Volunteering at the Special Olympics

On Tuesday February 25th, seven Chrysalis students journeyed south from Eureka to Whitefish Mountain Ski Resort, but not for a day of hitting the slopes.  Instead of skis, snowboards, helmets and goggles, they arrived with noise makers, flowery leis, silly hats and giddy personalities as we volunteered to help out with the 16th Annual Montana Winter Special Olympics.  Excited athletes took on the freezing temperatures as they snowshoed, cross-country skied, downhill skied, and snowboard their way towards gold medals.  

After arriving and a quick lesson on how we were to run the medals ceremony, we joined the athletes at the Closing Ceremony for music, celebration, and hugs before the races began.  

Some of our students cheered on racers and then helped the athletes line up on the podiums, while other students brought forward the medals on silver trays to be placed on the winners.  Though a bit apprehensive at first, everyone who was volunteering soon got into a good rhythm. By the end there were smiles and laughter from our students almost as bright and loud as the athletes.  

This is the sixth Special Olympics I have been part of with Chrysalis, and every year has been a lot of fun.  This year was no different, and I am proud of the students who came with to volunteer.  They all did a great job, had a good time, and helped make great memories for the Special Olympians who competed this year.

-Ken Kudick, Program Specialist and Service Coordinator

Student Qualifies for STATE Poetry Out Loud Contest!

The following article was written by one of our English teachers after last week's Montana High School Regionals Poetry Out Loud Contest.

I think I should have worn velcro on the seat of my pants last night… it certainly would have made it easier to stay seated after hearing our school champion recite her first poem at the Montana Regionals Poetry Out Loud competition.

As I type, I am so elated from last night’s success that I need to remember to take a deep breath and begin at the beginning.

Chrysalis School participated in Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest, this year. Students select poems from either the print or online anthology to memorize and recite without costumes, props, or other major theatrics. The goal is for students to fully understand the poem they recite, and then use their presentation to channel the essence of that poem. Successful recitations include appropriate cadence, intonation, posture, stance, and a few carefully selected gestures to enhance meaning and convey the emotion(s) from the poem. Students are judged in several categories, including physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, level of complexity, evidence of understanding, and overall performance.

The journey began in November, when each girl at Chrysalis selected a poem and began memorizing. Students were encouraged to select a poem that spoke to them, a poem that held a special meaning that they would want to hold in their hearts for the rest of their lives. They had five weeks to prepare their poems, and when it finally came time to perform them, their hard work paid off. We heard poems such as “We Wear the Mask,” “Harlem,” and  “To the Desert” in the December 19th classroom competition. Each English class produced a champion for their grade and these champions moved on to the school-wide competition.

Our four classroom champs faced off on January 23rd, which proved to be a fun evening filled with poetry and music. For this round, girls needed to have two poems rehearsed. After performing their first poem, we had a brief musical intermission for other girls to showcase their talents (and to allow the judges to begin tallying scores). We are extremely lucky to have so many girls with diverse talents here, and I’m glad to work in an environment where they feel safe enough to share those talents in front of a large group. After the second round of poems, one contestant emerged as the school-wide winner and we all celebrated the evening with scones, muffins, and apple cider provided by our Freshman/Junior English teacher.

Our school champ spent the following two and a half weeks poring over poetry, surgically tearing it apart, stitching it back together, and wringing every last drop of emotion out of the selection she’d bring to regionals, and she wasn’t working alone. The Poetry Out Loud Montana State Champion from a few years ago is now living in town and came out to help coach our girl on her road to success.

I was lucky enough to take our school-wide winner to regionals in Missoula just last night. The velcro-bottomed pants is only a slight exaggeration; while I managed to stay in my seat, it required an exorbitant amount of willpower. The poems went smoothly and our student reported feeling very pleased with her performance before the winners were announced, so whether she advanced to state or not, she was going to be making the drive home with a smile on her face.

We huddled together as they announced the seven finalists who would be advancing to state… and squealed with joy when our Chrysalis girl was announced!

I cannot express how elated I am that Chrysalis participated in Poetry Out Loud this year. All of our girls can carry a meaningful poem with them for the rest of their lives, a mantra to soothe them in times of turmoil or an incantation to bring a smile in times of joy. As a therapeutic school, many of our girls realize how powerful a tool poetry can be. I’m also so proud that we have proven that our girls are smart enough, diligent enough, and mature enough to compete on a state-wide level. I’d like to send out a very heartfelt thanks to all of the staff at Chrysalis and families at home for encouraging our girls to be the best they can be in all areas of their lives, for it’s this excellent support network that makes our girls so successful.

