UNCONDITIONAL EDUCATION
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • Our Model
    • Our Leadership Team
    • Press
    • Contact Us
  • News + Resources
    • News You Can Use
    • Resources
  • Unconditional Education Book

Welcome

​Please scroll down to read our Unconditional Education blog posts.

​You can click the button below to learn more about our Unconditional Education and School Based Services!

OUR UE MODEL AND SERVICES

WA State's Cross Coordination of Supports Team (CrossCOST)

6/21/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
My name's Emily Dunk and I'm a Behavior Intervention Specialist with the CrossCOST Program in Seattle, WA. But before I tell you more about our program, I'm going to start this blog post the same way many of our program meetings start off - by talking about good food and drinks 😊

Picture
Recently I had gone to one of those fancy pants restaurants where they do wine pairings with your order. This was the first time I had been to one and originally, I did not want wine with my dinner because I had not found one before that I truly liked. The waiter asked me if I would be open to trying something and offered to help me figure out which one would be best. They even went as far as to say that I would not be charged for the wine if I did not end up liking it. I agreed, the waiter brought out my pairing, and I LOVED it.

It was such a great experience that later that week I went out to dinner again and I very confidently sat down, opened the wine menu, and was ready for another amazing wine experience. The waiter came over and asked what kind of wine I liked and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what I had with my last meal! I tried to describe it but all I could come up with was "red" and "very tasty." The waiter began to ask questions to see if they could figure it out. They asked what food I was eating with it and more. Was it sweet? What protein did I have? Tannins, full-bodied... Do these words sound familiar? They took the time to work with me and be curious about what I was looking for. We came to a decision and they brought out a delicious red that, once again, went perfectly with my meal.   

Picture
​I like to think that CrossCOST is like the waiter in this story. Not knowing where to start in asking for what you need is frustrating. Whether it's about learning vocabulary that is highly specific to other fields or being so close to a problem that it's almost impossible to step back to see solutions, most of us just need a little extra support sometimes. Without the waiter’s patience and curiosity, I would be stuck thinking that there isn’t a wine out there for me, or maybe worse, continue to pay for and order wines that I don't enjoy!  We strive to provide that same patience and curiosity to the schools we partner with to consult around behavioral, clinical, and school systems needs to coordinate the right kind of support. 

Picture
A great example of this was when CrossCOST received a request from a school that wanted a school-wide training in Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS).  This school faced a number of challenges: high staff turnover, numerous leadership transitions, disproportionately high academic, behavioral, and SEL student needs... all while taking on virtual learning in the middle of a pandemic. Our team leader, Katrina, met with the school’s admin to get a better idea of what they were looking for. With Katrina’s amazing strengths in communication and relationship building, she was able to see the school’s needs extended beyond just training staff in MTSS.  Just like our students, when we are escalated or in crisis, it’s not always clear what we need to make things feel better. 

Picture
​Acknowledging that the school could really benefit from centering self-care first, and also wanting to meet the initial request, we decided to do both!  Our MTSS of Self-Care training not only taught the model of tiered intervention, associated language of MTSS, and the basics of behavioral intervention, but did so through the lens of staff wellness.  We provided a framework for thinking about self-care as a tiered model of support, giving tools to each staff member for recognizing their behaviors through their escalation of burnout, and identifying interventions at each tier. Staff reported feeling better equipped to care for themselves, and in doing so, increased their understanding of how to support their students through escalation too.

Picture
Sometimes it feels like progress comes at the expense of our own wellness. Often, it feels like working to shift systems to be more equitable, inclusive, and healing centered competes with a school’s academic and results-based goals. We're here to flip that narrative. By centering Unconditional Education (UE), we not only help schools meet their goals, but balance offering support with challenging existing systems. This allows us to impact lasting change within our school communities.  We like to call this process, “sprinkling the UE fairy dust.” ​

So what is CrossCOST? In formal terms, we are a team of behavioral, clinical, and school-systems minded specialists who coordinate services to support schools with UE as our philosophy of change.  And in informal terms, we’re just your friendly neighborhood waiters. So, what’ll it be? A glass of red or white? 😉

Picture
Blog Post Written By: Emily Dunk, Behavior Intervention Specialist
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Authors:

    School Program Partnerships

    We're Hiring!

    Interested in joining our School Program Partnerships' Team​? Check out our open positions below!
    Teachers
    School Therapists
    Classroom Counselors

    Categories:

    All
    Academic Strand Updates
    All In! Snapshots
    Behavioral Strand Updates
    Clinical Strand Updates
    Program Highlights
    School Highlights
    Staff Guest Posts
    Staff Highlights

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.