Trauma-Informed Healthcare with Ebony Williams
Trauma-informed care belongs everywhere but it especially belongs in healthcare. Not only should it be expectation but the standard of care. So what does that look like in practice? In this week's episode of A Trauma-Informed Future podcast, host Katie Kurtz is in conversation with health equity activist and health informatics professional, Ebony Williams. Ebony shares her lived and learned experiences as a person living with a chronic illness as well as a wellness coach and patient advocate and why she is so passionate about inclusive and equitable healthcare. This is the start of an ongoing conversation about delving into the many reasons why trauma-informed care is essential within our healthcare systems.
Learn more about Ebony:
Ebony is a health equity activist, health informatics professional, wellness coach, and patient advocate passionate about inclusive and equitable healthcare.
Because of her own lived experience and difficulties with navigating the healthcare system as a patient with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune thyroid disease, and supporting her family members as a patient care advocate, Ebony has first-hand experience with the harms of discrimination, stereotyping, and bias in the healthcare system. She is energized by equipping clinicians, patients, and caregivers with the knowledge and resources they need to advocate for themselves and promote systemic change.
Ebony is an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins University and the Earl Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota. She works in the IT/ training department at Johns Hopkins Health System. At Johns Hopkins, she has participated in and served on numerous committees and special project groups such as the cultural, spiritual, and linguistics subcommittee, employee support for patient portal sign-ups to provide access to COVID vaccines for hospital staff, supported the university during the transition of using MS Teams to support education for students as a Microsoft Innovative Educator, became a lay Health educator through Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Previously, she worked as an instructional designer/analyst at Mount Sinai Health System.
She hosts the Thyroid Warrior Podcast, sharing stories of managing Hashimoto's Disease to offer listeners tools, tips, and strategies. She is also focused on wellness through her work with aromatherapy, personal training, herbalism, and nutrition coaching with the community outside of her work at Johns Hopkins. She is the chair of the AIP BIPOC Community, which is focused on supporting others with autoimmune conditions.
Ebony is pursuing a doctorate in health administration specializing in health policy and advocacy at Capella University. She holds a master of science degree in health informatics administration from the University of Maryland University College, a bachelor of arts degree in exercise physiology from Mount Holyoke College, a certificate in management from City University of New York, and a certificate in women’s entrepreneurship from Cornell University. Ebony also has several certifications in holistic nutrition, wellness coaching, personal training, and aromatherapy, along with numerous certifications in project management, health information, and electronic medical records administration.
Ebony owns and operates an aromatherapy business called Soula Beauty Company, a women’s thyroid health coach, and hosts a podcast called Thyroid Warrior. She enjoys cooking, painting, foraging, reading, exercising, and watching movies in her free time.
Connect with Ebony:
Websites: https://soulabeautyco.com
https://www.joyfulebony.com
https://www.clovehealth.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soulabeautyco/
https://www.instagram.com/joyfulebony/
https://www.instagram.com/thyroidwarriorpodcastPodcast: Thyroid Warrior Podcast
https://thyroidwarrior.libsyn.com/Free Gift: joyfulebony.com/advocacy
Health Journal on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Health-Journal-Write-Down-Experiences/dp/B09PP8VXGK
Show Transcript:
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Hi everyone and welcome back to A Trauma-Informed Future Podcast I am delighted to be in conversation with Ebony Williams. Hello. Hello. I know we are going to delve deep into some really good topics today. And so before we get started, can you just introduce yourself? How you're arriving to the space today?
Ebony Williams (she/her): Hello. My name is Ebony. I was arriving with a slightly heavy heart as today I honor my dad's one year of passing. But now I'm arriving with a lot of joy, a lot of energy and a lot of expectation because I'm learning and realizing that this is something I enjoy and want to do and cultivate more of.
So hello. Hello.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Thanks, Ebony. We're going to dedicate this to your dad, Harry who believes in you and your dreams and cheering from you from all angles. So Ebony, tell us a little bit about your [00:01:00] background and the work you do in the world.
Ebony Williams (she/her): Ooh, I like to describe myself as a bundle of fire namely because I like asking the hard questions.
from a personal perspective of being a cute little rambunctious girl from the east side of detroit to studying exercise physiology to getting my master's degree in health administration and now my doctorate i'm working on it in health administration with a focus on policy and advocacy because it's a mess out there folks and As someone who has Hashimoto's disease, I have been just exploring what it looks like to live well with a chronic condition.
And also being a personal trainer, a holistic nutrition coach, and an aromatherapist. I love being able to pull all of those modalities together to really support myself and my clients. When I'm not doing that, [00:02:00] I love to play with animals, specifically dogs.
I have pictures of the ones that I dog sit. I will probably send those to you.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Please do. Please do. Thank you.
