Kristen

Welcome to the Close the Chapter podcast. I am Kristen Boice a licenced Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice pathways to healing counselling. Through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories. We will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore. And open the door to possibilities and the real you. You won't want to miss an episode, so be sure to subscribe.

Kristen

Welcome to this week's Close the Chapter podcast. We have another great episode today. And I give a trigger warning when I'm with my guest to the audience. We are going to be talking about trauma, how to work through it and school shootings specifically. So just want to give you the heads up that's the topic there may be some activating material. So I recommend grounding into your feet deep breathing. If you're a teacher, administrator, parent, or have a child in school, you really need to listen to this episode. There's great parenting help, how to talk to kids, if you're a parent yourself how to do your own work and if you're a teacher and administrator, how to tend to your own experience. So I want to introduce you to our guest today. Dr. Nicole Christian Brathwaite is a nationally recognised board certified adult child and adolescent psychiatrist. Dr. Nicole is the CEO and founder of well mind psychiatry and consulting and has expertise in prenatal and post partum mental health, trauma informed care, tele psychiatry, mental health and communities of colour school psychiatry, implicit bias and racism and mental health. She has extensive clinical expertise with adults, children, adolescents, transitional and college aged use. So she has a wealth of expertise. I highly recommend getting the journal per usual if you haven't downloaded that it's free. This will help you on your healing journey at Kristen k r i s t e n d Boice Bo ice.com forward slash free resources. Please feel free to share this episode with anybody that has been impacted by any kind of violence at all, or trauma in the school system. Or in your life. This is a very helpful episode. Feel free to tag me with any comments and share it on social media at Kristen D Boice, on Instagram and Facebook. And I'm just grateful that you're here. I recommend listening to the whole episode. There was just a wealth of information shared and I hope it's impactful for you in your family. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Dr. Nicole. Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast I am so grateful you are joining us today for this very important conversation I do want to give a little bit of a trigger warning. If anybody has been involved with gun violence or a school shooting of any sort. We are going to be focusing on mental and emotional wellness when it comes to gun violence in the school system with children and teens. And above. So just wanted to give you the heads up, just feel your feet on the floor, take several deep breaths. And hopefully this will be an impactful, meaningful and powerful conversation. And you will find some helpful resources in dealing with this epidemic that we're under right now. So without further ado, I want to welcome my guest, Dr. Nicole, Christian, and I want to say it correctly you said it birthweight Brathwaite Brathwaite shoot, it was so close. I don't have my glasses on so I couldn't read my writing. So I was like, I'm gonna get it close. So welcome Dr. Nicole to the programme. I'm so glad you're joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. So tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your background. My name is Dr. Nicole Christian Brathwaite. I live in Boston. I am a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist. I have my own small private practice and consulting company called well minds by diatreme Consulting but full time I am head of medical and clinical strategy at a health tech startup called headway. Very well. Thank you. And welcome to the closer chapter podcast a couple of things before we jumped on. We were talking about what you're going to share today. And I just shared we're coming up on a five year anniversary here in Noblesville, Indiana, of a school shooting in our middle school, and we've walked through gun violence, and this is a passion of yours. So tell me how this became a passion. I've done a lot of work, understanding trauma in the more general sense. I think often when someone hears the word trauma they assume

Dr. Nicole

Physical abuse or emotional abuse or veterans, but not realising that trauma can take many forms. And I always tell people, I can't determine what's traumatic for you, and you can't determine what's traumatic for me. And since Columbine, and we've seen this explosion of school shootings, it's becoming clearer and clearer, particularly to teachers, school counsellors, therapists, and psychiatrists who work with kids, that these experiences have been incredibly damaging, and quite traumatic to our kids. And since I primarily focus around trauma, I end up seeing a lot of children who have depression and anxiety. But often the root of that is trauma. And so much of it is what we may see now as a day to day life experience, but for them has been just absolutely overwhelming.

