Cindy Lopez: Welcome.My name is Cindy Lopez, the host of this CHC podcast, Voices of Compassion. We hope you find a little courage, feel connected and experience compassion every time you listen.

What if the most powerful thing an educator can do has nothing to do with curriculum? Search Institute has spent over 60 years studying what helps you thrive, and the answer keeps coming back to one thing: relationships. In this conversation with president and CEO of Search Institute, Dr. Ben Houltberg, we unpack the science of developmental relationships, a specific research backed framework that goes far beyond simply being nice to students. We explore how a single teacher relationship can reshape a young person’s trajectory – and how to shift from a deficit mindset to a strengths-based one – even when you’re running on empty because it turns out the small things aren’t really small at all.

So Ben, thank you so much for joining us this morning, I’m really excited about the conversation today, being educator at heart. I’m really interested in this topic of how we can connect with students and build relationship, but before we dive into the conversation, could you just take a moment to tell our listeners just a little bit more about you?

Dr. Ben Houltberg: Well, thanks for having me, Cindy. I really love being on a podcast, but in particular, when it is getting to the people who are the heroes on the ground doing the work every single day because I know how challenging that can be and really for me, that’s how I really would start my story is really starting as a practitioner, as a licensed marriage and family therapist, who was working in a school district, a large school district, working with young people every single day and a large high school. And that is a big part of my background is that focus on what young people need in their lives and how to be supportive of them. And so many incredible stories of things that I’ve learned from the young people that I worked with, but their faces are the faces that I think about, that I see, that get me up in the morning, and I also know the challenges. I know the challenges of systems and all the pressures and things going on for teachers, for parents. We’re feeling more pressure now than we ever have before. 

So, you know, I started as a practitioner. I’m also father. I’m a dad of two wonderful boys, who are 11 and eight, and they keep me very, very busy as well. And then also I think for me it moved from being a practitioner and working in the field every day to studying more formally through my PhD and human development and family science. And really, I’m trying to seek to understand the impact of relationships on the psychophysiological abilities of emotion regulation, and looking at emotion regulation as an important part of a kid’s social and emotional development. And studying that and looking at how context impacts that, everything from challenges in environments, in neighborhoods such as exposure to violence or not having the access to resources and opportunities and how that impacts the kind of psychophysiological underpinning of emotions and emotion regulation. And then looking at the incredible power of relationships, that relationships are truly something that impacts us all the way down to a psychophysiological level. And that journey of really studying that in the lab and understanding that really propelled me even further and wanting to really do the work on the ground. And so my journey, went from practitioner to research scientist to then being in an academic role, and going into kind of the academic route of teaching and doing research and overseeing a clinical program at Purdue on the Fort Wayne campus and applying some of that research and work to therapy and day-to-day and helping students be able to facilitate that process with families and young people themselves. And I stayed in the journey for a while, went out to California and this is where I really started doing a much more deep dive at Fuller School of Psychology and the Thrive Center for Human Development into positive youth development – and why is positive youth development so important and getting into some of the substance of not only just helping kids be resilient and overcome adversity, but really begin to put a view of the telos – towards what end. Like, what are we shaping them towards and how do we think about those things like meaning and life and purpose and how incredibly capable young people are, not to shape the world tomorrow, but today when we create the right conditions for them. I’m so grateful for that time to dive deeply into that.

And then my journey took me to USC where I was really looking at creating the conditions and climates of thriving climates, looking in high achieving context from like athletic departments and startup businesses to professional football teams and then really at that moment and still stay connected to USC and do some continued work there. 

But, really wanted to get back to the heart of what I think drew me and my purpose, which was youth development. And so I knew of   this place called Search Institute when I was a practitioner in early 2000s because they had put out this really wonderful framework called the Developmental Assets Framework, that was challenging practitioners to have a strength-based approach to how we work with youth. And I loved it because it described the kids that I worked with in a different way, not by their deficits, not by what I heard in the hallways from sometimes other teachers or counselors, but by the internal assets, the things they had. And also started to look at what was in their community. And so I emailed them out of the blue really and this kind of search for a VP of research and practice. And within a very short span, I was moving my family from Pasadena, California to, uh, the Midwest, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to be at Search Institute and then within a year, the previous CEO moved to be a superintendent of a large school district, and the board asked me if I would want to apply for the CEO role. And here I am.

Cindy Lopez: Here you are.

Dr. Ben Houltberg: 5 years in that role. So, and I feel like it’s been a little bit of a nice integration of all of who I am.  