Ebony Williams (she/her): And I spend time like talking to animals outside and foraging and learning about mushrooms and playing in dirt. It's the best thing ever. So that's me.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): I love that, Ebony. I keep joking, but not really joking of The world is on fire and I'm like, maybe I just go to the woods and become a mushroom forager. I've never done that. I wouldn't know how to, but that sounds very ideal right now. And also give me all the dogs, all the time. If my dogs weren't so loud, they would be here with me, but they're very loud and noisy. Thank you for that introduction. I think it's a really beautiful segue . Let's dive into it.
You bring such a unique perspective in that you have such rich lived and learned experiences. Especially as someone living with a chronic illness, and I think that this is a topic [00:03:00] I talk a lot about when I'm in active training or working with individuals or within healthcare, but I don't talk about it a lot as much in the public sphere, like social media and stuff, because there's so much to talk about and so little time.
But I would love to hear your perspective on the intersection of trauma and chronic illness because I think when we talk about trauma and trauma informed care, we do ourselves a huge disservice by not talking and naming about medical trauma and the rampant nature of it and the pervasive nature of it, and the possibility and availability to prevent a lot of it.
It's a loaded question but what do you have to say about it? Let's talk about the intersection of trauma and chronic illness.
Ebony Williams (she/her): I'm ready. Tag me in coach.
It's so pervasive. And even learning from you and your training about [00:04:00] how trauma, in my words of how to describe it can be anything that upsets our nervous system and how we interact and engage with the world. And what I have learned is so many people don't realize how dramatic it is to just walk out your front door.
And I find that as a person that has a chronic illness and as a Black woman that interfaces with the medical world as a woman. As a human, as a person, a little thing, for example, of when you walk into a clinic and the first thing you see is your front desk staff, for example, and they may not know to ask for your preferred name or your pronouns or as. someone who also wants children, but it didn't happen [00:05:00] when I thought it would, going into my GYN office, having to sit and be in the same room with women who are either pregnant or have had their children.
And it's something that I long for, but, or I couldn't even imagine what it's like for someone who has lost a child, for example and not being supported. In that way to when I found a lump in my breast, we're told, check your breasts, go to the doctor if you feel something, and then only to go to the doctor and be told, Oh, it's nothing.
So now you're gaslighting me too. Or when I push the doctor to examine my breast, she finally finds the lump. I have to go to the breast cancer center to get my ultrasound. That was jarring because in my mind I'm like, oh gosh, do So I have cancer now? Like, what?[00:06:00]
What? To not having doctors explain what's going on while they're doing a procedure to, from an after visit summary perspective, not knowing. that as a provider, you can curate what to say on said thing. And most people don't to saying, Hey, I have a very healthy relationship with food. These are the things I do to take care of myself only to look at my patient portal.
And Because of the 21st century cures that you can now see your doctor notes or your provider notes to look through it and you know, they have a template and they're like, I counseled the patient on eating four to five servings of fruits and vegetables, lowering their saturated family. Did you hear anything?
I said, so all of that to say, there are so many ways. where [00:07:00] someone with a chronic illness can experience trauma, not to mention what happens with your family when you don't visibly show the signs of said item, not to mention friends who think that again, because you don't show physical symptoms of said condition or what they think Sick quote unquote looks like you're often ridiculed and isolated and made to think that you just don't want to go out and you should say that I'm like, no, actually, yesterday, I really did want to go out and today I can't feel my legs.
So it's really a lot there. What else shall we unpacked with it?
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Taking a deep breath because it is a lot. And I think it's so layered and you touched upon this. But only the very, very tip of the iceberg is that there's a lot of compounded factors to trauma and healthcare and health and medical settings [00:08:00] especially within a system that has historically been not just unsafe, which is ironic in its purpose, but has intentionally harmed groups of people.
Black women, especially and then it is a place where oftentimes we have to unknowingly and just fully trust people to care for us. When you go call 911 or you're in the emergency room, we don't have time to get to know who our provider is. It's just here's the thing, stitch up, go to surgery, whatever it is.
And, Then you add the layer of capitalism inside of healthcare, which is another fun thing to explore is then you have, 15 minute doctor's appointments. There's this unnecessary urgency baked into how we deliver care and the pressure of insurance and all of that. And the sorely lacking education that is infused around trauma, trauma informed care, [00:09:00] which is almost non existent in most med schools and nursing schools and even social work and counseling, but then even like mental health and the whole array of things chronic illness disabilities, all the things. So many factors, right? Like I think I just created a whole new podcast just in that. Two sentences, but I really appreciate how you went from so many different scenarios of, just, stepping outside of your home to having an invisible illness that If you can't see it, it doesn't exist.
Like, what is that, first of all? And then, going into different scenarios, whether it's just a PCP appointment, primary care appointment, or discovering something on your own, and then having to go through one thing it's just, ugh, the system is so, Fucked. Now I'm getting a little fiery.