Using Mindfulness to Slow Down and Make Different Choices

Many of the students who come to Chrysalis present with anxiety, depression, impulsivity, emotional regulation issues, and difficulty distinguishing between thoughts and emotions.  Mindfulness practices teach students to begin to slow down their busy minds, see the difference between thoughts and emotions, and pause before reacting impulsively to those thoughts and emotions.  The concept of mindfulness originated in Eastern thought and has been translated into Western Psychology as a way to focus one’s attention on the present moment, see unhealthy habitual patterns, and respond in new, healthy ways.  The specific goals are to decrease unhealthy behaviors such as interpersonal chaos and confusion about the self and to increase behaviors related to interpersonal effectiveness, emotional regulation, and distress tolerance.  Mindfulness and awareness of one’s own process, patterns, and habits is a key foundation for making these positive behavioral changes.

At Chrysalis, we teach students mindfulness skills to self-regulate attention on the immediate thoughts and feelings that they experience, which promotes increased awareness of how the mind works in the present moment.  Often students are caught in worrying and/or fantasizing about the future; anger and/or shame about the past; and are so unaware of their thoughts and feelings in the moment that they act habitually and continue to act out old, unhealthy patterns. 

When we talk about this with students we often frame it as working on auto-pilot without really slowing down to make a choice about how to handle a particular situation.  Students are encouraged to try to view their present moment experience with curiosity, non-judgmental stance, openness, and acceptance.  The idea is that by promoting curiosity and non-judgment, one is able to slow down and recognize habitual patterns without shutting down or acting out.  In turn, one is then able to think about possible outcomes and respond to situations in new rather than habitual ways. 

Natasha Gregg, MA

Winter Activities and Bloomsday Training

It's been a snow filled week here in Eureka, Montana. Chrysalis students are staying cozy and enjoying the fresh snow on the weekends. A group of students are headed to a Forest Service Cabin for a leadership retreat this weekend. Take a look here at why we do leadership retreats.

In other news, the annual Bloomsday 12K training is in full swing! We had twenty-one (!) students show interest in participating in the race this year. Many of these girls have never run a road race before. They will train at morning work out over the next few months, which is also student's PE credit. For the more serious runners in the group, a few girls hope to join the "Sub-One Hour Club" - students who have run the 12K (7.46 miles) race in under an hour.

What are you up to this first week of February? It's still winter here, but we're ok with that because there are numerous opportunities for growth and fun in northwest Montana all year long.

Celebrating One Year with InnerChange!

At this time last year, Chrysalis was preparing to announce our exciting partnership with InnerChange. The final logistics were complete, and it was only a matter of making it official. As of January 1, 2013, Chrysalis has been been a proud InnerChange partner.

InnerChange is a partner organization that serves mental health professionals, providing clinical and operational support to help them aid struggling families. 

We are happy to learn from their expertise and to collaborate with other professionals. Many people ask us how Chrysalis has changed because of InnerChange, and the answer is rather simple: we provide the same care to students in a warm and nurturing environment that we have for 15 years. On a program level, not much has changed. The main program change is that we now go on two international service trips a year, and every Chrysalis student will go on one international trip during her time here! InnerChange thought that our international service trips were a wonderful opportunity for our students and families, so they encouraged us to do more trips. So we are! We are also in the process of creating a formal alumni program. It has been great to begin to connect more regularly with alumni and to hear the wonderful things they are doing now.

The other changes are more staff focused. Our staff are able to travel more, engaging with other clinicians in the field. Our staff are able to learn from staff at other InnerChange partnership programs. We will be updating our website and utilizing social media more to be in contact with prospective, current, and alumni families. There are even better staff benefits as a result of being a part of a larger group of people that are serving families. 

In short, we are pleased and thankful to be working with InnerChange, and we look forward to our continued partnership as we enter 2014.

Learning from International Travel

Chrysalis has invested heavily in international travel with students over the past 15 years. I must confess that a part of the motivation to do this, originally, was selfish. Mary and I love to travel, and moving around the planet to explore different cultures and see beautiful places was gratifying to us. That being said, it's also entirely true that we felt strongly that this global exploration and exposure would be the best possible education for our students. Too many kids in our dominant American cultures have no real understanding of, or appreciation for, the people and places beyond our borders. If we're going to be good citizens of planet Earth, it seems critical to journey abroad whenever possible to learn how the rest of our planet's inhabitants socialize, work, play, eat, learn, and live. True cultural exploration, beyond the typical tourist haunts, can shape a kid's future in ways that would never be possible in our classrooms in Montana. Some things just need to be seen, heard, or touched in person, with one's own eyes, ears, and hands. Several examples come to mind as I write this: towering pyramids, vast canyons or thundering waterfalls, classic works of art, mysterious sites of ancient and vanished cultures, great tropical reefs full of amazing marine life, African tribes, the Sahara, Kilimanjaro. The list goes on and on. There really is no substitute for being there.