Cindy Lopez: I definitely, listening to your story, see that thread, that youth development thread – like focus on kids and relationship and how that really impacts them. And I love when you said that you still remember faces and it’s such a part of people who work with youth, whether it’s educators or other roles, clinicians. I remember vividly, most of the kids and certainly some of them a little bit more, but that’s what continues to drive the work. And I think your story about getting from California to Minnesota and just like knowing that that was the next step for you, that’s also, pretty impressive.

 Now that you’re at Search Institute, let’s talk about Search Institute for a minute. So, you’ve all been focusing on developmental relationships. You mentioned that work you did or the work that Search Institute has done around the assets, but Search Institute’s been doing that work for 60 years. So, what does the research show consistently about what young people need most to thrive? And I know this is a loaded question, but are we delivering that?

Dr. Ben Houltberg: Yeah, it’s, you know, it is a pretty incredible honor to lead an organization that has such a rich history of 60 years plus, and I think it’s really important actually, as I talk about Search Institute to situate it in really, before the nineties, but something happened in the 1990s that was really important. I mean, you think about this time in context where all the descriptions about young people were very deficit based. They were wired for criminal activity. There was a fear of being born antisocial almost, and it was pretty much prevalent in most ways of talking about young people. And the Positive Youth Development Movement was really a kind of counter to this deficit based narrative to say that young people are not problems to be solved, instead they’re resources and that they have strengths and these things they care about that we have to tap into. And how do we focus on their strengths, not just the deficits. And that journey really is what created kind of this catalyst of the positive youth development by the developmental assets framework that helped map out those internal strengths, those things that young people care about, the strengths they bring to the table, and the external assets: the things in their life, the people in their life and the resources around them, and that really ushered in kind of this time where that changed how people work with young people. 

Like, I think it started to really embed itself in the school some, but I also think that there was a time where you had, kind of no child left behind, all the things that were happening in schools. This more emphasis on assessment and testing that also created barriers within schools at a time where you could start to see some of the movement take hold, at least in the out of school time space, but also throughout communities and so this is an incredible asset for Search Institute is over this history – we have over 6 million different data points on young people themselves. And so this data just keeps accumulating in a way to tell a story about what are the conditions that they need in their lives to thrive? And another important point is Search Institute defined youth thriving way back in like 2001.

And now you hear the words, “thriving” a lot, and people will use it in all kinds of different ways, but I do think it’s important to talk about, like for Search Institute, it really is about this mutual enhancement of the young developing person, and it starts with acknowledging that each and every young person has an inherent value, something that they bring to the table that is not earned, that is not deserved, but just by existing in the world. And that inherent value, when we can recognize it and cultivate it and activate it, not only does that young person develop and get something from the community, but the community thrives because we are better when you thrive, and this was a really important thing  to start putting into the world at that time.

And it’s continued to grow and I think what we’ve learned, is along that journey when you boil it all down, you start to really look at all of these different assets and all these different things that are happening that becomes some simple truth. And one of those simple truths is that relationships matter and the types of relationships that are required for thriving, don’t just come automatically. that we have to be intentional about it. And so for the last decade, search has really focused on developing a relational action oriented model for what young people need to thrive, and that is developmental relationships.

Cindy Lopez: It’s so impressive. And just honored that Search Institute is a partner with us on Ellis. For those listeners who don’t know, Ellis is a chat-based resource for educators to help them and support them as they support their students, especially around learning and mental health, but two of the things that we actually promote in Ellis specifically through a prompt series as they describe the situation with the student is: one strengths, what are the strengths of this student? And two, how do you characterize your connection or that dynamic and the relationship between you and the student? And I think those two things, you alluded to those two things, but I just wanted to say that it’s really important and the content that Search Institute provides through Ellis has been helpful and provides some really solid grounding for educators as they use Ellis.

Educators, I think it’s fair to say, being one of them, you too, like go into the field because they want to make a difference. They want to make a difference for students and youth. And I think when you start teaching as a new teacher, you’re a little overwhelmed. There are a lot of demands placed on your time and priorities that others are placing on you. And there’s not a lot of time or energy left to really connect with students and develop that positive student teacher relationship. I know that research suggests that it’s difficult, if not impossible, and this is from Search Institute, to find any positive developmental outcome that isn’t shaped by relationships. So, if we want some positive outcomes for students, that relationship piece is critical. So, what does the science tell us about how a relationship with a teacher can change outcomes for a student?