Kristen

Yes, we're still dealing with it five years later aftermath of this trauma, including administrators, parents, families, officers, first responders, the kids, it affects everyone infiltrated the community, and a massive, massive way, where do you begin to help someone through something like a school shooting,

Dr. Nicole

I would say the first thing is acknowledging that this is completely abnormal, I think because it's happened, though frequently, people assume that this is to be expected or it's normal. We should never normalise school shootings or school violence of any kind, but one acknowledging that this was devastating, completely abnormal, and whatever you're thinking or feeling, you have every right to feel and think if you are still tearful, when you think about it, if you become angry if you become frustrated, those are all natural emotions to a very abnormal and extreme situation. So that's the first thing is not normalising the event, but normalising your emotions to that event. And fully accepting whatever you're feeling as a part of the natural progression of going through a traumatic event

Kristen

is so important, because well, that person handled it better than I did. And I said, it's totally individualised based on what individually you went through. If you're in a different classroom, you had a different experience. It depends on where you are, what was happening, how that impacted you. And it's okay, giving permission.

Dr. Nicole

And even for parents, we as adults, we come with our own trauma. And it's not infrequent that sometimes we see our pain manifested through our children, or our children's experiences impact our emotions and our trauma. So even as a parent, if you're still feeling concerned or anxious or afraid, that's completely understandable.

Kristen

We've done a lot of EMDR, eye movement, desensitisation, reprocessing, with many parents, kids, family members, teachers, administrators to try to work through it. And there's this sense of the teachers feel, and I don't speak for all the teachers, but some of them have reported that they wanted to protect their own kids, but they were trying to protect the students. And then the experience of sounds, smells this whole idea how infiltrates the nervous system. Can you talk about that for kids and teens and anybody that was involved with something so traumatic?

Dr. Nicole

Absolutely. So when we think about, for example, stress, stress exists on a continuum, there's positive stress, like something that helps build resilience, like having to present in front of a classroom or speaking on a podcast with many, many listeners, that's a positive stress. So slight increases in cortisol, heart rate may go up a little bit, but overall, it's not overwhelming. And if anything, it helps to build confidence and build strength in the future, then if you go a little bit beyond that, it's tolerable stress. And so that may be losing a loved one, or losing a pet, but it tends to be time limited. And for children, if they have adequate support, it's usually something that they're able to experience but growth through toxic stress are stressors, that they go beyond our ability to cope. So essentially, those toxic stressors are traumatic experiences are mentally, emotionally, spiritually, we can't manage or comprehend what's happening because whatever that event, or events are, it's too much. And so when we go through experiences like toxic stress, or school shooting, for example, any type of abuse for a child, essentially, our body goes into fight, flight or freeze. So I always use the example if a lion were to run into the room that you're in right now, you would go into fight, flight or freeze you would either run, you would freeze, or you would try your best to fight off the lion. That's what kids experience in a school shooting. They go into that fight, flight or freeze. However, trauma can lead to post traumatic stress disorder or acute stress disorder. That's when the event you went into fight flight or freeze, but you weren't able to come out of it. Because you're still unsure about safety. You're still unsure if tomorrow this will happen again, or next week. Are your friends safe? Is your family safe? And so what happens when your mind and your body are not clear or sure that your safe base essentially remains in that fight, flight or freeze or you're never 100% out of it. And so you have that increase in heartbeat, your muscles preparing to fight or flee, your brain is focused on survival. And I always tell teachers, if you have a child in your class who is in fight, flight or freeze or has experienced a traumatic reaction, they can't learn. Because if your brain is thinking that you're in danger, what's the point of focusing on reading a paragraph, or focusing on learning algebra, your brain is focused on looking at social cues from other people making sure the environment is safe or not listening to tone changes. And so if a child is in fight, flight, or freeze because of exposure to a school shooting, or even looking at school shooting drills, that itself can be traumatic, then it means often that child is in that state of survival. And that's not a state we were meant to stay in persistently, it's certainly not healthy to remain there. And kids can't learn teachers can't teach. So being in that persistent state of survival means that we're not able to be productive.

Kristen

And we're like frozen in time. It's like a freeze in the body and the nervous system, how do you help kids and teens, and then teachers and parents work through fight flight or freeze,

Dr. Nicole

the first thing I say, often not trying to talk people out of it, because again, if a lion just was in the room, and then just walked away, but you are afraid it could come back at any moment, if someone were to say, just don't worry about it, just calm down, can you just imagine how effective that might be. But what we need to do is kind of bypass that thinking part of our brain because again, our brain is in survival mode. So essentially, it means that blood flow, our focus is on the lower part of our brain, the most rudimentary part. So that part that controls breathing, heart rate, things that we don't think about that like immediate reaction, not the critical thinking part of our brain. So we have to try to bypass that and almost reset our brain. So I recommend using sensory tools, it can be something very cold. Sometimes when I have kids who are clearly in fight, flight or freeze, I'll give them an ice cube to hold, because it almost shocks the system and brings our brain back online so that then we can move forward and have a discussion. I used to pre COVID When I saw kids in my office, I always had a big bag of Sour Patch Kids. And I found that no matter how stressed the kid was, if you offered candy, they would still take it. But I would encourage them to hold it in their mouth and count to 10 before chewing or swallowing and you get that very intense power sensation. And that helps them to reregulate so using a sensory tool or intervention to help a child come out of fight flight or freeze or reregulate and then start having a conversation.