And then there is service. Nothing in our human experience brings one's own life into focus, and cuts through narcissism, like good old-fashioned service work. Our students often begin a service experience wondering why in the world they would want to do something difficult for someone else, for no remuneration, and no promise that the recipients would ever do something for them in return. Then, slowly but surely, across the process, they begin to understand that even though the service project may be ostensibly and directly for someone else, the real reward comes back to us, the giver. When we've traveled to foreign countries and done a variety of service projects (we've cleaned, painted, built structures, cared for orphans, taught younger students, picked up trash, developed gardens, created fresh water systems or sanitation, and delivered food and clothing among other things) everyone in the equation benefits, but the service provider leaves with the greatest prize of all. Our hearts are full and our bags are lighter on the way home. There's nothing like it, and no one can steal from us the sense of honor, blessing, and accomplishment that comes from doing something wonderfully important for someone else. It lives in our hearts.

Cultural immersion, education, adventure, service. These are the building blocks of our international travel experience. When we do it right, in a moment of absolute clarity, students seem to find themselves completely open to self-discovery and some universal truths. They realize for the first time that many of the poor, impoverished people of the world are much happier and more content than relatively wealthy American youth. They say something like, "I've got everything that my parent's money can buy, but I'm depressed and anxious; these people have almost nothing, relatively speaking, but they're bright and smiling. There's something wrong with this picture, and there's something important here that I need to learn." Amen to that. That's what makes international travel so important, so brilliant, and so worth the cost. That's why we plan and execute two international trips a year. And that's why, starting this year, every student at Chrysalis is able to choose to participate in one included international trip during her enrollment (and pay extra for others if they choose.)

International travel is life changing. We're never the same after we return. The people we help along the way appreciate it forever, and the world becomes a better place to live as a result. It's hard to beat that chain of events. I'm hoping, by this time next year that we've successfully collaborated with other InnerChange programs to build a school building in Zambia. We'll do a floating safari in canoes on the river while we're there. Won't that be something?

To find out more about our international service trips, please visit http://www.chrysalisschoolmontana.com or call us at 888-317-9297. 

By: Kenny Pannell, Executive Director 

Utilizing EMDR at Chrysalis

EMDR is a treatment modality typically used with people who are suffering from symptoms of traumatic events that happened in their history, and which continue to beleaguer their current lives. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and works with the brain hemispheres to reprocess life events that have become caught or stuck in the person's memory in a dysfunctional, maladaptive way. Typically, when we experience an event in our lives, it gets stored in our memory in a way that, when we recall it, it is simply a picture from a story book that doesn't contain all the same sensory experiences we may have had at the time of the event. When we experience an event in our lives that is traumatic, however, the memory of it can get stuck with all the original images, thoughts/beliefs, sounds and physical sensations that happened at the time of the event. When this happens, it means that the brain hasn't processed the memory properly so that the person can move on with their life without being haunted by the event. The common example here is the war veteran who hears a car door slam while walking down the street, confuses that sound with a gun shot or bomb, and is suddenly triggered back to a battle scene during their service in the war; they become ridden with panic and fear and the inability to stay attuned to the present moment.  

EMDR originated decades ago and was used with soldiers coming back from war. What we've learned about the treatment since then, however, is that it works for those suffering from major trauma or what we refer to as "big 'T' trauma", as well as minor trauma or what we refer to as "small 't' trauma". A person does not have to have undergone an obviously traumatic event to benefit from EMDR. It has been used in family therapy, addictions treatment, for people with eating disorders, and with various other clinical issues whose roots are found in upsetting or traumatic life events that are causing problems in the person's current life. The goal of EMDR is to take the traumatic event and transform it into a historical memory by means of desensitizing the upsetting experiences associated with the memory, and reprocessing the negative belief connected to it. By engaging in this process, the person may be free of the post-event distress that occurred at the time of the event.

EMDR has been shown to work with a large number of people but is not successful for everyone. Some of the students who have participated in this treatment describe the process like a fast-moving train, where many thoughts, images, and physical sensations happen in quick succession of one another. Those thoughts, images and sensations are described as seemingly unrelated yet connected to the event somehow. The human brain is complex and capable of networking many criterions to any given event, like the smell of mustard while eating a hotdog at the ballpark--the smell of mustard may later cause a person to remember a time they were at a ballpark. Similarly, during the EMDR process, the brain recalls many associated factors of the event and begins reorganizing them in order for the event to become more functional and not upsetting or triggering. What's wonderful about EMDR is that we don't have to know exactly why or how all of the associations are networked the way that they are, as long as the memory becomes increasingly adaptive, functional, and absent of distressing material. At the end of a 90-minute session, clients often refer to the formerly distressing event as "just a picture, now" or "just something that happened that I'm not chained to anymore". This is a treatment approach that many clinicians find useful to add to their tool box when an issue occurs that can't seem to "un-stick" itself with some of the more traditional methods used in standard practice. It is a tremendously effective and powerful intervention with which many people who seek mental health services have found success; they come to live with a greater sense of ease and freedom from events that formerly kept them from happy lives and healthy relationships.

To find out more about how EMDR is used in treatment at Chrysalis, or how EMDR may benefit your daughter, contact us at 888-317-9297 or visit chrysalisschoolmontana.com.

By: Haley Kliefoth,  MA, LCPC, NCC