Myrna is delivering her first course on trauma informed justice via Zoom Events in July 2022. Register today at www.myrnamccallum.co This course is for everyone, not just lawyers.
Myrna and a few of her friends and colleagues are delivering a course on trauma-informed justice which will be delivered via Zoom Events from July 20-22. This course is for everyone, not just lawyers. This course is open for registration. Register today at www.myrnamccallum.co
🎵 AUDIO/MUSIC CUE🎵
>> Myrna McCallum : I'm Myrna McCallum, Metis Cree lawyer and passionate promoter of Trauma informed layering. Welcome back to the Trauma Informed Lawyer Podcast. As you know, I believe that law schools and bar courses are missing a critical competency requirement in their curriculum. Trauma Informed Lawyering. Becoming a Trauma Informed lawyer will, among other things, challenge you to critically reflect on your personal behaviors, beliefs and biases, call on you to positively transform the way you approach advocacy, guide your practice to avoid doing further harm to others, and ask that you commit to remaining open to learn new and old knowledge you didn't know you needed before beginning your career. Your education starts right here, right now. Transcripts for season two have been generously sponsored by the BC Law Foundation.
🎵 AUDIO/MUSIC CUE🎵
>> Myrna McCallum :
>> Myrna McCallum : Welcome back folks to another episode of the Trauma Informed Lawyer podcast. So today I think is going to be a bit of a short episode because it's just me today, no conversation except the one that I'm having with you. I want to talk about a few things today. One first and foremost is Garnet Angon. He is an elder who was on my podcast. For those of you who've been longtime listeners, you would have listened to Garnett and I talk about residential schools, Reconciliation, Healing, racist Lyn B. And his longtime efforts to get her out of the Senate, which she is now thankfully out of the Senate. That episode was in season one, episode number 20, residential schools, reconciliation and the Indigenous Voice was an awesome episode. If you haven't heard it, you should have a listen to Garnett and his wisdom. He is a profoundly amazing, gentle man who has also received the Order of Canada. He's quite accomplish. Well I want to say that I learned just the other day that he needs our help. He is currently fundraising to purchase on wheelchair accessible van. I understand that he's been in the hospital in Sioux Lookout for some time and if he wants to be able to travel to get medical treatment, he has to have a wheelchair accessible van. And I understand there's a GoFundMe they're looking to raise $40,000 as of right now, June 10th at 5:37pm here on the West Coast. They're at 18,570 bucks. So almost halfway there. If you have anything that you can contribute to Garnet being able to get this van so he can make it to his medical appointments, have some independence, freedom to to get about then please donate. There's a GoFundMe in his name. Help Garnet Angico, Neb. Purchase accessible van. It was organized by Ashley Wright on behalf of Garnet and his wife Margaret. I've created a course called Trauma Informed Justice. It's really an introductory course. It's going to run over three days. It's being delivered via Zoom Events. If you're interested in this course, you can go to my new website, Merch Myrnamcollum. Co. Go to that website. It'll tell you everything you need to know about this course. Where to get information, how to register. Currently, early bird registration is available until the 19th. And so I invite you, please register for this course. I'm going to tell you a little bit about it right now. So I've had so many folks say, need to create a course. You have to create a chorus. It has to be accessible to people everywhere, whoever wants to sign up, wherever in the world that they are. You know, fear, like, fear kept holding me back. And as I was saying to a, colleague not that long ago, that I was looking for perfection, how can I perfect this thing? And I didn't want to put anything out there until or unless I could perfect it. And, you know, a lot of us type A's are like that, right? And then I've realized upon stumbling across some YouTube video, and I can't even recall what it is now, but this YouTuber was saying, look, if you continue to hold off on doing whatever it is you want to do until things are perfect, your perfect circumstances are perfect, you have it perfectly assembled, then that day is never going to come and time will pass and others will go do the thing or whatever, right? And I was like, damn, that's true. That really is true. And I was like, I don't, I don't. I don't want to, you know, be held up by fear of not being perfect. I'm just gonna do it. So I did it. I got this license, on Zoom Events, which, I don't think I'll ever do again. It costs a ton of money and their registration and payment process really sucks. So I've had to, like, separate those two. And I'm doing, like, payments on my website and registration on their site. It's a glitch. Live and learn, right? But let me tell you about the course. So it's an introduction to trauma informed justice. It's gonna run July 20, 21 and 22 over Zoom. It's gonna run 9am M to 4pm Pacific Time. Yes. Like here on the West Coast. But what I wanna say to folks who are not on the west coast or for folks who are in other part world, or folks who are Even away on vacation leave. During some or all of that time, this entire course is going to be recorded. So if you miss something, you won't really miss it because you'll still have access to the course. One thing I need to mention about the course, there is a growing list of, folks from lawyers to juniors to students to advocates who really want to take this course and they are seeking sponsorship. I need sponsors, folks. Now, I could tell you I've had already three folks step up. First, my good friend in Saskatoon, Brian Fefferly. Fefferly law office has given me a, sponsorship for one registrant to attend this chorus. My hands go up to you, Brian, you're the best. If you need a criminal defense lord in Saskatoon, Brian's your man. Allison Roots. She is in Marcum, Ontario. She also stepped up and said, myrna, I really love the work that you're doing. I want to support you. How can I do? So I'm here, you tell me. And she, I, you know, she just stepped up. She's like, yeah, you're calling for sponsors. I would love to sponsor, a registrant to attend your course. Allison is, and I hope I'm saying her last name correctly, Rut Root. She is a, cfo, entrepreneur and advocate for eliminating the economic and social wealth in inequality gap Syncopate financial leadership in Markham, Ontario. Thank you, Allison, for being a sponsor and for being a trauma informed champion. You're all trauma informed champions. Ellison and Brian, and of course Sarah Forte, Forte law office out here on the west coast in Surrey. Sarah stepped up and said, absolutely, we want to support this course. And they have contributed funds to support one registrant to attend the course. So I've got three sponsors who stepped up within a couple days of me making the announcement.
