All right guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new, my name is Bobby guys eat muhbada as a new river to Islam This is my very first eat. We'll add her and to be completely honest with you guys for the past years I read the Quran. I read the hadiths. However, when it comes down to holidays, I still know very very little So therefore today we're gonna react to the video What is it will add her and why do Muslims sacrifice by the channel one Islam? Productions, I'm going to use this video to learn something but more over I'm going to use it as well So we can celebrate digitally together because as a new revert Nobody in my family is a Muslim and therefore the holiday season is always the loneliest for reverse I'm gonna celebrate Alone so guys do me the favor before we start the video if you enjoy the content leave me a thumbs up subscribe to the channel if you Haven't already and check out our merch in the description box with no further ado. Let's have a look May the peace and blessings of the Almighty be upon you all my beloved brothers and sisters in humanity and in faith as well Muslims generally have two major occasions of happiness and joy the days known as the days of Eid They always come after Dedicated worship after a huge sacrifice after having done something major for the Almighty For example the first Eid known as Eid al-Fitr is at the end of the ninth month of The lunar calendar that the Muslims actually follow and that is the month of Ramadan We're in which we fast to me this feels absolutely like yesterday I reverted to Islam and two days later Ramadan started it was the first Ramadan for me and the first Ramadan as a Muslim What better way to revert to Islam than starting right away with Ramadan? I absolutely loved the fasting period we stay away from things that are otherwise permissible normal water and Normal general food that we would eat on any day and even relations with our spouses So we stay away from that during the daylight hours only For an entire month the idea is to achieve closeness to the Almighty to discipline yourself Islam is all about discipline. You need to be able to Obey instructions and listen to that which is beneficial to you And this is one of the reasons why I accepted Islam of course first and foremost Allah guides who he wills Therefore it is up to Allah to decide who will become a Muslim But nevertheless discipline was such a huge part because when I was 12 years old I was a chubby little kid. This is the day I started to diet with 12 years old I started intermittent fasting after 8 p.m. I wouldn't eat anymore and like this. I lost a lot of weight with 16 then I decided to become a bodybuilder. I followed a strict regimen in training in nutrition I never had a cheat meal.  Discipline transformed my body from a 60 kilo light teenager I became a hundred and fifty kilogram bodybuilder. So very early in my life I realized that without discipline we are completely lost without guidance without a plan We don't know where we are going It is like the example of the ship that sails into the ocean but without a plan Where are you going wherever the wind takes you? This is not a productive life and won't lead to the desired outcome. Only discipline self-imposed discipline will lead to Success anything that is worthwhile in this life needs discipline. You need discipline for a business You need discipline for sport as I said you need discipline for a relationship man when you're young It's all easy all fun and games. You meet somebody and everything is peachy However, when you enter marriage, you need discipline You need a structure for your marriage to keep it successful. And of course the same applies even more so to Spiritual matters. We are absolutely lost without a plan coming from the divine without a plan from God That we follow because if we do not follow God's plan, we are following our own Desires that is the whole essence of the dilemma that we have as human beings and this is where you see Society crumbling most religions don't have that discipline They're not applying any rigid structure and when they're looking at Islam they even blaming Islam Oh, Islam is so rigid. You have to pray five times per day. Yeah, boo. Who I had to train five times per week as well Only discipline will lead you to success after dedicating your month to acts of worship and Benefiting yourself as well through Perhaps improving your health through the fasting Disciplining yourself for the Almighty. Yes, and enjoying the beautiful month of Ramadan The Almighty gives us a day known as the day of Eid al-Fitr depicting the end of the fasting season and that is a beautiful day Deserved well deserved after a month of goodness Now in a similar way for me personally the last day of Ramadan was actually a bit sad because I enjoyed the fasting so much It was a spiritual journey the heroes journey here in Thailand and it was so extremely hot We are totally dehydrated just driving with our scooters to the mosque, but I love that suffering I love that discipline as I said, I come from a bodybuilding background. I was so fascinated with the month of Ramadan I appreciated the discipline and then when it came to an end I was actually sad the lunar calendar, which is known as the month of Dhul-Hijjah, that's the 12th month of the lunar calendar In that month from the beginning of the month right up to the 9th the 10th days We are trained to actually engage in extra acts of worship the Prophet Muhammad may peace be upon him has said That there are no days where in which the Almighty loves acts of worship more than the first 10 days of Dhul-Hijjah, which is the 12th month of the lunar calendar Now I heard this was all about what about the Hajj The Hajj is all about the Prophet Abraham and his sacrifice So he sacrificed his son according to the Muslim scriptures that son was Ismail According to the Jewish and the Christian scriptures that son was Ishaq or Isaac may peace be upon them all