Kristen

Yes, I find that's really helpful because it brings that you're back into the present moment rather than in the past or that hyper vigilant state, right to people not recognise, like we talked, we've had so many school shootings, we've had so much gun violence, what has not been talked about, like in terms of the conversation about mental and emotional well being

Dr. Nicole

the long term effects, these were now their generations of children who are experiencing trauma unnecessarily, and they're going to carry it with them, this is going to impact their growth, their brain development, this is going to impact the decisions they make. As young adults, it's going to impact even their mental and physical health as adults, there have been plenty of studies showing the more exposure a child has to toxic stress or traumatic experiences, the greater the risk for long term mental health impacts even there's a direct connection between trauma and substance use as an adolescent teen pregnancy, even things like cancer into adulthood. So the more traumatic experiences you have as a child, the greater the risk for many complications later. And that's not something that I think many people are aware of, or are willing to acknowledge.

Kristen

I agree. I think that is such an important conversation, let's say parents, because I find parents struggle with how do I talk to my kid or my teen about a traumatic event, we had to do a lot of walking parents through how to have these conversations. What are some of the recommendations you have or suggestions for parents and teachers for that matter?

Dr. Nicole

Yeah, and it's tough, because it depends on maturity. And the age level. Usually, what you talk to an eight year old about will be very different than how you speak to a 17 year old, but I think there are some commonalities. So one, ideally, start having conversations that lead up to the more difficult conversation. So the first time you've spoken face to face in a few days is not such an intense conversation. So knowing that this is something you're going to discuss on Saturday, starting on Monday, checking in how was your day, anything good happen? I always ask my kids tell me something new, and tell me something good. So news and goods. So at the end of every day, tell me something new, tell me something good. And then if there's anything that was frustrating, let's talk about that, too. And so just getting in the habit of having a conversation, often for adolescents, they're not that great at direct eye contact and sitting down and talking about anything at all. Usually it's fine, good, very one word answers. And so it's helpful for adolescents to think Ah, and another activity while you're talking. So if you're cooking, or they're doing their homework, or if they're helping you cook or if you're taking a walk together, if they're playing video games and you join their video games, giving them that opportunity to kind of have an out not have to be completely still and having a difficult conversation, but being able to do other things with their hands and be slightly distracted. So that would be one. It's just starting general conversations first. Second is just listening. If we really want to have a conversation, we have to be willing as parents to not talk. And that's hard. That's hard to not interject. It's hard to not give advice, but a willingness to truly listen. And I always recommend parents employ a technique called reflective listening. So that's essentially summarising. If a kid tells you their day is good, because they started basketball today. So it's not moving on and talking about other things. It's like, oh, so it sounds like you're saying that you had a pretty awesome day because you started the basketball team? Is that what you're saying? And even though that seems so simple, being able to summarise what someone told you, it gives them the confidence to know that you're listening that you've heard them, and then it would be starting to ask what they know, What's your understanding of what's been happening around school shootings? What have you heard about it? What have you seen on social media, and first getting that baseline, and then you can move on to offer advice, get feedback, but we have to set the foundation of trust and letting a child know that you're fully present, you're fully there, you're listening, and you're not just there to give advice or redirect.

Kristen

I call it preaching and teaching. Like we're not gonna preach and teach, like I'm doing it no teaching and preaching, or trying to fix it, right, because this is a one thing, I think parents can't protect their kids at school. I mean, you're doing the best you can, but you can't be there at school. This is a place where you go and trust that they're safe. And so there's lots of emotions, grief, and feelings of powerlessness as a parent, that you need to process yourself. So it's just as critical that the parents are doing their work, in my opinion, as the kids because then you're going to tolerate emotions, you're going to allow them to come up, you're not going to try to fix them, you're going to hold the space, if you're doing your own work at the same time, I have found that is essential. Same with classroom administrators, teachers that are processing, they can allow students to process it's like a gift that keeps on giving.