But, Ebony I'm curious if we can talk a little bit about the realities of, cause trauma can be [00:10:00] invisible too. , it's not always something that we can like, see on people. And with chronic illnesses, , many are also just not, on full display. But I keep coming back to this thing you first said about stepping outside our homes.
And this is something I've been thinking with, so I'm throwing a little curveball here. But are we ever fully safe in healthcare? Do you think we can ever feel fully safe within the healthcare system?
Ebony Williams (she/her): If it continues along the path that it is right now, no.
One of the things that I have learned As I have done a lot with the pandemic and being a support person to our medical staff, one thing that we also forget is they're people too, and they have experienced an immense amount of trauma. They go through [00:11:00] a day in and day out. And even when I think back to being in the hospital this time last year with my dad, there were literally three patients that coded at the same time.
Ebony Williams (she/her): And I'm hearing all the commotion going on. And I can't even imagine. What's happening with their bodies. I saw a video the other day of a doctor that was late dropping off her kid, and she said something along the lines of if I actually told you what happened. You would understand why I'm late.
And she went on to describe her shift. She was an ER physician and she tried to deliver a baby, but it didn't go well. And then as she was leaving, another family was yelling and screaming and then she got home to hug her children, try to shower, but couldn't really was crying on the way and. Until we [00:12:00] collectively, and I also recognize that our society does a really crappy job at community care, but until we take time to sit still for a second.
And recognize I can have all the data in the world. We keep doing research that shows the elevated ACE scores and what happens with trauma and autoimmunity and trauma and PTSD and all the things. When are we going to do something about it? I don't need to see any more statistics to know that I'm going to have an increased risk of fetal mortality because I'm a Black woman.
That's it. I know that. What are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about all of the isms? If, when I was working in the clinics, and we were helping people decide whether or not they wanted to get vaccinated or not,
we have people that were English wasn't their first [00:13:00] language, or they needed an accommodation. And people were looking at me, don't talk to the person, they are completely capable of understanding what you're saying, or if English isn't their first language, the louder you speak, that doesn't mean that they're going to hear you.
Okay. We have these policies in place that say, if you have a placard, and you recognize that the patient doesn't speak English. They can literally point to their preferred language and we are to get an interpreter service and make that available to them. If you realize that within the first few minutes, why is that so hard to support that person in order to take care of them?
So, the first pass is no.
If we really wanted to do something, we would have to work through all that. Rubbish.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Yeah, I'm so glad [00:14:00] you brought up the point of people within the medical profession physicians, et cetera allied profession sourcing are human too and I think a lot of the work I've done over the last four years specifically in the pandemic has been holding space for healthcare providers and reminding them they're human first and hearing stories and the conditioning and the education provided of the desensitization of the trauma they're witnessing and the medical complexities, which I understand and hold the nuance that like, that's, there's a necessary component in order to focus on the care.
And also what is that doing inside to people? Because it's just creating moral injury and burnout, which we know we have the data. We know it's an issue. We're worried about the workforce. But are we really? And I'm really excited to talk to you about health admin because we need folks like you who understand this [00:15:00] more comprehensive approach and the need for trauma informed care in health care.
It should be the standard of care, not just something that's nice. And I would say the last 15 years of all the industries I've worked in, healthcare has been the most prominent. I still do a lot of work within healthcare in a variety of settings, and I do a lot of training with healthcare providers.
It's this double-edged sword. So we know that we're working within a system, and when I say oh no we're kind of fucked or this isn't safe.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Like it's not the people, it's the system. And we have to look at the different levels. That this is a bigger healthcare system that's influenced by policy, that's influenced by so many different insurance, all the isms, as you will. And then we have the people in it. And I know because I work with them every day that there's champions.
And I know, there are these amazing people who often go unnamed, who usually aren't sitting at the highest level of whatever corner office there [00:16:00] is. that are really doing incredible human centered work, and they're so in the work that we don't get to see them elevated to positions of power that can influence change.
But I'd love to hear your perspective on this too, is in the many years I've done this work and talking about trauma informed care and wanting to elevate it so it's just integrated into the way we deliver care because we also know that when trauma informed care is delivered in a health care setting, it impacts the return on investment, patient experience, provider experience, outcomes, all those big little terms we love to use in C suites. But we don't do it because it's a culture change and we don't like culture change. And so I want to honor and I appreciate you talking about and honoring The and both that it's we have these system issues. It's going to take a while to change a system because it's a long game like everything else.
But also we have the power to shift and that there are things we can do to shift. And [00:17:00] so I'd love to hear your perspective on that. Are you starting to see any shifts? What's getting you excited?