Nonetheless, this son who was sacrificed What was the reason behind that sacrifice? The Prophet Abraham may peace be upon him was very close to the Almighty He was the father of all the prophets who came after him according to Islamic belief and I have to interrupt it again because you have to ask yourself the question Which other religion that proclaims to be an Abrahamic faith actually has a holiday dedicated to Abraham? He was respected, he was Khalilullah, meaning a friend of the Almighty And he had built what we know as the Kaaba in Makkah A house of worship where in which people would gather and worship the Almighty alone their maker and no one else So when that happened at a certain point he saw a dream And in that dream he was instructed by the Almighty to sacrifice his son Perhaps according to Muslim scriptures in order to serve as a lesson for all of us That the Almighty actually should come before everything and anything else Obedience to the Almighty always first So when you get too attached to something it becomes unhealthy If you're too attached to your son or your daughter or your spouse or anything material There is a point beyond which it becomes unhealthy because if you were to lose them to the Almighty's destiny Through death or something bad were to happen. You would not be able to survive the loss So we're not allowed to yeah more over you wouldn't only not be able to survive the loss But you would lose faith in God. This is what we see with all so many atheists.  That is the definition of worshiping the creator not the creation We are just creation. Yes as harsh as that sounds our children our family our wives We are all just creation and every single time we put the emphasis onto creation We lose track of god. We lose sight of what is really important If you look at prophet Muhammad's life may peace be upon him You see as well that oh so many children of his died during his lifetime. Was he being punished by god? Of course not. There is a greater wisdom and it forces us to redirect our focus away from the creation onto the creator To harm anyone obviously that instruction was something divine for a purpose And even the fulfillment of it was not exactly as it was instructed It was a test I'll explain in a moment how it happened Going back to the lesson that we learned from it When you get too attached to something material for example say your car or your phone or something in your house Your clothing the day the clothing is burned to the iron the day the car is damaged the day your product is broken You may become so angry and vexed that you might lose control. You might harm people. You might do something silly You might harm yourself depending on what exactly you've lost. So the Almighty is telling us listen I come before everything else Destiny is chosen by me Prescribed by me. Yes, you have a role to play and I've given you a choice And the only thing you're going to be questioned about on the day of judgment is how you utilize the choice that I actually gave you If I did not give you a choice About something I'll never ask you about it because it's not fair So the prophet Abraham was instructed to sacrifice his son He told his son According to the Quranic scripture, obviously I'm speaking about the muslim narrative Of course. He told his son.  Obviously, we're all naturally attached But there is a level beyond which it becomes toxic and it even becomes dangerous for us So the Almighty is the owner. He gave it to you in the first place and he is going to take it back at some point Now that sacrifice When it was replaced with a ram the Almighty loved it so much that he asked us all To re-enact that More for the lesson than anything else So the Almighty says look the meat or the blood is not going to get to the Almighty That's where love is long in the arabic language It is the piety and the god consciousness that is of essence Not the meat and the blood etc. Again, this is really why I love islam so much because it's practical It's rational. It's logical. It is true. Yes This is not about sacrificing blood and giving it to the gods like the mayans or the ed stacks did back in the day Or even the jews back in the day. No, it is metaphorically speaking. It is about the lesson It is about the piety. It is not about the material flesh ascending to the heavens of the makes perfect sense Or the sacrificial animal perfect sense so In the first 10 days of dul hijjah The prophet peace be upon him Muhammad peace be upon him said there are no days where in which Acts of worship are more loved by the Almighty than the first 10 days of dul hijjah When it came to ramadan the knights were more sacred indeed And we were taught that the knights of ramadan are so loved by Allah when you worship the Almighty in those days or in those nights, sorry And during the day you're actually fasting So when it comes to dul hijjah, it's the day that's of essence and the night Yes, you spend in the worship of the Almighty as well Muslims pray five times a day two of those prayers are at night. One of them is just after sunset One is slightly later and one is before the sun rises So actually three of them are after sunset two of them are at night and two of them are during the day That makes five Those are short prayers that don't last more than a few minutes But it's just to be able to turn to the Almighty remind yourself I came from there I'm going to go back there The one who made me is going to have mercy on me and he is the only one I worship And I call him Allah which means the worshipped one Eloha or Elohim in the Hebrew language Now the prophet Abraham and his sacrifice His life is celebrated by the Muslims in a great way His son Ismail his son Isaac or Ishaq may peace be upon them all his wives And everything that he did the dedication is studied by the Muslims just like it's studied by others But we reenact this we worship the Almighty for these Nine whole days and on the 10th day we're given an Eid known as Eid