My hands go up to all of you. Allison, Sarah, Brian, your trauma informed justice champions. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But I need more folks, please. This course and begins Wednesday, July 20, 9am with some opening remarks. And then we're going to have a presentation on the neuroscience of trauma. Why? Because we all need a foundational understanding of what that is. And I have engaged a social worker who has a lot of experience in ACEs and trauma and understanding the connection between trauma and addiction and violence. Her name is Trina McGurk and she's from Ontario. She's going to give us that introductory presentation to beginning to understand the connection between trauma and the brain. From there, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about fight, flight freezer fawn Right. The, the four trauma responses that we experience and what that looks like in the workplace, how it shows up in us, how it shows up in our colleagues, how it shows up in others, and what we can do to regulate and manage our emotions and how we can offer co regulation. I'll probably talk a little bit about Dan Siegel's window of tolerance and from there we're going to get into talking about triggers and traumas in the workplace. So how do we manage those things? Those things that give rise to our fight flight, freeze and fawn response. What, you know, makes us run for the hills. We've got to figure that piece out. And I think this is where it's a perfect opportunity to have a conversation about boundaries.
What do boundaries look like? Why do we need them? What happens when we're in a workplace where no one's got boundaries? We're not identifying them, we're not communicating them, we're not holding the line when somebody crosses the line. Because that happens all the time. Because humans, you tell them, this is my no go zone. Oh yeah, I'm just gonna jump right over that and see what you do. Squash your no go zone. It's really a three part thing. Anyway, we're going to talk a little bit about that. Then we're going to have my friend Scott Jones, who's superintendent at Edmonton Police Service. He's going to talk about managing stress and adversarial situations. And he is also a yoga instructor, if you hadn't heard that already when he and I previously talked on the podcast. He has these different breathing practices that help him regulate himself, but it's also something that he teaches others. He taught me who knew. I've been alive 48 years. I, don't even know how to breathe. It turns out I do now. Thanks, Scott. So Scott is going to give us some strategies and techniques that we could bring immediately into the workplace to help help us find our Zen in these moments when we're dealing with hostility and conflict and adversity. And, you know, the list is long sometimes what we have to deal with in work situations. So I'm really grateful that Scott's going to be there to give us something that we can actually take away with us and bring into the workplace the very next day. Then every day ends with a bit of a debrief that you're gonna do with me. We're all gonna gather, talk about what we learned that day and how we're gonna prep for the next day. The next day on Begin Again with Me welcoming you. And then we're going to go into inviting Dan Jones, Scott's brother. You've heard Dan on the podcast twice, I believe, recently. I think the last episode, him and his daughter Nicole talked about how they met. If you haven't heard that conversation, Dan was the arresting officer. Nicole was an affiliated gang member who had kidnapped somebody and he was arresting her. It was, wild. You have to go listen to that story. It is inspirational, it is transformational, and man, it makes my heart skip a beat. In a good way. Dan's going to talk to us about who is the justice client. What does that mean? He's going to talk about the connection between trauma and offending. If you didn't know, Dan is like getting his. Is it his PhD. I'm sorry, Dan, if I got it wrong. I think he's getting his PhD. He's studying this stuff, particularly victim offender overlap and how adverse childhood experiences inform offending and addictive behaviors in adults. And I just think, think that is really important for us to start to understand that connection between trauma and addiction. You know, Dr. Gabor Mate, when he was on the podcast, he talked about it. He talks about it a lot. Where we see addiction, there's trauma, right? And I think that we also have to look at ourselves, particularly those of us who are lawyers and judges and cops, need to look at ourselves and our own kind of addictive patterns and how maybe that's an unhealthy coping mechanism for something we're not dealing with that's cropping up all the time in the workplace. Dan is going to talk about who is the justice client. What is this connection between trauma and offending. I think it's going to be an awesome conversation. Then I'm going to take over and talk a little bit about what trauma informed justice is like. What does that mean? What does it require? And honestly, that presentation is really going to be me trying to tap into what is now the energetic waves of the late Harold Jaunzems. He talked about Indigenous justice, case for Indigenous justice in Canada, right. When he wrote Paper Peace and Good Order. I'm gonna try to channel Harold Jaunzems and see what comes through, but it's going to be a discussion based session, folks. So I will want to hear from you what you think trauma informed justice means. But you know, I have to bring that indigenous lens because that's who I am. And so I