Ebony Williams (she/her): Yes. So many things. Okay, couple examples. One is I sit on a brain trust of different healthcare organizations across the country with the medical record software that I work with. And. They are really and truly taking in the data from a technology side more so to understand, okay, how do we appropriately classify people based upon their racial and ethnic makeup? What do they want to do? What makes them feel good? What's most appropriate for them? How do we look at the test results that are typically. very harmful for groups of people. How do we look at that and say, you know what, GFR? [00:18:00] Do we that's kind of racist when it started, do we really want to continue to look at that? BMI again do we really want to continue to use that metric as a way to take care of our patients when we talk about patient portals?
They recognize that English is usually the primary thing that they send out to patients. But again, if English isn't that person's first language, what are we doing about that? So they're working on adding more languages to support the patient population when we have different people who are impacted by various social determinants of health (SDOH).
Yes, we can use the S. D. O. H. will. But what is that doing? It doesn't automatically generate a referral. So how can we support our social work staff and [00:19:00] communicating with them and helping out the patient to make sure they get those resources? So there are some things that are happening. I can say for me at my job, we are looking at sexual orientation and gender identity in terms of how do we appropriately ask for that information?
Because we know that can be a very sensitive subject. So how do we make sure our patients and our staff members feel confident and comfortable when we are trying to get that information? When they're in the hospital, when they have their bedside app, how are we making sure we know what the patient's preferred name is?
And when it comes to even showing the care team, if we have Let's say a trans staff member based upon, geographically for us in Maryland and in Virginia, you can legally change that, whereas in D. C. you can't. So how do we make sure that our staff feel safe and that they don't get [00:20:00] inappropriately questioned when they're providing care?
I get to teach at the university of Minnesota. And one of the things I'm doing is exploring diversity, equity, and inclusion in the health and wellness space. And I've been talking to the students about. Well, what does accessibility look like? What does inclusion look like when you're creating your intake forums for your clients?
How do you make sure that it's not too overwhelming for them? How do you make sure that you're giving them a full picture and expectations of how to support them? Are you implementing sliding scale opportunities for people? Are you allowing them to ease into having conversations with them? When you're functioning in your scope of practice. What does that look like? What does that mean? And when you know that a patient just steps right outside your scope of practice, what is your process to [00:21:00] give them that referral to receive the care that they need without isolating them? Because if you're not, let's say a mental health professional and your client is starting to exhibit any symptom of any condition. It's not up to you to determine whether or not that person should continue to talk to you because you can cause more harm. So it's been exploring a lot of those things from a administration perspective to a coaching perspective, and that part excites me.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): I'm so glad you're excited. I have two things from that because I know we just like dove right into this conversation But I'm curious if you'd be open to sharing a little bit of shared language around SDOH, the social determinants of health or social influences of health. very familiar with that But people listening may not be familiar and I know we have a lot of folks who are in health and wellness So but all of us access health care and wellness in some ways.
So I'm curious if you wouldn't mind [00:22:00] just giving us a little bit of a mini breakdown of what that is and why it's so important when we talk about trauma and trauma informed care.
Ebony Williams (she/her): Yeah. So when we think about social determinants of health, we really want to think about what are those non medical factors that can impact someone's health.
And a lot of people tend to look at the concept of healthism, as if, your health is your responsibility. And if you don't do what you're supposed to do in order to be healthy, you're a terrible person, and of course you're sick. Well, that couldn't be farther from the truth. And as a Real world example of social determinants of health and action because you have your various pillars and such and won't get into that. But let's just say, for example, with my mom, she doesn't have a car. Because of that, she also doesn't live on a consistent bus line. So until we got transportation [00:23:00] services for her, she would either be really, really late to her appointment, or she would miss it. And that would lead to a high no show rate for her.
She would be charged no show fees. When she did get there, no one would take her. Or if she did get there on time, my mother has a heart condition. So she would wait for upwards of an hour to be seen by her doctor. And remember, she has a heart condition and high blood pressure. So she's naturally upset. So by the time she gets back to get her blood pressure done or taken, it's super elevated.
So they then have to make her wait for another 15 minutes or so for her blood pressure to go down for them to take it again. She also has white coat syndrome. So when she gets to the doctor, she's already upset. So they then prescribe her medication for said blood pressure, but then she may not necessarily have [00:24:00] a problem.
And they're like, well, you need to eat better. Okay. Well, guess what? My mom doesn't have access to a grocery store that she can get to easily because remember, she doesn't have a car. So now she can't get those quote unquote fresh foods from the grocery store easily because it's at least a 20 minute drive.
And if she does get the groceries and she takes the bus, how's she going to get on the bus? So that's one of those things where because of where she lives, because she doesn't have transportation because she doesn't have access to the food that she needs in order to help her from that perspective. Oh, and by the way, we weren't really big on telehealth services at the time, and she lived in a broadband desert.