Dr. Nicole

Absolutely. I always say we can't have healthy kids without healthy adults, it's impossible. Because they're watching us, they're learning from us. They're modelling our coping skills, how we handle stress. And so if we are managing our stress and unhealthy ways, they adopt those behaviours,

Kristen

it's so true. And then some people were like, it's five years ago, it's a long time ago. And I'm like, it doesn't matter how long, you made a good point about one of the pieces of conversation we're not having as a long term implications of this. So a student might have said, I'm fine, I'm good, a year, two years after a shooting, and then it might come up at the anniversary, five years later, it might come up at a different memory that sparked right now they're looking at the shooter, and he's going to get out of jail, and etc. So it sparks a lot of emotions. And that might be the time that a teacher or a parent or student might have feelings come forward, whereas at the beginning they might not have can you talk about that, in terms of development.

Dr. Nicole

And again, we all handle grief differently. We all handle trauma differently. Even for parents, there's no right way to handle your concerns or your fears, there's no right or wrong way that a child manages a stress. I think in terms of seeking therapist or professional help. One, I think everyone can benefit from therapy. So there's no minimum amount of stress required. But certainly, if you find that you're having intrusive thoughts or thoughts that you can't get rid of, or the feelings and emotions you have connected to prior events are really beginning to impact your quality of life impacting school behaviour, school functioning, you're noticing a child's isolating from their friends, their grades are dropping, you're struggling at work, you're more irritable, their frustration tolerance is much less. Certainly that would be an indication that you and or your child needs additional support. So certainly seeking a therapist, ideally, a therapist had a strong understanding of trauma. But even if it's just a safe space for you or your child, I would certainly consider that first because the I don't think we realise how much mental health or mental illness can drastically impact our functioning and our quality of life. And the earlier we can address any mental illness or any symptoms of mental illness, just like any illness, any disease, the earlier you can address it and treat it, the better the long term outcomes. So that would be first but I would also say again, asking questions and monitoring. Kids aren't always going to come out and say, I saw another school shooting on the news and that triggered memories for me, or I was sitting in class today and I heard the chair scrape against the floor and that sound brought back memories. They honestly may not even be aware. They may not even realise that it triggered that but if you're finding there spin an abrupt change in behaviour, an abrupt change in attitude, adolescent parents always like I don't know if this is like regular adolescence or like is this beyond that, because it's hard with a 16 year old who's angry, because a lot of 16 year olds are angry. But again, if they're isolating, if the way that they're interacting with a family is different, if you're talking to the parents of their peers, and their behaviours, and outlier, those are all signs that you should start having that conversation.

Kristen

And I think the other piece that's so activating now, for so many people is there's additional threats made for there was a bomb threat made recently, they had to stay home from school. And so those types of ongoing threats can reactivate the trauma. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Nicole

I'm so sorry to hear that. Because what ends up happening is again, going back to that fight, flight, or freeze, you never feel like you can be safe, you're always on guard, because you may go three or six months without having any triggers without having any threats or concerns. And then suddenly it happens. And then you may go another year without having any threats. And then suddenly it happens. So then your body gets to the point of saying, Well, I'm never safe, it's never safe. And so you respond in turn, if you're always feeling on edge if you're forced to be in this position. And I certainly if it's within your community, but even nationwide, school shootings seem to occur every week, you're someone who's still trying to recover from something that happened close to home or personally. And then they're notified about something that happened in another community. So there's never really that opportunity to recover. And that can often lead to post traumatic stress disorder, or even what's described as complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, because it wasn't one singular event, it ends up being a multitude of events, that compound, and again, it leads to long term mental health problems.

Kristen

What do you say when someone says, Well, why do people do this? So kids are like, but why? Why did they do this? Why do people do this? What's your explanation? And I know, it's, this is a big question, how do you usually help kids make sense of it?