think it's going to be an awesome eye opening session that we're all going to be engaged in. Then we're going to get into Talking about identity and intersectionality. My colleague Natasha Rulia has just agreed to do the presentation on that. You're gonna love it. But we need to think about identity and intersectionality as it shows up in spaces that we work. Why? Because folks are multi dimensional and with all these different dimensions to, us, there's all these complexities and there's these things that we don't see, but we should see. And I think Natasha is going to help open our eyes and you know, truth be told, we need our eyes open. Right from there we're going to get into talking about emotional intelligence. Dr. Amar Dahl from Canberra, Australia, he's going to talk to us about emotional intelligence. Now this man is badass, like, brilliant, sharp, compelling. He's got this like very. He's got this compelling way of speaking. When he talks, like all the light bulbs start turning on one by one by one. So I think it's going to be an awesome, it's going to be an awesome day and we're going to end the day debriefing actually with him to expand on what emotional intelligence requires in, in the spaces that we work and the situations that arise in the spaces that we work, what it requires of us and what happens when we ignore emotional intelligence because we dismiss it as some kind of soft skill that's completely unnecessary to what, what we do. What is the implication of that? It's a conversation that needs to be had and I'm m so glad that he has agreed to come have that conversation with us. So that's day two, folks. The final day. Friday, July 22nd. Again, I'm gonna welcome you with open arms. Our final day. I have a treat for you.
We are going to hear from Justice Patrice Band. He is a judge in Ontario. I've talked about him several times on my podcast because I fangirl over him all the time. Why? Because he's the first judge I ever heard talk about vicarious trauma in the courtroom within context, of course, of child pornography. And his perspective of trauma in the courtroom and its connection to burnout and compassion fatigue and why we need to start really exploring and educating ourselves and each other on the risk of like, the mental health risks that we experience as lawyers and judges and police officers. From there, we're going to get into a bit of a discussion period with Justice Band. He's going to hang around, we're going to talk. It's going to be cool. And, he's really easygoing and such a lovely, lovely person. And so I'm really interested in hearing what he has to say, negotiating our survival and traumatizing occupations. We're going to talk about that after we have had a little break after our little discussion period with Justice Band. I'm going to talk to you about that now. This concept of negotiating our survival, really, and that language that came to me through an elder, in Nova Scotia. I was just in Nova Scotia talking to a bunch of provincial court judges about, what a trauma, informed judicial practice could look like. And there was an elder presenting that morning, Stephen Augustine, and he was talking about how for indigenous people, ceremony is the way that we negotiate our survival. And, you know, ceremony requires oftentimes a little bit of personal suffering and sacrifice. Right. And it just got me thinking, and I think it was a question I ended up presenting later to those judges, which was, how do. How do you negotiate your survival? And what with whom are you negotiating? I think it's question we all have to ask ourselves, particularly when we're in jobs where we are just kind of grinning and bearing it and putting our head down or whatever, just trying to get through. We need to ask ourselves, you know, who we're negotiating our survival with and what, what is that negotiation? What is, what's the deal? Right? And it got me thinking about Eduardo Duran. I don't know if I've mentioned him previously in this podcast. He's a Native American. I think he's Lakota and Apache psychotherapist out in Montana. Billings, Montana, I believe he wrote a book called Healing the Soul Wound. That's his language for intergenerational trauma. He talks in that book about alcohol. And one of the things he says about alcohol, which I found really striking, was he said, alcohol is a spirit, and therefore it only wants spirit. And he talked about it in the context of negotiation, making a deal. Every time we consume alcohol, we're making a deal. We're negotiating with alcohol. You take my pain away, take away my hard day, take away this, take away that. And, and, and, you know, that's all we're saying. And alcohol saying, sure, sure, sure, here you go. Drink me up, drink me up, drink me up. Right? But I don't think we're sticking around or actively thinking about, but what is alcohol asking in return for this thing that we've negotiated? And you know, what I know to be true is oftentimes, and if we think about Harold Jaunzems's work in fire, water, Alcohol is killing my people and your people too. Alcohol, it's a spirit. So it only wants one thing. It wants Spirit. And that was Eduardo Duran said. And I think, you know, that is, that is why, terrible things happen when people are super inebriated, right? Like when a lot of sexual assaults happen, murders happen, suicide happens. A lot of like soul killing things happen when people are drunk, when they're inebriated, when they're beyond, you know, reality. And I just, you know, I need us to think about who we negotiate ourselves, survival with and what that negotiation is looking