So she couldn't see her therapist via telehealth or her psychiatrist, so she couldn't get the [00:25:00] appropriate medicine that she needed to manage her depression. There you go.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): I appreciate you sharing that example because I think what happens is we move quickly through social determinants of health. Oh, those are those things, you grow up poor, you grow in that neighborhood or whatever, you have this identity, you're born into that, and it's and then, you just. have a lack and it's like, no, that's not the full story. And I always like to talk about when we have these social determinants of health. So things like, access to food. Whether you're in a food desert or just in excess like you said, with your mom it's there. It's just far transportation, adequate, safe, affordable housing, all of these things impact our health. And we know that 80 percent of our health is happening at home in our communities.
Only 20 percent is happening within an actual hospital. But when we look at the root of all of this, what do we find? We [00:26:00] find these adverse community environments, like Dr. Wendy Ellis talks about, of adverse childhood experiences. They don't just happen. We just don't have transportation problems. We just don't have grocery stores, right? They're caused by policies. They're caused by all the isms. And a lot of things are caused by trauma and not just individual trauma, but collective trauma that's induced by the system specifically to intentionally marginalize and harm groups of people.
And I think that it's so important and this is a hot take, but I think anybody in the health and wellness industry that's not within healthcare, so like health coaches, whatever wellness thing you're doing, if you're a body worker, you need to be familiar with the social determinants of health.
It's just like another kind of non negotiable because if you're telling someone how to be healthy, well, first of all what does that mean? Are you looking at the full human before you, and not [00:27:00] just the body, but the systems in which that body exists in? Because if you're not, then you are only delivering half the care they need.
You're not looking at their full humanity, and we exist in social systems, and these systems include the health care, the communities, these government educational systems. faith, all these systems. So we have to be looking at that. So I appreciate you giving us a little bit of shared language and especially that context because I think we jumped to extremes.
I was just like, oh, it's those people, right? We just other because it keeps us within our comfort zone of not wanting to look at the brokenness that these were designed to be. But it's also just around us every day. It's your mom. It's my family. It's all over the place. And it's frustrating because we know. Hearing that story, I'm like, there's four things that could have been easily solved, but no one [00:28:00] to do it. And so when we hear our communities, when we hear our government officials talk about broadband access, Remember, it's not just so everyone can have just the internet and good Wi Fi connection.
It's to access telehealth. It's to be able to access maybe a better phone so they can get a Lyft or Uber service. To communicate when, their access their MyChart, whatever it may be. It's all connected.
Ebony Williams (she/her): I have so many examples of that and I hate to say it, but I still want to share it too, because a lot of people like you're only focused on the quote unquote Black experience because that's your lived experience. I'm like, well, my dad is white and he is also older when he accessed care. My dad had a PhD in economics, but because of him just being this bright, bubbly, friendly person, people look at him and would assume, oh, he's [00:29:00] an older guy. He doesn't really understand. He doesn't really get it. And the way that people would talk to him would infuriate him.
And we were each other's support system. When I got really sick, he was right there with me and vice versa, but they also lived in New Hampshire. So then we add. Rural health and how difficult it is to access services and where he was, Dartmouth was like 45 minutes to an hour away and he's had multiple health events and there were so many times I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I'm not there with him.
Oh, my goodness, that's going to be a lot. And how do we make sure. That he's good to talk about, the school system where they lived, you can literally plop that in Detroit and that the students had the same health outcomes and the same educational outcomes. So I find that when [00:30:00] we, as you said, stop trying to try to other people or stop trying to think that we don't have. Shared experiences that connect us as a community. And if we could just take a deep breath and say, you know what? We might not look the same, but we sure do have a lot of the same issues. I think that would really help us to have more fruitful conversations. And that's something that I always try to get people to recognize.
And I've evolved from that thinking as I've gone out and interact with so many more people and have
inadvertently cause harm. I have learned from those experiences, and I've recognized that we can take a very different approach to talking about how do we support each other and provide better community care.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Yeah, and I think that ties it all back together, right? Because if 80 percent of our health is actually in community, what kind [00:31:00] of care are we giving to ourselves and each other to really amplify and support our health and our well being, not just our physical health, but our emotional health, our mental health, or all the forms of health.
And, it's, oh, Ebony, I'm just sitting here, I'm like, oh, but I want to talk about this, and I want to talk about that, and how many hours will this podcast be? I do want to circle back to a question that I, Really would be curious because you mentioned you teach at the University of Minnesota with the intersection of DEI and wellness. I'm curious your perspective on the intersection between DEI, which is diversity, equity, inclusion, work, and trauma informed care.