Dr. Ben Houltberg: Yeah, I mean, if we look at the research at how powerful relationships are with teachers, pretty much what we have found and continue to find is all the academic outcomes we care about: learning engagement, attendance, GPA, disciplinary behavior, all of those improve with strong developmental relationships. And there’s some nuance to that, too, because developmental relationships – that kind of bidirectional relationship with a young person – it’s really important to say, like, when we talk about relationships, we have to talk about it as a two-way street. A lot of people will tell you, especially in the field, will say, “Oh yeah, relationships, I’m really good at relationships.” And one thing that I often say, and it’s true for all of us, is like, you can’t be the only one that thinks you’re good at relationships, right? Like if you’re the only one that thinks you’re good at relationships, we might have a problem with that.

Because it’s a two-way street; it requires input from both. And like you had mentioned, the faces of young people that you still think about. We are deeply shaped and formed by the young people that we work with and just as we are providing and impacting their lives, they’re impacting our lives. And as we think about really what makes something a developmental relationship between a teacher and a student, it has to go beyond just kind of the general support or even the general demandingness. A lot of times people will talk about being a warm demander, right? Like you have the warmth and the responsiveness and you have the kind of high expectation and challenge. Yes, those are both important and sometimes we’ll have a tendency towards one or the other of those. From our research, when we look at a multidimensional perspective of what is developmental relationships, we’re talking about things beyond that. So yes, expressing care is one really core element of it – is that’s showing youth that they matter. 

We all, from the time we’re born into this world, are asking questions about mattering. Am I worthy? And what a developmental relationship does is it really validates that worthiness and it shows that you belong here. You have a rightful presence in this space, and you matter. You matter as an individual. Your story, who you are, matters. That is really critical because it’s hard to do anything else if a kid doesn’t feel like they belong or they matter in your classroom. But we also know that you have to provide the support, right? Not do things for your students, but how do you really help them complete tasks and say, “I’m showing up consistently. I’ll be here. I’m not going to do it for you because I know you’re capable, but I’m going to be here to support you through it.” And then the challenging growth side, like that expectation is important. Those three are pretty typical of what we might hear and see – all very, very important. But then we have to move beyond that as we start thinking about not just the fundamentals. But how do we create again, getting back to that telos of thriving, of understanding, creating this close connection where a kid understands who they are and how to shape the world, but also how they contribute to the world. 

This starts getting to questions of not just, do I belong, and safety is important. Do I belong? Am I safe? But starts to move to this place of where can I contribute? And especially around adolescence, we see more and more this ability of starting to think about meaning and life and purpose and contribution, but this starts to get into the other elements. So, we have expressing care, provide support, challenging growth, and now we start talking about sharing power, actually giving opportunity–choice and voice–to young people to have leadership. Not just kind of listening to them for the sake of listening to them or having a student committee that we take feedback from, and then we as adults do whatever we want to do, right? Like letting them truly shape their world and experience is so critical to that agency to that ability to be a leader and even for the kid who might sit in the back of the classroom that doesn’t speak out very much or struggles with self-confidence, to be able to see a journey for that student, to be able to step up and give feedback in ways. This is the reason why we teach, why we work with young people, right? But yet we know from our own research that sharing power is one of the lowest things we see that kids report in schools. And it’s significantly different with schools as out of school time organizations, which we would expect because of the added pressure, the number of student ratios, all the kind of things. 

And then finally, the last one is expanding possibilities, and this is really important. When I came into this organization, it was right during COVID and we had data that we were tracking before COVID and through COVID and expanding possibilities was one of those that really, it was at a all time low during COVID – because expanding possibilities has to do with hope. It has something to do with connecting young people to, to places and opportunities that are beyond their world; that begin to help them think about that future of what they can do in the world and understand a culture and things that maybe are not in their ecosystem. That expanding possibilities is linked also to things like social capital, where we start helping people understand there’s a world beyond what they live in. And so, expressing care, challenging growth, provide support, sharing power and expanding possibilities makes up this developmental relationship framework that can also feel overwhelming when I say it to a teacher. But I want to also take it down a level of like, why it’s important to understand the beauty of a multidimensional kind of view of relationships is that we probably do some of these things naturally and are already doing a lot of these things in our classroom, but being able to start to name it gives us not more things to do, but helps us be more, be more in the classroom. It’s not adding to, if we start to just think about this as a relational mindset that can give us more ways to interact with kids and strengthen our ability and our toolbox to say, well, this kid, maybe they need a little bit more of the challenging growth right now. Do I have that connection with them so that I can challenge growth? Or I might say to the teacher, when they’re changing classrooms and you know, one kid in particular might be in the back and you just get this feeling that they’re having a rough day. You might be able to sneak out and tell that next teacher, hey, “Johnny’s having a rough day, I can tell, he may need some more care today. Can you just look out for that?” Like, the shared language in a classroom, in a hallway, in a unit, in a building starts to develop an ability for us to say, yeah, maybe not any one of us can provide all things to all students at all times, but as a community we can. And that’s kind of the power of that, but it’s also the responsibility of the system too, the supporting system. What we find is that people will say often that they prioritize relationships, but the supporting structures are not in place. The time and energy and space to be able to do it. The emphasis on what’s important. That all kinds of things happen that also create barriers for teachers to be able to do this in the classroom. So it has to be a system level kind of intervention. When we talk about this too.

