SPEAKER_01 0:00

Please introduce yourself with your name, role, and what inspired you to join Hapenwood.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Yeah, my name is Caleb Klupp. I am a therapist here at Hapenwood Academy. I also provide the equine therapy here as well. And what inspired me to really come to Hapenwood is honestly the fact to be able to work with people who struggle with trauma, who have all these adverse challenges. And another big factor, because I've I've seen different places and so forth, a big impact is the culture and really the desire people have around here to really help out the guests that we serve here at Havenwood.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Describe Havenwood in one word and why.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Growth. And the reason why I use the word growth is that while Habewood's good, it's been cool to see that even throughout the last few years I've been here in Haberwood, there's been changes in development. And as we work to make changes to development, we've continued to improve our capacity to not only serve the population that we work with, but also to work with guests who are additional or perhaps more high-level needs than we could prior to the past. We're essentially continuously improving.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

What called you to trauma treatment and what keeps you here?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I guess my call to trauma treatment is frankly just the exposure of knowing about trauma, just knowing people who've gone through trauma and people's experiences. And then essentially, as I've learned about the nature of trauma, how it works, how we affix the body, how the body keeps the score. It's something that really caught my attention, caught my interest. And so as I took the leap to try to come over here to Havenwood, I've just found how cool a process, because even the word sacred process of people going through the process of healing to go through that trauma therapy and see where they are afterwards. And that's been a big call for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

What does a Havenwood day look like?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

A typical Havenwood day, arriving a bit early before work and make sure to check everything on the calendar and just going from session to session. As I mentioned earlier, I do traditional therapy, but I also do the equine therapy here at Havenwood. For example, the first part of the week, I'll first start my day working with my colleague who's an equine specialist, and we'll do equine therapy. We'll run a couple of groups in the morning. Now go do some individual sessions and documentations between awkward time, basically during lunch, and then I'll do some traditional therapy afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

How does your role impact a student's healing or sense of safety?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Well, I think that's a big part of my role is being a therapist in both the traditional therapy and equine therapy. Within the traditional therapy framework, it's working to be a consistent, safe person as you go through a process of exploring what's underneath our emotions, what's there, really helping them get curious with ourselves and come to recognize and work towards the pressure or difficulties of maybe I'm more capable, maybe I can be safe, and maybe I could do more things. And so there's a consistency in that aspect and working and providing that support through individual and group therapy sessions. Now, the equine therapy also follows the same vine, same vein as well, but the difference is also just working in active practice of just different challenges and allow them to practice active therapeutic skills in the moment as we're working with horses, especially some of the horses we have here at Havenwood, they're about 1200 pounds. They're very big animals. And so it's working to keep them safe, both in the emotional aspect, but also in the physical aspect, as we really provide an environment for them to proactively work on facing challenges and practicing their skills in action in the very moment.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

What does world-class trauma treatment look like in your role?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So, world-class trauma treatment in my role looks through the process of building somebody up. For example, when we first receive a guest here at Hable, we're not going to go necessarily straight into trauma therapy. We're going to build up that therapeutic relationship. As we know, that's the number one core aspect of therapy when we look at treatment. Work on building that therapeutic relationship, build that safety, build that consistency for the client. Help them work through the base skills, through distress tolerance skills, and others to work up their ability. And so once it gets to a place, we implement that trauma therapy intervention, which I use in particularly brain spawning. It might sound like more of brain spawning is like the trauma therapy, but really the whole process of the progression is working for where we are at base place using DPT skills to work up to the point and facing challenges to improve our ability emotionally regularly and help them work through their trauma responses throughout that time period until we get to the trauma, official trauma therapy, specifically like brain spawning. Also, I say the same thing with the equine aspect as well. As we work to build, increase our skills of using our culping skills, of using mindfulness and other skills to just practice learning how to face challenges in a healthy way, understanding that we don't have to be afraid and breath or more capable than we think.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

How does your team bring Bruce Perry's six Rs slash trauma-informed care to life?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

I think really to answer that question, it goes down to essentially the whole approach that we do here in Havelwood. We look at Havenwood as being very much a relational-based program. We know that relationships are essential, not only for treatment for general things, but specifically for trauma. We also know that relational aspects is a big part of one in six Rs. We look at repetition, we look at really rewarding, having activities that things where things be rhythmic. We work on being respectful, having that be always in everything that we do, even if we are having challenges, if there are challenges for the clients of phrase and work through. We also try to make things rewarding, like there's a value, not just simply like a tree or whatever, but that there is benefits and value in actually implementing it and actually doing stuff. And so we really try to integrate it in every aspect of life from basis of getting up in the morning, going through school, and going through multiple different therapy groups.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Share a moment that made you think this is why Havenwood is different.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

One moment that comes to mind immediately is honestly my first day being at Havenwood itself and going back again to that reference of the culture, because people might mainly think of, oh, there's like staff culture. But I'm thinking more particularly of not just like staff culture or client culture, it's the overall culture of this is a safe place. This is a place where people can learn and grow. And it's that sort of environment that's going to make things well for the guests that we serve. And it's not just that as well, but it's in addition to the fact that people go out of their way to show and make it clear that in a healthy way that we care.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

What's one innovation, ritual, or culture piece you love?

