brains and nervous systems right turned off, that prefrontal cortex is unplugged, as I describe it, that lamp is dark. And then we're wondering why they aren't doing any learning or making any rational decisions, because they are dysregulated and they're surviving at that point. So how do we support the natural functions within the brain and the nervous system so that we can get them back to calm, or at least some version of center so that they can start accessing these non required survival mechanisms, like that part of the brain that is in charge of rational thought, self control and learning.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, you're speaking my language. Because I always think of it as the brain on fire when the amygdala or that limbic system is in control and like nothing else is going to enter that brain for sure. And I love this idea of making this space help the nervous system. So can you give some examples of what things might be calmer to the nervous system?

Sure. One of the things that I find fascinating about the nervous system that some people know, some people don't know, is it can't distinguish between physical danger and emotional danger. Danger is danger, harm is harm. And so that is something that I think just understanding that helps us understand that it's not just the literal lion that's going to try and eat me for lunch that is the danger. And so in 2024, there is not as much danger as there used to be when all of these systems were a part of our design and evolution. And so when we're concerned about not being accepted, when we're concerned about being judged, bullied, picked on, isolated, shut down, shamed, all the things that are on the emotional spectrum of harm, the nervous system responds in the identical fashion. And so that is a real dynamic. When you put tens or hundreds or thousands of children with developing brains and nervous systems and not an ability to regulate their emotions in a building, you're going to have emotional harm. It is a natural part of the process. And trauma is a part of the human condition. So we can't eliminate all of that. It's going to happen. And so how can we be more supportive? So when do those kinds of things happen? Or what are the kinds of situations or experiences that lead to not feeling seen, not feeling heard, not feeling like you belong and being a part of something or having any connection with other humans in that building. And so one of the most commonly dysregulated spaces, based on the research that they did to develop the toolkit, is cafeterias.

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So traditionally we are very institutional with our seating. We are institutional and durable with our finishes. We want to make sure that child nutrition staff members have the easiest opportunity to quickly turn around a cafeteria between lunch periods, or clean it up and prevent bugs and pests and all the things right. So we want to facilitate their job to be as easy as possible. And I'm not suggesting at all that we abandon that tenant in our design. But we also can't abandon what children and people need in a high density, very loud, very chaotic space where it not only is an opportunity for them to nourish their bodies, but it is an opportunity for them to practice skills, social skills, emotional skills, relational skills. It's it's a petri dish of practice. And sometimes it is successful and other times it is not. But when we don't put the right acoustics in a space like that, it is too overwhelming acoustically for a lot of students. And so when those students get dysregulated, you have some percentage of students whose prefrontal cortex is dark. If the seating is not comfortable or conducive to my body height, shape, size, whatever level of comfort, ergonomics. The human body is so diverse and amazing. But we have this singular bench or a singular round seat or singular chair that we buy hundreds of them and expect all bodies to be comfortable in them. And that won't happen. And so for the number of students who find the seating to be uncomfortable, then they are dysregulated and their prefrontal cortexes are dark. And then you have the students where if the seating isn't conducive to eye contact or even personal space. So I'm either too close or too far, so that the relational component, now I feel disconnected or isolated in some capacity. Those students are dysregulated, and now their prefrontal cortex is dark. And so you end up with a large number of people who are now at, to some level on the spectrum, emotionally dysregulated and overwhelmed, and for different reasons, all because the design wasn't conducive to how the human ears work and how the human body is diverse and how we find ourselves in connection relationally. And so when we fail on many of those fronts in design, in the name of durability and ease of cleaning, then we end up with a space where the vast majority of students are to some extent agitated from that experience. And then we send them to class and we wonder why they're struggling because they don't have access to their executive functioning part of the brain. And so they just become warm bodies that are coping in that next class period. And that creates a challenge relationally. It creates a challenge for the educator. It creates a challenge for everybody in that space. And so we want to be thoughtful around how we are supporting the experience through design for everyone. Like I said, students and educators, as well as child nutrition staff members. So we want to be thoughtful about all of that and be thinking about out how and where that dysregulation occurs, and what is the downstream effect of that if we leave it unsupported, what is that downstream effect? And what is the rest of that daily experience for that student or even educator? And then we're sending them off to the rest of their life, and if it's still not resolved, then how are they taking that and showing up in other parts of their life still agitated or emotionally dysregulated? And then what is the impact to people in other parts of their lives? Because they're showing up that way.

Right. So it's clear to see that if lunch could be time where the majority of people have a relaxed nervous system, I mean, the ability to eat, you even have to be relaxed to a certain point to do that. So ideally, it's a respite in their day instead of an agitator to their nervous system, it's easy to see how that would support mental wellness, certainly throughout a school or wherever you are, that cafeteria, wherever, in an office building or anything like that. But I'm wanting to dig into this idea too, about you and I were talking a little bit before we started recording about how design can also help facilitate healthy relationships. And so we were talking about the research that's out there says that if even one healthy, attentive adult can be in a child's life, that really can give them enough resilience to have a different life path than they may have if they don't have that. And, you know, none of us choose families that we're born into. So anyone can have good enough parents, I always call them, or maybe parents are struggling with their own things and not able to be that supportive person for that child. And so, so schools are then often that environment where hopefully some of those healthy adult child mentorship relationships can kind of develop. So can you talk a little bit about how design could impact that as well?