Ebony Williams (she/her): Yeah, we have been doing a lot. And I'm not going to lie. I was very scared. Because I have seen what has been happening to DEI programs, classes, things [00:32:00] over the last year or so, and it was something that I had to get over. And it has been such a good experience for me to design the course with a trauma informed care approach and to also walk through real world experiences and scenarios to help the students with trying to figure out, how do I approach this? How do I make sure that I'm honoring my humanity as the person delivering the services or care and. I could just step through how I even designed the course. So first I literally spent months just researching the systems and the experiences of different people, and there are things, even as I sit here, I'm like, Ooh, I want to add this and this, and oh, they will be mad at me because we only got 15 weeks, but. As I [00:33:00] decided upon what readings or what discussion posts, I didn't want it to be quiz heavy, for example, because I know a lot of people struggle with test anxiety. And rather than, hey, I just want this to be yet another thing that you just tick off, or you're just focused on how can I get an A in this class?
I want it to be to encourage conversation, and I wanted to encourage dialogue and 1 of the 1st assignments that I did is I said, hey, I want you all to take a look at the syllabus. And I want you to walk through it. And in your reflection paper, I want you to write it down. You don't have to turn it in, but I want you to write down if there are any topics in this course that you find are going to give you a really hard time. And the reason why I'm asking that is because I know that I'm about to dig up some stuff and bring some stuff to the surface. And I want to make sure that you feel supported in this. And to be honest, [00:34:00] your training that I took came in perfect timing because I used a lot of those principles during our Zoom sessions when we met to really facilitate that.
I should have messaged you actually, because when we had our in person day, we had a nurse practitioner talk about What happens when you have a client that is talking about suicidal ideation and what do you do and how do you support them? I noticed how people started to get really dysregulated. There was one student in particular that I kept my eye on because I was like, Hmm, something's not right here. I went over and I sat down and I whispered to her. I says, is it okay if I touch your shoulder? I whispered to her and I said I'm, I just want to help you from a regulation perspective.
It's okay for you to get up and go out. I need you to take the time that you need in order to feel supported here. [00:35:00] I had another student where we were talking about intergenerational trauma and what does that look like in this space? And this student in particular was like, yep, dropping on my other courses, this class is really triggering for me because we were literally sitting in like a student faculty feedback session. I was like, well, hello, thank you for your honest feedback. And I had to sit back and say, all right. They're sharing how they feel, this is okay, this is fine. But how do I make sure that for those that aren't in our class, that they understand what's going on?
And fortunately I guess by osmosis those lessons had been getting to the students, and she touched my hand and she said, but it's okay, it's welcomed. And I just want everyone to know, I'm not saying that Ebony's class is just this awful experience. Quite the contrary. And what she [00:36:00] said after really just rocked my socks in the best way possible. She pulled me aside and she said I did not realize how triggering this information was going to be for me until I started taking the class. But she said, when you talked about intergenerational trauma, when we had the guest lecture with my friend Tim about trauma informed care and what that looks like and how that can manifest and just exploring all the avenues of it, I fully understand what intergenerational trauma is.
And I'm not dropping your class. And I want to really and truly do the work to understand this because I don't want my kids to go through this. You've given me the ability to talk to my family about things that we've experienced. And I've had issues with things that I didn't even realize my mother had issue with my grandmother had issue with.
And it's just incredible [00:37:00] to me to have had this experience. And I'm not gonna lie. I cried. I sure did. I cried like a little baby. And then once I got myself together, I went to the Dean of Students and I was like, Hey, remember what I said when I was like, I'm really slightly obsessive about making sure people feel safe.
Well, I have a student. She has shared some things about her background and I want to make sure she's supported. How can we partner together to have check in sessions with her to connect her with a mental health professional and to make sure that she feels seen and heard? So it's all of those things and even though from a policy perspective the school says you need to be on camera with Zoom and all the things and I was like, so look I'm gonna break a rule or two or three.
I don't care. Okay. I don't know what your day looked like before we got on this Zoom session. You could be fatigued. You could have had a bad day. [00:38:00] You could be exhausted. You might not even want to be here. All of those things are totally fine. Turn your camera off if you need to. You don't have to participate verbally. Put it in the chat. I'll see it. So all of those things have Been me trying really hard to make my course design trauma informed, accessible. I was obsessed about the videos that I used, even with making sure they had captions on them, with making sure I understood if any of the students needed accommodations.
With one of the sessions, I said I'm looking at the schedule and I see that you all have their assignments due on Sunday. Would it be better? If I did a shortened lecture and I gave you all the rest of the time to work on your paper, would that be okay? They're like, oh, heck yeah, of course. So that was a very long way of answering that question, but that was me really trying to [00:39:00] put into practice those trauma informed care principles and practices.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): And what a beautiful example of that. The thing I love about what you just shared, Ebony, is that you weren't just teaching trauma informed care as an approach or the principles of it within, the context of the curriculum, but you were also demonstrating it and creating an experiential space.