al-Adha Eid al-Adha actually lasts for three days so That Eid where we're in which we're meant to reach out to the poor again With meat with food stuff with something to eat with something to celebrate with Vegans hate this holiday reaching out to the poor and that's why the Almighty says divide your sacrifice into three A third you can eat from a third give your family and friends and the third dedicated to the poor That's an amazing Islamic teaching even your wealth. It would be brilliant if you could divide it into three It's not compulsory regarding your general wealth Because there is a bare minimum that you have to give known as the charity the zakat So charity in the English language has the understanding that it's totally voluntary No other religion has this yet again people will claim that Islam is also evil or so bad No other religion has compulsory charity comes to the zakat that the Muslims give it's not voluntary But it's a type of charity. That's actually Compulsory you must nice two and a half percent amazing So when it comes to the sacrificial animal we give And we reach out to the poor The idea is to be able to become a better person with all of these teachings The idea is to improve on two things Every time Islam has taught us something The idea is to improve on two things one is your relationship with the one who made you Is your relationship with everything else that he has made As simple as that now you have people from Different understandings at times a minority who misinterpret things and they they are cruel towards those who perhaps belong to other faiths Maybe other races. Maybe other nationalities. This is not only within the Muslims But a lot of people have this misunderstanding We are actually brothers and sisters because we come from Adam and Eve And even though we may not share the same faith notice at the beginning The older I get the more I realize that it's all about good and evil. You have good and evil people Everywhere that being said of course as a muslim I believe that Islam is the absolute truth But nevertheless that doesn't put me in a position to hate on other people and this is what you see Unfortunately in every faith be it christianity be it judeism But even within the muslims you have people that are filled with hatred And they cannot wait to use any pretense to let that hatred out And then they're going to use and abuse the religion just to vomit their hatred and frustration onto the world And sisters In humanity at least it's a battle between good and evil after all some of you might be my brothers and sisters in faith too But if you're not no big deal, you're still my brothers and sisters in humanity the minimum I thought you is the respect of a human being of an extended family of mine Even if I disagree with you and that's something that we're taught as muslims And this is where when the sacrifice comes in we as muslims We do have a little bit of difference of opinion regarding certain details, you know, how old should the animal be Exactly what time should it happen and so on is there a leeway? Is there no leeway? But that does not remove us from being connected in the same way When you don't belong to my faith It doesn't remove us from being connected through humanity and we should discuss our faith I mean today. I'm speaking to you tomorrow. You can speak to me. Tell me what you believe what you think We should be free to do this in a very respectful way No attacking people No Abusing them no swearing them. Just present your opinion You may want to express why you feel someone else is wrong But in a beautiful way just to get them to understand and then to make their minds up As to what exactly they want to do Now this is something that is lacking in today's world Or should I say it needs to be encouraged more And I pray that this Beautiful occasion of the Eid al-Adha the Eid of the sacrifice Is actually going to be a time of reflection a time of sacrifice dedication A time of worship a time of reaching out to the poor and a time of building the bond with both the Departments that we're supposed to be building the bonds with number one My relationship with my maker number two my relationship with the rest of the creatures of the same maker Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I think we've benefited Jazakum Allah khayr mele almighty recompense you with Beautiful goodness Amen All right, this is it for today's video. I personally as a new muslim learned a lot here I know for born muslims. This probably was boring. They already know this Nevertheless, I believe that this was very very beautifully said and I am aware that some people do not appreciate this Compassionate way of speaking again. I want to make one thing very very clear here I believe that islam is the true religion of god Therefore I accepted it But nevertheless, he's absolutely right here the base respect we have to give each other as humans as brothers and sisters In humanity there is absolutely no point in pointing the finger and screaming kaffir over and over again No, we are brothers and sisters in humanity I couldn't agree more and this is why I personally Truly see the world split in right and wrong good and evil and you have good people everywhere Even here in Thailand. I'm living amongst buddhists. You have no idea how many beautiful buddhists I met I had muslim brothers with me here in thailand and they said themselves man, we can learn something of those buddhists They're so nice. They're so friendly. We as muslims have to step up to that level and I absolutely agree We can never trade falsehood for truth. Absolutely not. We should always convey the true message of islam Obviously, but we have to do it in a beautiful way as he said otherwise people are just shutting down And for me personally when people ask me, why don't you give daawa guys? I call this a low-key undercover daawa if you will I do not speak directly to people and try to convince them because nobody did