Facilitator Safety Guide

This curriculum teaches emotional and social literacy. It gives students language, models, and tools for reading signals, separating facts from interpretations, and designing safer responses.

Adults should expect to see both kid-facing terms and toolbox terms. For example: Body Signal Notebook / Telemetry Log, thought bugs / cognitive distortions, trust jar / trust ledger, Check Before You Tell / verification, and When/Then Plan / protocol.

It is not therapy. It does not diagnose, treat, or replace mental health care. Adults using this curriculum do not need to act like therapists. They do need to create emotional safety, protect privacy, and escalate appropriately when something is outside the scope of a lesson.

Safety Scope

• Do not pressure students to disclose private experiences.
• Students may use fictional examples, book characters, movie scenes, game situations, or neutral school/home examples.
• Students may pass on any activity that feels too personal.
• Emotional tools should not be used to tolerate unsafe, abusive, coercive, exploitative, or frightening situations.
• Follow local laws, school policies, program rules, and family procedures when safety concerns arise.

Adult Role

Your job is to teach the tools, model calm curiosity, and keep the learning environment emotionally safe.

That means:

• teaching the ideas clearly without forcing vulnerability
• keeping activities low-stakes and concrete
• redirecting students toward fictional or anonymized examples when needed
• noticing when a student needs a pause, privacy, or a different adult
• following required reporting and documentation procedures when safety is involved

Adults are not expected to provide therapy. Adults are responsible for safety, dignity, privacy, and appropriate escalation.

Group Norms

Set these norms before beginning the course and revisit them often:

• Students may pass.
• Students may use fictional examples.
• Students do not have to share private stories.
• Students should not repeat other students' personal examples outside the group.
• The group can discuss patterns without naming people.
• No mocking, ranking, diagnosing, or labeling classmates.
• No one has to describe body sensations, family conflict, or private messages aloud.

Helpful phrasing:

• "You can use a fictional example."
• "You do not have to share that aloud."
• "Let's talk about the pattern, not the person."

Limits of Privacy

Students deserve privacy, but adults should not promise secrecy.

Use language like:

"I will treat what you share carefully. If you tell me something that makes me think someone is unsafe, I may need to involve the right adult support."

If a student shares something that suggests danger, abuse, neglect, self-harm, harm to others, or other unsafe conditions, the adult must follow applicable rules, policies, and laws.

Telemetry Log and Mandatory Reporting

The Telemetry Log is designed as a private journal. Many students may call it their Body Signal Notebook. Students are encouraged to treat it as their own record, and facilitators should not require students to share log entries publicly.

However, the log is not confidential when safety is involved.

Mandatory Reporting Applies to Log Entries

If a facilitator reads or is shown a Telemetry Log entry that contains information suggesting danger, abuse, neglect, self-harm, suicidal ideation, or intent to harm others, they are likely a mandatory reporter under local law and must follow applicable reporting requirements.

The Telemetry Log does not provide an exception to mandatory reporting obligations. If a student shares a written log entry that raises a safety concern, treat it the same as a verbal disclosure: stay calm, do not promise secrecy, and follow your school's, program's, or jurisdiction's reporting protocol.

When in doubt, consult your supervisor or a qualified adult before deciding whether to report.

Disclosure Protocol

If a student shares something serious, use this sequence:

1. Stay calm.
2. Thank the student for telling you.
3. Do not interrogate or ask for unnecessary details.
4. Do not promise secrecy.
5. Move the conversation to an appropriate private or safe adult setting.
6. Follow school, program, family, and legal reporting requirements.
7. Document according to local policy.
8. Continue treating the student with dignity afterward.

The goal is not to become the investigator. The goal is to respond steadily and connect the student with the right next adult step.

Distress Protocol

If a student becomes upset during an activity:

1. Offer a pause.
2. Offer a grounding option.
3. Offer a private check-in with an appropriate adult.
4. Do not force continued participation.
5. Offer a less personal version of the activity.
6. Resume only when the student is ready.

