Mission and Vision
Mission
At the Center for Optimal Brain Integration®, we empower individuals, programs, and communities to become trauma-responsive and resilience-driven.
Through education, consultation, and practical tools, we strengthen the capacity for reducing stress, optimal emotional regulation, healing, and human connection—creating environments where every person can feel seen, safe, and supported.
Vision
Giving every child and adult a voice.
Growing human(e) beings to thrive, feel safe, and build resilience.
Core Principles
The foundational principles that guide trauma-responsive practice
When children and adults have relational support, they develop important coping skills and resilience. Young children and adults thrive in the context of consistent, nurturing and responsive relationships. When we build relationships that are attuned and compassionate, we strengthen trusting connections with others that buffer stress and support coping, healing and wellness. Attuned relationships are responsive versus reactive, engaged versus disengaged and require building capacities in self-awareness and self-regulation as foundations for empathy, responsiveness and equity.
Many children and adults experience trauma. Acknowledging its existence and impact is important and allows educators to create more inclusive and responsive learning environments for children and adults. Understanding how stress and trauma can affect individuals, families, communities and organizations can help to reframe otherwise confusing or frustrating behavior. Understanding stress and trauma and their impacts can lead to more compassionate, strength-based and empathetic interactions with children and adults and support individuals impacted by trauma instead of re-traumatizing and/or causing them further harm.
Trauma impacts individuals perceptions of safety. Establishing physical, social and emotional safety, and reducing uncertainty (by increasing regularity and predictability in relationships and environments) increases individuals' feelings of safety and belonging. Children's and adults' stress is reduced in relationships and within environments that communicate feelings of safety, calm and predictability.
Children and adults must be understood to be complex human beings and not defined by the trauma they experience. Trauma-responsive practice does not stigmatize, label or define people by their experiences of stress and trauma. Deficit thinking (words/terms used, stories told, beliefs held) is interrupted. Trauma and its impact are acknowledged honestly, however, it is never used to pathologize people. "Person-first" language and a strength-based approach is used by centering attention on the strengths, creativity/creative problem-solving, sources of coping, resilience and well-being and potential in children and adults, families and communities. Progress and accomplishments are celebrated.
Central to trauma-responsive practice is actively building the skills, knowledge and dispositions necessary for coping, resilience, healing and wellness. Examples include strengthening such social and emotional capacities as self-awareness, body awareness, self-regulation (emotional and behavioral), relationship skills, problem-solving and responsible decision making which improve children's and adults' abilities to cope, build resilience and heal.
As traumatic experiences involve a loss of power and control resulting in feelings of helplessness, terror and often, hopelessness, trauma-responsive practices support individuals and groups to have opportunities for agency and control. This is often described as 'voice and choice'. Trauma-responsive environments supports children and adults to have opportunities to provide input to inform the decisions that impact them (e.g., policies, processes/procedures), to make choices and to feel a sense of control in communication, interactions and within environments.
Addressing trauma effectively requires creating collaborative power-sharing partnerships that lift up local/community voices and perspectives to generate community centered solutions. Collaborative power-sharing partnerships disrupt the logic of 'expertizing' models where outside 'experts' come in and advise communities on best practices. Instead, power-sharing partnerships balance top-down and bottom-up approaches. Collaboration is emphasized as well as listening and learning from a place of respect, humility, curiosity and openness to challenge dominant "taken for granted" perspectives and universal practices and solutions. Value is placed on a belief that programs, schools and/or communities are best positioned to generate the approaches and solutions that are most authentic and meaningful, accessible and sustainable for them.
Learning to understand and critically examine the policies, practices and decisions that create stress and trauma and reproduce cycles of oppression—that harm children and adults in our programs, schools and systems—and then to take actions that disrupt inequity, are important steps in building resilience and healing. Well-being comes from participating in transforming the underlying causes of harm within our societal structures and institutions. Taking actions to disrupt the policies, practices and/or conditions that harm children, families, communities and the workforce serving them provides individuals and groups with a sense of control, agency and purpose; building blocks for strengthening resilience and supporting the healing process.
Understanding that in trauma-responsive programs, schools and systems, working for change requires an attentiveness to the process and not just the outcomes/metrics of success in meeting goals. An exclusive focus on outcomes can do harm by creating significant stress and even trauma for individuals and groups under pressure to achieve outcomes, especially if there is a short timeline for showing progress and high stakes for not meeting metrics of success. Being attentive to the process of bringing about change means that realistic timelines are created, progress is acknowledged and small wins are celebrated along the way which builds resilience and buffers the stress and discomfort associated with change processes. Open, honest and transparent communication is maintained to support the individuals impacted by the change informed and to provide them with opportunities to provide input and influence both the approach in working towards change as well as the outcomes/goals.
Acknowledging that everyone working within a program, school or system is valued and creating opportunities for authentic engagement for all stakeholders working across every part of the system is essential for building trust and effectively addressing sources of distrust. Distrust arises within hierarchies and bureaucratic structures or in response to policies as a result of an imbalance of power that undermines participation for some individuals or groups (e.g., making decisions for rather than with the community leads to distrust as those in power make decisions for others in less powerful positions, often ignoring their dreams or demands). If programs, schools and systems desire positive and lasting change grounded in trusting relationships, it is essential to uncover, acknowledge, and directly address the historical origins and sources of distrust because without doing so, the solutions will not be sustainable (Schultz, 2019).
Working with an understanding of today's realities while also maintaining hope that inequitable conditions can and will be improved over time. This involves dreaming and imagining that the future holds potential for positive change, new growth and innovative possibilities where children and adults are resilient, optimistic and thriving. Allowing for hope and a resistant imagination representing a more just future can support individuals to cope, to strengthen their resilience and to support the healing process for individuals and communities by activating a sense of power and control in their lives (Ginwright, 2018).
Terms and Symbols
Optimal Brain Integration®
The neurobiological foundations that support healthy development and unlock the full potential of children and adults. By strengthening communication and integration across all areas of the brain, individuals can enhance learning, self- and social awareness, and overall life success. Optimal Brain Integration® promotes holistic health and wellness—socially, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and mentally—for individuals and systems. When all parts of the brain work together, optimal health and well-being become accessible.
Join Us in Our Mission
Whether you're an educator, clinician, parent, or organizational leader, we invite you to be part of the brain integration movement.