SPEAKER_00 6:24

This might be common different places, like a bearing retreat. I really do enjoy those at times. Those could be a really cool environment, really cool things for parents and guests, like their children to work through and go through groups and whatnot. But it's not just like the necessarily only the big things, it's the small things, allowing guests to do morning announcements, like as if they were a typical school, because we try to evolve, trying to bring as much of the normal everyday life to here for the guests here at Havenwood. And so I guess you say the tradition is normalizing experience and providing as natural and normal life to the guests that we serve.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

What is something intentional outsiders might never see?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

I don't think outsiders would ever really see the times when the guests are struggling the most when they're missing their families or going through something really hard in therapy. What I think outsiders are gonna miss, they're gonna miss those times where they see where I guess through the relationship, through working with staff and therapists and others that where they open up and put out the vulnerability, put out that chance of I'm gonna trust, I'm gonna do this. And then where they find a moment that switch to them, I can be safe, I can move forward, I can trust, and I can work through this stuff right now.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Did I just ask you one skill or mindset that's helped you grow?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

A big thing I would say would be a growth mindset and keeping the long term in mind. And this is something that as I've done individual therapy, equipment therapy, it doesn't matter what sort of therapy. As I work with a guest here, that's something I also try to encourage my clients to consider as well, is that with every situation, we have different ways how we can look at it. If we can always look at situations as much as possible of what can we learn from this, how can we grow from this? How can we continue to make the best of our situations? I have found for myself, and also I've seen in the lives as guests have practiced and try implemented this, that not only can we continue to grow, be more open-minded, but when we do face challenges, we're not necessarily we're looking to revert back or struggle and go back to our previous behaviors, but we are going forward with a hope mentality. And I believe the other aspect is essentially a long-term perspective. Like it's very important, essential to practice mindfulness, to recognize how our emotions are, how our body is feeling at the moment. That's essential. And sometimes I found that when we get caught up too much this every second of our day, or if there's an activity that's about to happen five minutes or ten minutes, whatever, we get so focused on making sure we're gonna make it or not, that sometimes we forget the overall big picture is while we're helping them now. The long-game picture is how can we help them become healthier, safer people towards ourselves and others and be able to be successful in their life, not only after discharge, but throughout the rest of their life.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

What helps you reset on tough days?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Honestly, my reset is really going up to the mountains, being out of nature, or even get involved in different community events where I could provide service and just simply help people I care and know as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

What should someone know before stepping into this work?

SPEAKER_00 9:12

I'd say the biggest thing you need to know is that this is really hard work. It's very rewarding. Don't get me wrong, it's extremely rewarding. And sometimes everybody has their preferences, whether it's vehicles or activities, whatnot. There's going to be those preferential differences between private or residential or haven't or other places. Each place is going to have its own thing. And the only way to really know is by giving things a chance and taking consideration of just like in therapy in general, regardless where you're at, there's going to be hard times no matter where you go. It goes down to what is the purpose and reason and why we want to invest in this? What is the unhealing value for anything that we do? And when you look at that therapy, what's the unlying value for therapy to help people to help themselves, to progress, move forward in life?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

What has this experience taught you about healing?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

I would say the biggest factor with healing is that sometimes there's going to be times of healing where things seem or in some ways are more straightforward. But in other times, it can really get convoluted and we can get things all complicated and messy a little bit, especially if we're looking between relationships. As we work to build things up, is only when we really communicate, where we work to have that clarity and understanding across the board, where we work to have that courage to say what needs to be said, that the true understanding, we understand the facts and perspectives as they really are, becomes alive. And it's when we give it those barriers that we unconsciously create our relationships that prevent us to have that same understanding that really gets in the way from allowing us to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

What is your favorite Havenwood tradition or inside joke?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

I would say one of my favorite inside jokes is that there is a saying of we don't cry, we lash out. And that came from a joke conversation between a bunch of members of Havenwood and myself, in terms of how we respond to the challenges. The only embarrassing aspect is that they put that quote in a picture of a person's face on a t-shirt during one of our SAT team bonding activity days. So every once in a while, if we're seeing something a little bit frustrated, we might put up the comment up, we don't cry, we lash out. Because that's something oftentimes the kids will do that as you work. And so we help them to learn how to not do that and be healthier.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

What is your go-to snack or coping skill on long shifts?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

I would say my coping skill on really long shifts when the day's really long is honestly being outside. It's getting my body moving and just moving around, being outside and working to essentially just to reset myself mentally and emotionally, just across the board.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

What is a movie title that would describe your unitslash department?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

I would say movie title would be along the lines of as strange enough, I would probably say opening the door. And the reason for that is that as part of our role as therapists, is to open the door of opportunities. We can't force people to do stuff. That's not relational. But we can open the door to many opportunities, which then allow the guests to be able to take those moments to consider and help them to then explore and help them progress. If you don't have those opportunities, then what are we doing? Is that even therapy?

SPEAKER_01 12:17

What's one surprising fact about you?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

I would say probably more along the lines of, I'm having a hard time, I have a little bit of a brain fart, but I would say one surprising fact about me is that as much as I love nature and the outdoors and exploring the country and more mountains of views, I really don't like heights.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

That's a good one. What does world-class trauma treatment mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 12:37

World-class trauma treatment, what that means to me is putting a quick pause on there for a second. I could rephrase a lot of different things that were mentioned earlier, and we say all I mentioned earlier would be a part of that process, essentially. I say the biggest factor though of world-class trauma treatment is recognizing the relationship, supporting the relationship, and work to continuously improve and capacity to provide opportunities for further growth and understanding in a safe environment. And doing so more effectively, and when I say more effectively, more specific to the needs of the individual guests that we serve.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Do you have a message for staff students or families?

SPEAKER_00 13:13

My message of this would be when people, whether staff, therapist, or family or anybody, provides challenges to consider doing something that might be difficult, to take a moment to reflect that maybe those challenges are actually opportunities. And maybe those opportunities could lead more to the life that you're trying to seek right now, tomorrow, and down the road.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Is there anything exciting on the horizon?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

I would say that we're just looking to growings, man. I will say one thing for myself in particular is as I mentioned earlier doing traditional equine therapy, over the next few months, I'll be retransitioning to provide equine therapy services exclusively at Habenwood Academy in both the former individual and group therapy sessions.