Mike Navarrete: CHC’s Voices of Compassion podcast is made possible by the generosity of people like you. To learn more about supporting CHC, go to chconline.org/donate. Also make sure to follow us on social media for more inspiring and educational content from CHC.

Cindy Lopez: So many things: agency, belonging, rightful presence. I think about those things and the rightful presence has come up a number of times as we had been thinking about what we do in education. It creates this othering kind of situation, where we group students in a way, right, whether it’s ability or social or whatever, and there’s this sense of you’re in this group, but not in this group. And so that sense of othering, and I think as you think about the concept of rightful presence that just cuts across all of that – and agency grows belonging. You talked about hope and expanding possibilities. I had a conversation with Brenda, who’s at CAST, and she talked about the Science of Hope and Universal Design for Learning and the agency that is all part of that. And I say that because the more I talk with people, like you, like Brenda from CAST and others – some of our friends at Stanford Accelerator for Learning – these threads are common through all of our conversations and I find that hopeful and exciting.

And also I want to just get all these thoughts and brains in a room and figure out how to just get all of that impact that we can have collectively. But, you also mentioned, like teachers are doing a lot of what you’re saying. So, If you’re an educator listening to this podcast episode, you’re probably thinking, oh, that’s a lot. I can’t possibly do all of that, but you’d also said teachers are doing all of this, and they just haven’t named it. And I think there is some intentionality in that, that teachers, if they could kind of sit back and reflect for a minute about what they are doing and then how they could continue to be intentional about those things that really are moving the needle for the students in all the ways that you have described.

You talked about also creating that shared language around relationships at a school level. I’m wondering if you could expand on that a little bit. Thinking about our listeners who might say, “Well, that’s all great, but really how do I do that?” What are practical ways that I could maybe even go into my classroom tomorrow and do some things or say some things like what would that look like?

Dr. Ben Houltberg: Yeah. If you think about, and kind of imagine, within a school building in particular or anywhere, but there are infrastructures that hold that building up. There are infrastructures in how the walls are, the windows, there are infrastructures in all the spaces. When I think about this there’s also this invisible infrastructure of relationships. There’s a relational infrastructure and we can be architects of our environments to really create the best possible potential to strengthen relationships. And so whether that’s in the classroom and it’s your responsibility as a classroom teacher, or it extends to a unit and a chair of a unit or all the way to the building and the principal, and it can keep going as, you know, a school district. So, you have to know like I can control the controllables, the things within my ecosystem, within my classroom bubble. And you start thinking about if you take a relational mindset and lens to that, how do I create the spaces and places that have the best opportunity to optimize relationships while also making sure that the teaching and the curriculum is happening. I’m not saying you dismiss that, but you embed it inside the curriculum that way. 

What I think about relationships, it is the animator of the curriculum. It is the animator of everything that you are doing. It doesn’t replace it. It shouldn’t replace it. You still have to teach math, but what we have found even in our own research is that when developmental relationships are strong, the math part is actually enhanced, particularly for young people of color, particularly for black and brown students. When we talk about math and the identity is that strong developmental relationships are really an enhancer of math engagement, and this is important. I think we kind of think it’s nice, or something on the side, or something we don’t have time for. When it really is one of the animators of everything that we do. And so that’s, one thing I would say is like, how can you embed it into your curriculum in a way? 