So that's really the advocacy work that I'm doing at this point is really helping anyone and everyone understand the desire of the design community to design spaces that foster human connection. Dr. Mate says safety is not the absence of danger. It is the presence of connection. And so how can we design for human connection? How can we design spaces, as I was talking about earlier, that minimize, eliminate, lessen the impact of emotional dysregulation, which is a component of this. And it, you know, it causes us to retreat. The human connection is very difficult in those circumstances, if the connection isn't already there and trusted. And then how do we design spaces to help metabolize the hormones that are dumped into the system, cortisol and adrenaline, when someone is emotionally dysregulated or triggered? So those are all parts of this conversation. But when I look at the conversations that I'm in around school safety and security and the work and the learning and the knowledge that I've accumulated on trauma informed practices, the intersection of those two things in my mind is the prevention phase. Because while there's a very valuable conversation around active threat intervention. So we want people to not hurt themselves, hurt others, damage property. So categorically, there's a range of things that fall into that list that range from, you know, defacing a bathroom partition all the way up to an active mass shooting on a school campus. There's a whole range of threats that fall into that bucket that have to do with a person who wants to damage the property, hurt themselves, or hurt someone else. And so those are all preventable. Unlike the efforts and the work that the design community has been doing for generations. Since the 1500s, we've been actively working on seismic design. So we've been at the mitigation table for a very long time. I believe I'm biased, but I get it. Doing really incredible work. And a lot of those safety measures are now codified in international Code Council codes in minimum design standards, in regulation violations. So those things are now formal design expectations. They're not best practices anymore. They are minimum standards at this point. And that is because they are proven, they are practical. You know, they make a lot of sense on a lot of fronts. And so that's how that bar has slowly been raised around how we design for structure fires, seismic activity, tornadoes, certain types of inclement weather. And so those are all part of the codification and design. Prevention is not there. We are not at that table. We've not traditionally been thought of as contributors in the conversation around prevention. And so that's where I want to create a little space in that collaborative effort so that the design community can come into that conversation and contribute. We are not a whiz bang solution. We do not carry the weight of, you know, solving this problem on our shoulders. We just want to contribute to the other experts that are working on this issue. But how I see it is in the prevention phase. We have prevention and we have intervention. And so if a child is already on a path of violence and planning to take their own life, hurt someone else, whatever that might look like, we can intervene and make sure that the thing doesn't happen. But certain situations necessitate that that child be arrested, detained, treated, all sorts of things that may be involuntary for that child and completely changes the trajectory of their life. And I won't say it's over, but it's certainly detrimentally impacted in a way that I want to be looking further back in the past so that we're not actually only preventing the thing from happening, but we're preventing the plan and the idea and the need to even start thinking about, do I want to hurt myself, how do I want to hurt myself or hurt someone else? And so we have this devising of a plan or, you know, the path of violence that takes time for a person to go from the first thing isn't right to a place of hopelessness where I'm going to show up in the world in a way that is quite harmful to myself or others, or both. And so that duration of time is a huge opportunity for adults to do things, make decisions, invest in ways that would back that intervention up, in my opinion, all the way back to prevention. And so what I say when I speak on this topic is I want to move beyond. I don't want to stop. I want to move beyond preventing school shootings to preventing school shooters. And that distinction, I think is really big, because when we think of it that way, we might actually prevent all sorts of stress responses, unresolved trauma, coping behaviors, addictions, assaults, victims, bullies, any number of other things that are a part of what can be a very dark, lonely and challenging path of violence or path to hopelessness. And so how can we prevent all those things, not just the actual event that may have occurred. And in looking at prevention all the way back, we're saving every life, not just the lives of would be victims, but we're saving the life of a would be perpetrator. And so in that situation, everyone is on a better path as they continue their life, right?

Supporting all students in this case, or all people inhabiting a space really, so teachers, students, administration, supporting all of them in their humanness and their connectedness to promote wellness really is kind of what I hear you saying.

I want to use design to support people's most basic needs. To feel supported, to feel seen, to feel heard, to feel like they belong, that they're connected to something beyond just themselves. Even if that environment doesn't exist at home, how can we create that environment to be supplementary for the students who do have that, or for the occupants, Even for teachers who may not have that at home? If they have that at school or at work, then it is complimentary or it is in some ways a surrogacy for what doesn't exist in a family of origin. We want to make sure that there's an opportunity that we have as designers to create environments that meet those most basic needs to help support people maintaining some aspect of hope and path forward and, you know, future focus.

Amazing. If you could just leave people with one idea, what would that be for you today?

I think for me, it would be inviting people who have an opportunity to be a part of any aspect of a design process for a school facility. So if that's. You happen to be a school board member or a board of director, you happen to be an educator full time or part time, you happen to be a taxpayer, which there are a lot of us, right? You're invited to be a part of a design process or a bond planning process or some other approval process to clear the path for a design project. When you are presented with those opportunities, the notion that flexible furniture or transparency or good acoustics or access to outdoors or being able to see nature from inside a space, those things are part of safety and security. Those things are part of being trauma informed. Those things are part of prevention. And so they're not extra. They're not something that would be contingent upon the budget, the same way that a really good structural system would not be contingent on the budget. And so just advocating for the role that those design decisions play in the overall experience for anyone who engages in a school facility, that our thought process categorizes them differently as not something that should be at the top of a list of things that we can sort of cut the price of or delete out of the design because we perceive them to be on top of the most fundamental things that we need in that facility.

Well, we will have all sorts of information about Carrie and how to connect with her and the project she's working on. If you're interested in the show notes But Carrie, I want to thank you so much for being here and sharing all your wisdom today.

It's my pleasure and I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.