like, particularly when we work in traumatizing occupations or occupations that have really, you know, high risk of traumatization. And so we're going to get into that conversation. Why? Because we need to think about the mental health impacts of the work that we do and we need to have an honest conversation about it. And I think it's a really good segue to get into introducing the idea of collective care practice, practice because, you know, self care only goes so far. And a lot of people don't know that they're drowning till they're almost fully drowned, you know, or fully submerged in water. And we need to take care of each other. We always see when people aren't doing well, but we don't often comment and we need to, right, we need to let people know, hey, I see you and I want to know how are you coping? How are you coping? That's all we gotta ask, right? Negotiating our survival. I'm going to talk to you all about that and then we're going to get into making space, space for connection in the pursuit of justice. So this is where we talk a little bit about strategies, bringing in some of the emotional intelligence we'll have heard of, bringing in, more understanding of the fear survival responses that are, that are often seen in the spaces that we work. And we're going to learn a little bit about empathy and compassion and humility and why connection is critical in the perception pursuit of justice. And what is justice. It's going to be another extension of an earlier conversation because it means different things for different people. Right? We know this.
My definition for justice maybe is not yours. From there we're going to get into, from retribution to restoration, emotionally intelligent approaches to law. Vanessa Slater is going to present to us and she's really going to tell us a little bit about what she has learned in a paper that she wrote by the same name. So just a quick description. The retributive focus of the colonial legal system results in much trauma, particularly with respect to criminal justice. The enlightenment that comes with being trauma informed can assist lawyers, decision makers and others involved in addressing conflict to overcome deep rooted systemic hurdles. Viewing conflict through a relational lens, which embraces principles of restorative justice, supports relinquishing control over the achievement of justice and instead focusing on restoration. So the paper considers the relevancy, advantages and challenges of shifting Canada's criminal justice system toward emotionally intelligent approaches and man, we need that, Right? We need that. So Vanessa's gonna tell us a little about that and then we are going to conclude the chorus with some final thoughts from me about how Indigenous justice justice is trauma, informed justice, and that one is going to be heavily informed by the work of folks like Harold Jaunzems. I think it's going to be an amazing three days. I hope you join us. Like I said, if you want to register for this course, even if you're not available the entire three days, the thing is recorded so you can still have access to all of the content. Most of the presentations are going to be live. Some will be pre recorded, but the ones that are pre recorded, the speaker will show up up after everyone's watched the presentation to participate in a live Q and A. A course book is going to be sent to all registrants about a week before the course begins or a few days before the course begins so you can start to go through it to see you know, what it is that you're going to learn. Yeah, there's going to be opportunities for networking. I think it's going to be fantastic. And it's not just for lawyers. Can I just emphasize that I really, truly believe that this course is going to fill the gap in education you have missed in whatever your education has been or your training has been. It's going to apply to lawyers, judges, arbiters, mediators, police officers, corrections workers, educators, teachers, restorative justice practitioners, other sorts of leaders, workplace investigators, and anyone who is in a helping profession or anyone who works with anyone who's been traumatized. This course is for you. I hope you join us. Go to Myrna McCollum Co for more information. Like I said, early bird registration is on until the 19th of June. I'm just really full of a lot of gratitude knowing that folks still love this podcast. Listen to this podcast Share this podcast I just can't thank you enough. your support has truly, truly, truly truly transform my life and my work. And I'm the gratitude is overflowing right now. So thank you so very much. I'm going to be back in a couple weeks with a new episode and I'm not going to tell you who the guest is. It's going to be a surprise, but you're gonna like it. And, yeah, I hope you all have a wonderful summer. I hope to see some of you in this course. All of you in this course would not be awesome. By the way, anyone who is a listener, who is a member of the BC Law Society, this course earns you 1818 CPD credits. That's it. That's my episode today. Trauma Informed Justice. People. Let's all be champions. Let's all be champions of Trauma Informed Justice. Thanks for listening. Hope to see you in my course. Now you can come to me through my new website. Myrna McCollum, cat CEO. Let's all be Trauma Informed justice champions. Hey, world needs it. We need this transformation, especially right now.
All right, take care of yourselves, everybody. Thanks for listening. This episode was recorded on the traditional, unceded and ancestral territory of the Squamish, Tsleil, Waututh and Musqueam people.