Dr. Nicole

It's hard. And as a psychiatrist, I also don't want to use mental illness as an excuse for why people engage in awful behaviours. Because often that's not the case. I don't want to make false promises, or say things that to reassure a kid that I know it's not true. I tried to recently have this conversation with my eight year old, I tried to be honest, like, why do people hurt other people, or he recently had a, an incident where he was the victim of racism. And he's like, I don't understand why people would dislike me because of the colour of my skin. It's a heartbreaking conversation to have because you're sitting with their pain, I'm honest, I can't control what other people do. You can't control what other people do. Sometimes, people make choices that hurt other people, there's not always a reason for it, there's not always an explanation, they just have a lot of pain or anger in their heart. But that's not your responsibility. You're not there to fix someone else. So the only thing that we can control is how we respond and what we do. And that's essentially the conversation, control what you can control. Because often what Allah does is it robs us, it robs us of that control.

Kristen

That's right. It's so heartbreaking. I would just say it's so heartbreaking to hear your eight year old son say something so painful, and you're right, your pain gets activated, right? Because you want to protect them from all these things. And yet, you know, you can't so it's, you're honest with the conversation. And I remember my daughter said, after the bomb threat, is it safe to go to school? And I'm thinking, I can't guarantee your safety? I mean, that's the reality. And so how do you say that to your child,

Dr. Nicole

it's hard, because you don't want to say I don't know, the or like, you may not be safe. But what you can say it's what we do know, I do know that your school putting things in place to try to ensure your safety. So let's go over what has been done, the doors lock, when school starts, someone has to have an appointment to come in to the school or you have a security guard in your school or going through, like what we know we can do are these things that we know have been done or these things. So we may not be able to control what happens outside of school. But these are the things that we've implemented. So we're controlling the environment that we can control. And what can you do to keep yourself safe. So keeping your phone on you if you need to reach out to someone if you notice concerning behaviour from a peer having a conversation with a teacher, if you've seen something online or chatter online about someone doing or saying something notifying the principal. So again, focusing on where we can to make that change, not just on the whole world is really unsafe, because then that just increases fear and anxiety. And then there's like there's nothing we can do about that.

Kristen

Yes, I think that's so beautiful how you put it because that's exactly what I did. I went through here's what they've done to reassure your safety. Because if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we know in order for human development, safety's number one, and so this is what makes it so impactful that we're now dealing with that we haven't on We have it just now I think it's becoming more frequent, at least from numbers that we can look at. But this whole idea of safety, it's been there for a long, long time in many different cultures, many different scenarios, but we haven't talked about it as much. But how do you feel about what comes up for you, and you think of this whole safety for kids and their development and that conversation,

Dr. Nicole

kids thrive on structure, predictability, and reliability. That's what kids need to be safe if we can provide the structure. So School provides, you know, what time you know, where the predictability, I know what's coming, when I know that this teacher tends to give pop quizzes, even if it's a slight surprise, that tends to happen on Fridays, and that reliability that people I trust, will be there to support me. And when any one of those three are removed, then there's brings them to that question of Am I safe? And again, if you're focused on Am I safe? Or how do I stay safe, you're not focused on learning math, you're not focused on building STEM skills, because that from your brains perspective, that's not a priority. And so when we're thinking about supporting our kids in these environments, making sure there's clear structure, so even if something horrible happens, reminding them that that structure is there, reminding them that there's that predictability, that when we get back to school at this time, and this time, and this time, you know what to expect, because then they don't have to worry about it or think about what's coming. They know that and having that predictability and that reliability. And so that's when even after family deaths or significant tragedies, having those three components added back into a child's life is very helpful. But ultimately, we have to figure out a way to, in the end, keep our kids safe, and have these discussions with our legislators around what needs to do not just the band aids, because again, like we are in 30 or 40 years, we're going to have a lot of kids who have experienced so much trauma and as a result are dealing with depression, anxiety, substance use, and then those are additional concerns that we have to have, and then they will have children. generational trauma is a very significant part of a family's life.

Kristen

We know that through research, it's so significant. And one of the other pieces that I think to go back to your like your very first point is it's okay to have your feelings like emotional availability from a parent in particular, a teacher's great, or somebody a support system, whether it's an administrator or a counsellor, like you said, I mean, obviously, we love mental health therapists. And I think the key here is tolerating emotions, because we want to numb them, we want to move away from them, whatever we want to do deny him, instead of welcoming them in and being afraid of them, enveloping us or your kid like wanting to fix it and make it better, and oh, it's gonna be great. It's gonna be wonderful. I think that is so significant. In terms of the healing journey, what are your thoughts?

