safe space

This is a safe space. I’m going to say things that are between the four of us. That we can do foolish things… Sorry. Philadelphia is being Philadelphia. That we can do foolish things like make investments and trying to build resilience in a child by making sole investments in what should be built with one individual, as opposed to looking at the fact that resilience is a trait that’s built through environment and relationship-based interactions and with a systems-based or a human ecology-based framework. There’s at least a way to think about and talk about that with a larger group of people that can challenge their notion of, well, people have to just be resilient because be tough as nails.Speaker 100:44The second thing for me that’s really important is that everything is approached through a developmental perspective that is in four parts. The biological, the psychological, the social, and the spiritual. Or really, it’s the spiritual dimension is about the fact that humans are meaning-making narrative animals. And that we make meaning out of things, even when we don’t want to.Speaker 501:06And that we are bringing meaning with us, historical meaning, inherited meaning, and the meaning we’ve made out of experiences. We bring all of that with us to any given system, experience, moment in time. And the person on the other side who’s making the policy or the systems does the same thing. And that we need to be very aware of that when we’re trying to design things that are particularly at this moment in time supposed to address racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, et cetera.Speaker 101:33The third thing for me is understanding the impact of trauma, understanding how trauma works, understanding from a developmental perspective, the biological, psychological social, and meaning-making dimensions of the way that traumas operationalize and individuals, but also in systems. And the same with allostatic load is a fancy word for stress. And the total-Speaker 201:58I was going to ask you.Speaker 101:58Allostatic load is the biomedical term used to describe the wear and tear on the body from the over-activation of the stress response system. Because there’s so much that happens physiologically in those moments. And the stress response system is not built to last for more than about 20 to 25 minutes. Anything that is perpetually activating the stress mechanism is actually wearing the body out.Speaker 102:27And by the body, I do mean from the top brain down to your toes because your stress mechanism is connected to every major organ in your body and also diffused throughout the entire central nervous system. When we’re talking about stress, the stress mechanism, we are talking about everything from immunology to cognition, to the way that you perceive the world and create mental models, all of that is affected by allostatic load.Speaker 102:57The fourth here is and I also like to frame up the science around trauma as like the science of suffering. The flip side of the science of suffering is the science of resilience and thriving and recovery and growth. And to me, this is all about just the idea that if we start with human beings as being an asset to begin with, that them as a human and their humanity is an asset. And that everybody is coming with assets, we just might not have the framework or the viewpoint to understand or ascertain what those are.Speaker 103:28Is a very different premise than starting with someone as a deficit, which is akin to starting with the person being the problem. Because if the person is the problem, then they can’t be your collaborator or you’re much more prone to not want to even hear or humor them as a collaborator, as meeting them where they’re at. Because you then say, “No, I know where you should be. And we’re going to start over here because you are the problem.” I can preach on that for 20 days. I’m going to hold back.Speaker 103:57But that is a huge premise of mine. You heard me talk about systems theory a little bit earlier, but particularly nuance here around policy is that and we are a good example of this. Policy is often made by individuals who have lots of power over the many, you have the few with power over the many. There’s a few of us that are helping a larger, but small group of people who are going to be making choices and decisions on behalf of many, many folks and their life trajectories.Speaker 104:29And how do we think about centering their humanity in this work and understanding that is a part of our responsibility in this context of the way the systems and policy works. And then the last piece for me is really summed up this idea of equity and justice is really summed up in this statement that I appreciate Julian for not forcing me to edit in any way.Speaker 104:49But it’s this idea that equity, justice, any of these values around inclusion, shared prosperity. I think we all hear a range of words were we’re just like mmh, what does that mean in terms of what you do? That’s a big area for me that I always try to hone folks in on is that whatever stated values or stated points of articulation that are about equity and justice that matter to us. If we can’t legitimately map them to outline items in our budget, if we can’t legitimately map them to policies and procedures, practices operations, then we don’t really have much, but lots of talking and maybe some past emotions. But we’re not dealing with the work that really creates equity as an outcome.Speaker 205:36Just put your money where your mouth is.Speaker 105:40It’s puts your money where your mouth is and put your mouth where your practice is. And put your practice where your mouth, is. Is in one in those [inaudible 