There are a lot of free resources on our website to just look at that framework of development relationships and think about, how am I making kids feel like they matter when they walk in? How am I pushing them to get better? How am I helping them and supporting them? How am I treating them with respect and giving them a say, how am I connecting to something bigger and beyond the self or outside of their world? And just start with small ways of doing it. It really is in the small things that you create. And, the first step is really the intentionality, being intentional, planning, thinking it through, understanding, and then you have to move to the next question of like, who is and who is not getting that in the classroom and why. And that’s an inclusion question, like that starts to get at are there things within my classroom and figuring out is what I’m doing in the classroom working for each and every student that walks into my classroom that’s an important piece too. But like starting small with the intentionality and understanding within my classroom and my space and my curriculum with my students. How can I start to animate this and just be a little bit curious. Be curious about what you see, you know, small things. Ultimately, we’re all social scientists in that way, right? Like, if we can just start to be curious about, how is this shaping the dynamics? Ooh, maybe the sharing power thing went a little too far in my class today. Like, maybe the, the kind of challenging growth or the support with the boundaries and expectations need to make sure they’re a little stronger next time, like this is that kind of curiosity of fine tuning and architecting your own space.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah, and that opportunity for reflection, I think a lot of those questions that you just named are great reflection questions for teachers and practitioners as they’re working with students and the intentionality piece of that. I know as a teacher sometimes you walk into your classroom, you’re feeling prepared, you’re feeling ready for the day. You kind of know what’s going to happen and then something derails it that you didn’t anticipate. And that’s the life of an educator.

And so then as you go throughout the day, how am I showing up right now? All of those intentional things kind of go out the window when all of a sudden you’re in this stressful situation where you have to respond immediately to something. And I think that if teachers could go back to some of those questions you just mentioned that might help them as they reflect and decompress the day.

So, I am mindful that in our area, in Palo Alto and Peninsula, we have experienced the loss of teens to suicide and that’s heartbreaking for the community. Do you have any thoughts or advice for us, for the community around that?

Dr. Ben Houltberg: Yeah. Yeah, well, one of the things I think when I think about, like I said earlier, the faces of the young people and the stories of the young people, stories of resilience and brilliance in the face of adversity and finding connection to opportunities and just seeing these young people flourish. And it’s also been that of a tragedy and nothing is more tragic in the world when the spark that young people bring, all of us know it. Anybody that’s worked with a student or a kid, you know that spark, right? Like that spark of a kid who might even drive you crazy, but there’s something that you just, you just see that, that spark of what they could be in the world. And nothing’s more tragic when that’s snuffed out early and especially nothing more tragic when it’s snuffed out early for a kid who feels hopeless. And I think there’s so much complexity when we talk about completed suicide and what that means. So, there’s lots of multidimensional things that contribute to that. 

But I do think there’s some things that we have to really ask our ourself as a society, that was starting to trend before COVID, that was starting to trend at a time where more research started to uncover and identify that this heightened mental health crisis that we’re seeing, uh, around, but especially in achievement context and high achieving context, the rates of anxiety and depression. And I think there’s something in here we have to ask ourselves when we’re having a group of kids grow up with the idea that they have to be great. They have to do more at a time where they’re already an adolescence developing that social comparison of course. And you have social media and you have all of the things around that of this heightened idea that I have to do great things. And what I think is a challenge for us to think about is when identity and worth and values starts to get connected to performance.

And this is what I studied a lot through my career was this idea of a performance based identity is where we form our sense of worth and value based on the results of something, a domain – whether that’s academic achievement, whether that’s sports, whether that’s, whatever it is, it sets us up for a lot of heartache and pain is because no amount of success will ever fill a void for us to feel like we are worthy or valued. And, this is core, this is a core question of identity that I do think that we have to be aware of. What are the messages that we’re giving kids that has them, internalizing them as if, I cannot perform or meet this standard, then I’m not worthy, I’m not worth something. If I don’t get into this college or the trap of saying, and this happens in development of, when I accomplish this, then I will feel good about myself, when I get into that university, when I make my first paycheck, when I meet that person, when I buy, you know, my first house. And that treadmill, we have created a lot in society. There’s nothing wrong with pursuing excellence. There’s nothing wrong with really trying to be the best version of yourself. It’s the fuel behind it that matters. And, I think that fuel is that we have to prove our worth and our value by some sort of result, that will always lead to emotional and relational devastation. If we can help fuel that from this place of mastery, of wanting to be the best version of myself, from the spark of what is important to me and my value, and this is what I found in my research even before coming to Search. This is what I call a purpose-based identity is when my worth and my value gets formed around what’s meaningful, and it’s beyond myself. It’s, I am pursuing this so that I can make the world a better place. And I think for young people in particular, we have to figure out how to tap into that spark – that thing that moves them – and then connect it to that opportunity or that path that allows them to be able to live a life that’s more fulfilling and meaningful.