Possible grounding options:

• hold an object and describe it
• look around the room and name five visible things
• draw the model instead of discussing it
• count, sort, or organize materials
• step out briefly with an approved adult

Opt-Out and Alternative Participation

Students can still learn the concept without using a personal story. Offer these alternatives freely:

• use fictional characters
• analyze a movie, book, or game scenario
• draw a system diagram without personal details
• write privately instead of speaking
• observe the tool and summarize how it works
• use a neutral school, club, or home example

These alternatives are not lesser participation. They are valid participation.

Body-Based Activity Cautions

Some students have sensory sensitivities, trauma histories, disability, neurodivergence, anxiety, discomfort with interoception, or a strong dislike of body-focused activities. Build choice in from the start.

Do not:

• force closed eyes
• require breath-holding
• require students to describe body sensations aloud
• insist that one regulation tool works for everyone

Offer non-body alternatives such as:

• object observation
• environment scan
• drawing
• counting or sorting
• short movement breaks
• looking at a visual anchor

Cold and Pain-Based Sensory Interventions

Use With Caution: Cold-Based Grounding

The curriculum materials list includes an ice cube as one possible sensory grounding object. Cold-based and mild pain-based techniques (ice cubes, cold water, rubber band snapping) are sometimes used as grounding interventions, but they are not appropriate for all students.

These techniques can be triggering or contraindicated for students with:

• trauma histories
• self-harm histories or active self-harm concerns
• sensory processing differences or sensory hypersensitivity

Facilitators working with vulnerable populations — especially in clinical, therapeutic, or at-risk settings — should consult with a counselor or clinician before using any cold or pain-based sensory exercise.

Safe alternatives that work for nearly all students:

• slow, deep breathing (4 counts in, hold 2, 4 counts out)
• grounding with a textured object (a rough stone, a smooth river rock, a piece of fabric)
• the "5 things" scan: name 5 things you can see, 4 you can hear, 3 you can touch

When in doubt, skip the ice cube and use a textured object or an environment scan instead. The goal is a grounding anchor, not a specific object.

Capstone Safety Gate

Use this checklist before approving a Week 15–18 project.

The kid-facing capstone language is: pick one problem that keeps happening, make a When/Then Plan, use it during Try-It Week, then look back and patch it. Adults may still see the formal terms friction point, protocol, deployment, and post-mortem in support materials.

A project is appropriate if it is:

• low-stakes
• focused on the student's own choices, communication, environment, or preparation
• not about controlling someone else
• not about unsafe, abusive, coercive, or adult-level conflict
• possible to test without secrecy or manipulation
• easy to stop if it creates distress
• respectful of everyone involved

A project is not appropriate if it involves:

• abuse, violence, neglect, exploitation, or harassment
• retaliation, revenge, surveillance, manipulation, or "testing" another person
• publicly ranking peers
• pressuring someone into contact or forgiveness
• keeping unsafe secrets
• taking responsibility for an adult's behavior

Quick approval questions:

Check	Yes/No
Is the project about the learner's own behavior, communication, environment, or preparation?
Can it be tested safely in everyday life without secrecy or manipulation?
Can the student stop the test immediately if it creates distress?
Would you be comfortable describing this project to a caregiver, school leader, or supervisor?
Does it avoid controlling, diagnosing, exposing, or fixing another person?

If any answer is "no," redesign the project before approval. See Week 15, Week 16, Week 17, and Week 18.

Digital Privacy and Social Mapping Rules

Use extra care when lessons touch group chats, screenshots, rumors, or network maps.

• Do not publicly map real classmates' social status.
• Do not label classmates as outsiders, problems, bridges, weak links, or similar roles in public.
• Use anonymized or fictional networks whenever possible.
• Do not screenshot, forward, or share private messages as part of an activity unless a responsible adult is addressing a real safety need.
• If a digital example is needed, strip names and identifying details.
• Teach Week 13's Check Before You Tell rule before asking students to discuss any rumor or screenshot example.

The goal is to understand group patterns, not assign social value.

Before You Teach

Read these pages alongside this guide:

• Caregiver and Facilitator Guidance
• Facilitator Implementation Guide
• Student Tools and Printables
• SEL Checkpoint
• Assessment Checkpoints
• Assessment and Reflection Guide
• Self-Assessment and Reflection

If you are teaching the capstone, review this guide again before approving a project.