00:05:51]. Speaker 205:52Yeah. Speaker 105:53And there’s a lot of talking. And actually, there’s a lot of letter writing. I don’t know about you’re emailing, but mine has been very full. I’m going to pass it over to Rob. Speaker 206:04[inaudible 00:06:04].Speaker 106:04Did you say something. Have you said something because you’re breaking up and I just want to check and make sure that it’s not breaking up.Speaker 206:11I was muted like a rookie.Speaker 106:19Yeah.Speaker 306:19Am I audible?Speaker 206:20I think so. [Inaudible 00:06:21].Speaker 306:20Okay, cool. You’re good, Rob.Speaker 206:24My little section I believe is unnecessary, but I’ll just go over it again. In this case, I’ve just been talking to this [inaudible 00:06:40] to make my and our assumptions explicit that, our group is building a rubric. The rubric is a tool for the large, everybody involved in larger initiative to look at what they’re doing and judge the big bets by whether or not to gauge whether or not they actually do make stuff happen on the ground and help us all pull in the same direction. And given the way the project structured and how we’re working together. This rubric, isn’t a three year long design process.Speaker 307:22It’s something we’re putting together quickly, so that it’s useful. And ideally, it’s something that as it’s applied, it evolves and gets more detailed and evolves. And Sheila in your cover letter, you’ve been talking about how you think about work and how your organization approaches work. You already lean into a rubric to help do that work.Speaker 307:58It sounds like you already have explicit clear thoughts about how what you need to do in order to engage different stakeholder groups so that they understand each other. And that their priorities are heard and included in how people are evaluating the work that’s going on. And that notion of testing and adapting while you’re learning and scaling is something that you’ve already got. I am literally telling you things that you already know in your sleep. The end. Speaker 108:37Not at all, not at all. And I’d read this document. It’s interesting. I’ve done a couple of Salesforce implementations earlier in my career. And I’ve been introduced to like agile and a waterfall method and all these different things. And it was a year into Basta that we went, “Oh, my gosh, we’re actually using agile in our program development without even realizing it.” It’s pretty intuitive if you’re sort of learning alongside your beneficiary, you end up sort of using those principles pretty regularly.Speaker 309:08Absolutely. Some of my jobs or some of my clients that I work with, we talk about co-design as the framing methodology. You got to design a long with and a long side, not four and two. You read the letter, I’ll get through this quickly then. We think there are four big areas and really, Julian was very helpful in framing out these four big areas that are more like constraints. Healthy constraints for thinking about success loosely in relationship to the Big Bets.Speaker 109:46And the first one is on access. People getting into programs, getting into employment completion. Getting through the program or getting through employment and advancing to the next step. Not just doing some bottom feeder kind of like, push the broom, stock the shelves were done, that the outcomes.Mike O’Bryan10:06The third area being the outcomes focus being really centered on the fact that the folks that are considered vulnerable should get clear value, value that they can clearly see and state from their life perspective because it is a hot button moment where we’re just doing this is automatically going to create value for the brands. It’s really important to make sure that the value creation for the person is there. Mike O’Bryan10:32And then the fourth being the culture piece, organizational culture. That young people or not just young, but vulnerable populations are meaningful and uniquely included and considered in all aspects of the organization’s life and design as it relates to their presence and the programming. And when I think about all this rolling up, there are some theoretical frames that I think are important to share back to this larger committee.Mike O’Bryan11:00And I think therefore, the larger initiative and one of them is on the science of learning because upskilling, reskilling, these are all educational activities. Learning is a byproduct of a very complex memory system, which is to me where the concept of a person and environment theory, the concepts of human development are very, very important, because the memory is a part of a deep physiological need for survival.Mike O’Bryan11:29And it’s connected across all those dimensions of the biological, social, psychological, the meaning-making space. And because of things like stress memory can be very, very faulty. It can be disrupted. When you think about skill recall and skill development, a stressful moment, kids can. I see this with young people all the time, they can practice for an interview and stress will have them be looked like they have never practiced a day in their lives. Speaker 111:57And the things that they know they can not recall in the given moment. Even under-performance in the workplace needs a lens that the science of learning can provide for employers that they have not seen in the past. I just also talked about person and environment, I’m not going to go over that again. Speaker 112:14Belongingness is the other piece that’s really important here and if the goal is to work with populations that have experienced hyper marginalization, hyper vulnerability, ostracization. And the skill sets we’re looking to build in the context of the 21st century and