It’s not finding purpose in this big, like transformative way because that can feel overwhelming to young people. But it really is about finding meaning and value and beginning to help them develop what Mary Helen Immordino-Yang at USC talks about transcendent thinking is such a powerful thing for adolescents because it begins to have them thinking about something beyond themselves. They get connected to that pursuit in a meaningful way that is more sustainable and isn’t based on this idea that I have to prove my worth and my value, and then we set up all the systems around it to reinforce a message that will ultimately be hard.

Now, I couldn’t pretend to try to make that contribution of a performance-based identity to the tragic and heartbreaking loss that is happening in the community, but I can say that we need to be doing something different for kids when we start thinking about performance and we start thinking about high achievement and we start to think about how relational infrastructure needs to be at the heart of this to really help young people develop their sense of worth and identity in a direction that is sustainable and that I think, is something we can do. And that’s what gets me up in the morning is my sense of purpose and meaning too.

Cindy Lopez: Thinking about our conversation today, thinking about educators, thinking about educators really forming those developmental relationships with students, what gives you hope right now when you look at what’s happening with educators and youth?

Dr. Ben Houltberg: There’s a couple things that gimme a lot of hope. I think there’s been a convergence theoretically and academically in understanding what young people need. Like, they need more than just a focus on academic success or success, but it has to be a model that includes what we would call from more developmental science around Search Institute, thriving. What also you see is kind of the flourishing and this movement towards thinking about not just the absence of mental illness or symptomology, but something beyond that to draw them to. So there’s hope that’s there. I think people are craving what is human right now. Like, the relationships and the connection to things like, joy and generosity and justice and these kind of virtues, these character virtues that make us uniquely human. I think there is a craving for these things at a time where things are polarized and disconnected. So, there’s a groundswell of movement, similar to what I think was a groundswell or movement in the late nineties that ushered in the positive youth development movement. I think we’re at a place now where we are starting to say we’re not satisfied with the status quo and that young people are rising up right now. They are doing incredible things, and so I’m hopeful when I’m with the young person and it counters the deficit based narrative of today. Today’s deficit based narrative is much more around they’re technology addicted, they’re unprepared, the loneliness pandemic, all those things. There’s truth in all those things, but there’s also truth in the incredible things that young people are doing and the potential that they have and the way they’re solving problems. And as adults, I think we sometimes have to figure out how to make sure that we are contributing to the narrative of their strength and their potential, while also understand the risk of the other side. Don’t get me wrong, we have to acknowledge and be aware of those. So, I’m hopeful based on seeing the incredible young people. When I travel around the nation and I speak to young people, it gives me hope. It gives me hope for my kids, for their future. It gives me hope that there is a movement of consciousness around what’s important in life that as a community, we can make change. And so, you know, all of those things, give me hope. Even in these bleak times of some really challenging things that we hear and we see. But, I think when we have the courage to chase the pain collectively together, and it can be transformed to purpose in a way that really creates a shared kind of purpose. I think that’s the most powerful motivator in the world to really move us forward. And my hope is that we can collectively come around a shared purpose to create those relational infrastructures and places and spaces where kids can show up and at the very fundamental nature feel that they are seen and they’re heard and they’re valued and being able to really provide that together so that they can change the world today and not just think about that for the future and that brings me hope too.

Cindy Lopez: Really thankful for your time today and sharing it with us and your thoughts. For our listeners also, thank you for joining us. if you’re listening and you want to learn more about the work of Search Institute and developmental relationships and assets and how to do that, in the show notes, we’ll have links to that.  They have incredible resources. And also just want to say really thankful again for Search Institute and the partnership around Ellis. And for educators who are listening, Ellis can be a strategy or a tool, a thought partner as you think about what strategies could really make a difference for students. So, you can find out more, learn more, use Ellis at askellis.org. 

And finally, just want to say, if you’re a parent listening and you have a child that you’re concerned about, please reach out, chconline.org. You can reach our care team at [email protected]. We’re here for you and we’d love to help. So, Ben, thank you so much.

Dr. Ben Houltberg: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

Cindy Lopez: Visit us online at podcasts.chconline.org. Make sure to subscribe to Voices of Compassion so you never miss an episode, and we’d love it if you’d leave us a rating and review. Have a question? Send us an email or a voice memo at [email protected]. We’re here for you when you need us.