So they were also receiving trauma informed care. And, that's often the thing missing. You can Google your way to trauma informed care. I don't recommend it. There's a lot of courses out there. I get advertised them all the time, become trauma informed in, 10 minutes for 10 or whatever the new thing is.
And there's so many different trauma certifications and things out there. But are we actually teaching and guiding people with the approach as well? Is the actual course designed or the container or the coaching program designed with the approach? Because you can [00:40:00] feel the difference. I also love this example because It's such a great example of how to integrate trauma informed care in academics, especially higher ed where It's this another system, which is a whole other podcast and you're working with young adults and older adults too, depending on where you're working.
But, if you're an undergrad, it's typically folks who are emerging into their autonomy. That's also a wonky, wobbly, squishy time to be teaching and leading and also upholding roles and responsibilities. So I really, thank you for that. I always love being able to share real life examples and to demonstrate The examples you show again, it's not just offering the approach, but also experiencing it is so, so important.
And that's how I teach it. It's you're not just going to learn it. You're going to feel it because that just, intensifies the ability to. understand the [00:41:00] approach.
So I do a lot of work in healthcare. I was recently doing a trauma mindful medicine training because most healthcare providers don't have time. So it's like the big issue, right?
It's like, can you do trauma informed care in 10 minutes during rounds? It's like, No, I don't think I can even say the definition in that amount of time. And so the big issue is we want this, but we don't have the time. So I'm really grateful when I'm invited in and I have time. And I had the opportunity recently to do a trauma mindful training, which is an abbreviated training where I talk about the trauma mindful competency level.
So really that awareness with some tools, like how do we actually put, some tools into action on your day to day. , I think I trained over about 200 folks , which I was like, Oh my God, this is amazing. I'm so happy cause it's tough in healthcare. You take your wins where you can.
I was really excited to hear that a lot of folks, when I, was sharing some of the tools, I always start with language. Language is the easiest thing [00:42:00] we can shift, right? Just rewording how we say things.
It was affirming to a lot of people, and they were using a lot of language, whether it was person centered language, or they were using active listening skills. And I was like, oh, good. Like, we're not all there yet. And I think it depends on your specialty and, where you're at. But I usually lead with language and some other tangible skills.
And I'm curious what you see and what you tend to utilize within your areas when, mirroring and leading trauma informed care out loud to help because we know we have to be those mirrors. We have to model this work in order to help people experience it and also to push it into a place where it can become the expectation, not the exception.
So I know the tools I lean on, but I'm curious what you do, especially because you work in both the intersection of the wellness and healthcare and academia and like everything and administration and all of that. What [00:43:00] are some practical strategies or tools that you think are really important for folks to acquire to begin this practice?
Ebony Williams (she/her): Definitely language. But also, we have to remember us in the process. And when you start that process of working on emotionally regulating yourself and exploring what that looks like, When you have engaged or come across any type of trauma or scenario or issues or what have you, how did you respond to that?
And that has allowed me to be able to utilize those affirmations when I'm talking to someone. Of asking someone when it comes to physical touch. If I'm training someone, I ask. In my intake form. First of all, I tell people I have an intake form and sometimes you might think it's a little long, but I really try to give them the opportunity [00:44:00] to get it in bite size pieces and say, okay, here's the overview.
This is what we're going to talk about. These are some of the questions. I am getting my board certification for health and wellness coaching and I have volunteers to do and I said, okay. Okay. Here's an overview video. Here's a presentation so you can read it. And then, once you're comfortable, then you can schedule your welcome call.
Once you schedule your welcome call, hey, guess what? When it comes to, let's say you have to do your weight and measurement. I said in the video if you have struggled with food or your weight in the past, you do not have to record your weight and you do not have to record your measurements.
If there is another way that you would like to track your progress, please let me know what that is. So that we can work through that. And if you would like a referral to a professional to help you with that, additionally, more than happy to provide that for you. [00:45:00] And those are ways I'm always practicing consent and learning what open body language looks like.
So many people are so used to being judged and not feel seen and not feel heard. So when you actually open yourself up and just relax and you use active listening skills, oh my gosh.
So many things. Those are some examples.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): . Yeah. I love that. There's so many really small shifts. That's the big thing that I always emphasize on here and wherever I'm at is that it's not that complicated. Especially in health care, people are like, oh, this is going to change everything and another initiative.
And it's not really, it's actually a cohesive, it creates cohesion between all of the things. And it doesn't pit, one thing against the other, If you're doing existing work or, compassionate centered or relationship center communications, which I know is coming in provider care, it brings it all together.
It's [00:46:00] again, you're knowing why you're doing it. Why would we want to create eye contact during doctor's appointments? Why would we try to reflect back so we can make sure people understand? Why would we not question people's reality? Create access points for consent.