in the face of automation, our core human skills are at the Aspen Institute.Speaker 112:35I’m sure you’ve seen this power skills. These are all skills that have to be built in social settings and in relationships with other people. If people don’t feel like they belong and they’re repelled from the org or repelled from the program, then they’re never going to build those skills. We really have to think about how do we help people feel like they belong in our welcome? How do we minimize the harm that they’ve already experienced it when it relates to ostracization level [inaudible 00:12:58]Speaker 112:59How are we also maximizing healthy opportunities for attachment? Because these skills have to be grown socially, they have to be grown in relationships. Things like just for context, things like communication skills, things like conflict management and conflict resolution. Even aspects of project management, where you have to manage teams. These are all social things. Speaker 113:19That again, resilient in the face of automation, but in the context of who’s facilitating the building of those skills, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia leads to classism. These things get really complex if we don’t start focusing on how do we create environments where people feel like they belong.Speaker 113:36Last piece is around asset framing, which you’ve heard me battle on now for a couple of times. I’m not even going to spend too much time there because I want to get to you now. And I feel like we’ve done a good amount of priming. The first thing I want to ask you is, is there anything that just comes top of mind in response to the things that you’ve heard?Speaker 213:56I don’t think so. I asked for things you just shared. They’re also getting strictly connected having a sense of belonging, feeling safe enough to like… Can you guys hear me okay? Speaker 114:23Sort of. Can you start-Sheila14:25A little bit delayed, Sheila? Do you mind turning your camera off?Speaker 114:28Not at all.Julian14:28Let’s see if that improves a little bit.Speaker 214:31Is this better?Julian14:33 Oh, yeah. Speaker 214:35Really? Oh, my gosh. I’m so sorry.Julian14:37Now let’s do it that way. Okay, cool.Speaker 214:40Okay. I think the short answer is no, it all made a ton of sense. And it gives me like a good, I can breathe a sigh of relief in terms of how we’ve been building Basta. Speaker 314:52Nice. That’s good. You also reflected back to me that I think we’re on the right space with all the things we’re doing and doing in the world. That’s cool. Is there-Speaker 214:59I’m sorry. There is one thing I’d share and I just think this is I geek out on this. We had the very first [inaudible 00:15:19].Mike O’Bryan15:14Hey, we can’t hear you well, Sheila. Speaker 215:23You spent money was on having somebody build a race for us, but I was teaching critical race theory because we felt like it was really important, Mike. I’m just going to dial in. Speaker 315:42Okay.Sheila15:42I was muted.Mike O’Bryan15:42Mike, Julian quickly in reading her cover letter three things popped up. She said that they pressure test their stuff. I’d like to know what that means. They use a rubric. I’d like to know how they actually apply one and how it’s worked. And then the last one is how do they get people to take, all those stakeholders how do they get them to take an asset view? Because it could be in the rubric, but if they’re not actually taking the asset view then.Speaker 316:14Can you guys hear me okay?Speaker 416:16Yep.Sheila16:16Yeah. Can you hear us? Speaker 216:17Yeah. That happens again, Julian. Do you have the, can you email me the actual phone number, conference bridge? Julian16:23Yeah, let me do that right now. Speaker 216:26Okay, cool. And that way I can dial in, if that happens again. Julian16:29Okay.Speaker 216:29The only thing I was saying, Mike was connected to this idea that I think when we first launched [Basta 00:16:36] first place we spent money was having somebody come in and build a race and equity curriculum for us that was steeped in critical race theory. Because we felt like we have to make these systems visible and we have to show their history as a way to not to minimize the young person’s experience, but to show them that not only are there others that are experiencing this, there are very specific reasons steeped in history that we can point to for why they feel the way they do.Speaker 217:08And all of that kind of comes together. The sense of belonging, the systemic marginalization, the fact that there are others that have experienced what you’ve experienced. It all sort of is interconnected at some level. Speaker 317:22Absolutely. Thank you for doing that because there are a lot of orgs that do not take that step, I appreciate that a lot.Speaker 217:29Very Boston fellow has heard of Kimberlé Crenshaw.Speaker 117:34Nice. I have a question for you as a follow-up. How do you define vulnerability and vulnerable populations?Speaker 217:40In the context Basta or how would I just define that term more broadly?Speaker 117:52I’m interested in both actually, if you could. I think we need you to call in.Sheila18:05Yeah, sheila. I just sent you the, I sent you the phone number just now.Speaker 118:10For this specific [inaudible 00:18:12]. Okay, bye. Julian18:16Bye. Rob, I liked all your questions. I think they would all be super insightful to get to before the end of the call.Speaker 218:36What was the, can you say them again because I think they could be interwoven. We don’t have to go through all these to get to this. You’re on mute.Julian18:47Dummy. I pulled out some stuff from her cover letter. One was they take a rubric based approach and they pressure test their stuff.