Dr. Nicole

I agree, and it's hard to sit with painful emotions. Because again, it's almost like when your child hurts, it hurts you even more, you would rather that pain be with you than your child suffering, it feels like it's doubly as painful. But if they're hurting, they need to get that out. Because ultimately, if they're hurting, and they're not able to express it, or they don't accept it, what they learn is that these negative emotions are not okay, I have to hide them, I have to suppress them, I have to dismiss them, I'm sure know plenty of adults that don't have a really great emotional vocabulary. And so when they feel those negative emotions, they end up acting out, or they end up trying to deal with them in unhealthy ways. And so if a child comes to you feeling sad, or feeling angry, sitting with that, to them with a discomfort, sitting with their feelings, justifying their feelings, even if they may have done something wrong, but they're still angry, they have every right to feel angry, that emotion is normal, and, as you said, fully accepting it. But one other thing is just in general, having, as you mentioned, having those adult relationships, there's a child psychiatrist, his name is Bruce Perry, he wrote a series of books about childhood trauma, and that the first one he wrote is the boy who was raised as a dog. So if anyone has interest in understanding more, there are a number of really awesome child psychiatrist, and he's one of them. I know I sound like a nerd because like I call another child psychiatrist, awesome. So I think

Kristen

they do I like our dirty together because I love

Dr. Nicole

one quote that he has that just like fully sticks with me is around having an adult who accepts a child. So when you look at kids who've experienced trauma, and those who recover and those who don't, one of the biggest differences is having an unconditional love from an adult. Having that person who can tolerate their sad feelings, having the person who they can trust, to not judge them for what they're saying or feeling, even if it's not a parent, but having someone in their lives who they know, unconditionally loves and accepts them and can deal with what they're bringing. That relationship in itself can help kids heal from trauma.

Kristen

That's so powerful. I think about anybody. If you have children, they've loved your kids so well. There's no greater gift that you can ever have. It's like the greatest gift and I just want to go I love you. Because it's so deep and powerful and you know the impact on your child. Whether it's a teacher, a coach, a friend, a neighbour, I mean whoever it is, that's a healthy, wise, loving Adult, there's a great gift in that truly. So I love that you shared that. Is there anything we didn't cover that you feel like is important to acknowledge?

Dr. Nicole

I would say whenever the only other thing I would mention whenever a child expresses safety concerns about themselves or peer, that's considered a psychiatric emergency. So if they're having even just thoughts of wanting to hurt themselves, thoughts are mentioning that appear has mentioned that they're having thoughts of hurting themselves or other people to take that very seriously. I know, sometimes kids will say, Well, I just frustrated. So I said that, but never want to miss an opportunity, just in case, it wasn't just something that they were saying, if as a parent or a family member, you hear a child having thoughts about like not wanting to live not wanting to be here, wanting to hurt other people to immediately seek additional supports for that child and to not minimise those thoughts.

Kristen

Yes, that is so good. And I love this 988 number that you can text or call now. So if we had 911. Now for mental health and emotional wellness, we have 988. So I love that and I tell my daughter, I'm like tell all your friends, just because if they're don't know, they don't have anybody. At least we can get them plugged in there and hopefully get support services somehow, as that network grows. It's still in its infancy. But I'm hoping that takes off in a bigger way. What are your thoughts on the 988 number?

Dr. Nicole

I think that's great. I mean, it's 24/7 access to someone who will listen who will talk to you who provide resources, particularly for teens talking on the phone may seem so uncomfortable to them or speaking to someone face to face, but text that's a very traditional way that teens communicate. And if they can access support in a way that meets them where they're at. That's ideal.

Kristen

I love it. I'm like you could text you don't have to call you could text which is like okay, I said just keep sharing it. So I love that hopefully it's going to take off even more and more folks can get resources they need. So I am so grateful for you where can people Dr. Nicole find you if they want to know more information or how to work with you?

Dr. Nicole

Sure. So on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, my handle is Dr. Nicole Dr. And IC o l e. C as in Christian and B as in Brathwaite. So my doctor Nicole, CP is my handle on all social media. So please certainly feel free to find me. I also have a website. It's well mines consulting.com.

Kristen

Thank you so much, Dr. Nicole for being here. Your wealth of information. You're making a difference in the world. And I'm grateful for you and your heart.

Dr. Nicole

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Kristen

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoy this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week and share with a friend or a family member. For more information about how to get connected visit kristendboice.com. Thanks and have a great day.