These are all small shifts, and As much as I get frustrated with health care and I'm always quick to hold accountability within the system, I am hurting to see so many shifts, to be invited into health care, to train , I'm always so excited because I'm like, yes, the more people are talking about this, the more people are demonstrating it.
I get asked this question quite a bit, especially when I train in larger systems whether that's government, correctional, justice system areas, education, and healthcare, is what do we do, we know we want to be trauma informed, we want this approach, but we're working in a system that is not willing to adopt it.
And [00:47:00] I remind people that. We have to remember trauma informed care is a long game and it's gonna take time, and that can be really frustrating. I'm the first to admit I want to be there. Are we not there yet? How are we not there yet? I do not understand. But I have to come back, I have to slow down, and I have to remind myself that this is a long game, and especially within systems, you're gonna feel that resistance, but by showing up as a mirror and is incredibly powerful.
By demonstrating this approach, by your language, by your interactions, even if it's putting a little thing on your email signature, I cannot tell you how very simple that is and how incredibly powerful it is. You start to see shift and that's how you start to create the groundswell that will shift the systems to change.
And it's going to take a while, but that's why we need a collective, we need community care. We need to, work together collaboratively and not give up that hope because if not, then it's just going to [00:48:00] continue.
Ebony, I am so grateful for you and this conversation, so many things. To talk about it. I just like sitting here. I'm like, okay, so we need to Do like a whole episode on this and that and all the things cuz a whole health care season is upon us I'm curious, before we go into our gentle spritz of questions, is there anything else you want to share, especially to folks, because I know you do a lot within the wellness world any invitations or things to share for folks who may be curious about trauma informed care or to begin or to strengthen their practice that you might want to share with them?
Ebony Williams (she/her): I think that one of the biggest Blessings, as I call it, the blessing and the lesson is I've learned quite a bit from grief, actually, and it has made me so much more empathetic to people. And I think we forget that empathy can be learned and you don't have to try to do all [00:49:00] the things a simple
shift of thought, a simple, you know what, I'm going to pick up a different book by an author I've never read before, or I'm going to do a different wellness practice by someone that I wouldn't typically take it from, or when I see that a particular practitioner is frustrated about something. What is that and how can I open myself up to it?
If someone has told me that I caused them harm or I made them feel uncomfortable or I felt that little flicker When I was in engaging and interacting with someone what was that? If you can just start paying a little bit more attention to those things that is Something that will really make a big difference Which ultimately it boils down to just get to know yourself.
What do you like? When you're engaging with someone and they gaslight you, that irritates you, right? So are you doing that to people? When your friend tells you something, are you immediately jumping [00:50:00] to, well, I'm a health and wellness expert. I know this and I know this, and you shouldn't be doing this, you shouldn't be doing that. If I was that friend, I'd be like, okay, girl pleasure talking to you. Goodbye. So how do we honor someone's humanity to say they're the expert in their life, in their body, in their existence? And how can I learn how to support them along the way? So those are some of the things.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Love it. I love blessings, blessing and lessons. Oh, I love that. And yes, empathy, empathy is absolutely a learned skill and when I get the cringe face of what do you do? What is this approach? I'm always like, I'm teaching you to expand your empathy. And when we really boil it way, way down to something incredibly basic, trauma informed care is in essence a way to really expand our empathy.
It's so much more, but it is. And it's intersected with every other liberatory and [00:51:00] justice framework and models there are it's all interconnected so thank you so, so much. I would love to welcome you into our closing gentle spritz of questions. If you could describe trauma informed care in one word, what would it be?
Ebony Williams (she/her): Support. Slash a warm squishy hug. I know that's not warm.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): I love it. It's all right. I always joke like I should allow for more warm, but I always like to add it, but I have many words. So it's hard to choose one. What is your current go to for nervous system care?
Ebony Williams (she/her): I've been digging meditation lately. It's my jam. ITunes does a year in review of all the music you've listened to, and it was literally affirmation meditation music for me last year.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): And what does a trauma informed future look like for you?
Ebony Williams (she/her): It is a place where we can all be childlike, meaning where we can be curious and to be able to [00:52:00] explore and learn things about each other. In a way that's fun and supportive and loving because we've all seen like that little kid running around that just says hi to everybody in the story and like, oh my gosh, that's sweet. I want it to be like that.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): I love that. That has not been an answer and I just love that return to our innate child, inner child. Mm hmm.
Ebony, if people want to connect with you or learn more about you, what is the best way for them to find you?
Ebony Williams (she/her): I really like hanging out on Instagram. So I'm there at Joyful Ebony and the Thyroid Warrior Podcast and Sula, S O U L A, beauty co. So that's usually where I'm hanging out.
Katie Kurtz (she/her): Everything will be linked in the show notes for you to follow and connect with. Ebony, thank you so, so much for being [00:53:00] here and in conversation with me.