that to me either Ultimately, I opened up the Quran because I wanted to debunk islam and look where that brought me If you have an open mind, you can understand the information that is being presented to you But it cannot be forced upon you. There is no compulsion in religion That's what it states in the Quran and this is what I always have in the back of my mind when talking to people I simply say yes, I'm a muslim and if they have questions, I talk about it But ultimately Allah guides who he wills. All right guys And this is it for today's video yet again eat mubadak Everybody celebrate with your families for me a little bit If you like the video leave it a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed already guys Please do so and if you want to support this channel via merch for example, all the links are in the description box below Thank you so much for your ongoing support guys and as always may god bless you all much love and peace


This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Today we're really going to be talking about FASD in terms of people that are involved in the mental health and criminal justice systems. A lot more on mental health, criminal justice will be more on part two, but we're going to kind of talk a little bit about both. So where to begin? There is so much stuff we can cover on FASD because I find that there are a lot of people, whether you're working in child welfare, mental health or criminal justice, that are really unaware of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and exactly what it means and what impairments people with FASDs may have and all kinds of stuff. And a lot of times it makes it more difficult for us as professionals to understand why clients are doing what they're doing if we don't understand their diagnosis and don't understand their capabilities. And once you understand what a person with FAS or FASD may or may not be able to do, then it puts their behaviors in a completely different light in many cases. And I will state repeatedly throughout the presentation that while being oppositional and not following rules can or appear and not following rules, can be a characteristic of someone with an FASD. It also can be a characteristic of a whole bunch of other stuff. So we don't want to just assume that someone's behaviors are because of an FASD. But if we see a certain set of behaviors, we do want to explore to see if they don't have the tools or the abilities to follow certain directions or if they need certain modifications. So we're going to explore the scope of the problem. The first couple of slides are really mundane and I do not test you on percentages and all that kind of stuff, but I want you to realize how important this is. Then we'll identify the impacts of the impairments across domains and discuss specific issues for adolescents and in treatment centers. I learned a lot when I was doing this presentation about modifications we really need to make, not only in the treatment center, but also with suicide interventions with clients who have an FASD. So the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says the prevalence of FAS, which is the worst level on the spectrum, so to speak, in the general population ranges from 2% to 5% for the entire continuum, but FAS is out there and it's more like two out of every thousand. So whatever that works out for percentages like 0.2%. But that's still, even if you've got 5% or let's say 2% of people in the general population that have some level of an FASD, that means two out of every 100 school kids. Well, if you've got 20 kids in a room, that means in five rooms, there are going to be at least two children that have an FASD. So there are going to be at least two children who have some need for special modifications. 94% of individuals with an FASD also have a mental illness. And 73% to 80% of children with full-blown FAS are in foster or adoptive placement. So let that sink in for a second. So our foster care system and our adoption system as well as our mental health system has a much higher proportion or percentage than the general population of FAS. 61% of adolescents with an FASD experience significant school disruptions. They had difficulty following the rules. They had difficulty functioning in that environment. And we're going to learn more why as we get into the presentation. Now this one I found just absolutely stunning. The prevalence of FASD in the child welfare system is 17 to 19 times higher than the general population in North America. According to a meta analysis published in the Journal of Pediatrics. Wow. So almost 20 times higher than in the general population is if it's two to 5% in the general population, that means we're talking almost 40% to, you know, my math is not that good. A lot of kids that are in the child welfare system are struggling with an FASD. 12.8 is the average age children with an FASD become involved with the law. And overall, when we're looking across their lifespan, 60% of people with an FASD end up having a history of trouble with the law. So again, why is that? Are they malicious? No. Are they, what is it that's causing them to have problems with the law? And well, I'll get there later. FASD, and you may be going, well, what are we talking about here? It's not a diagnostic term, but an umbrella term encompassing four categorically distinct diagnostic entities. Fetal alcohol syndrome, which is the worst, if you will, on the continuum. Partial fetal alcohol syndrome. Alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder and alcohol related birth defects. One of the things we don't know is, you know, what exactly is going to be amiss in children at each different level, because we don't know where or when the negative impact happened during the fetuses development. So just because somebody has an ARND as opposed to FAS, you know, they may have some pretty significant impairments. They just don't have all of them, but we don't know what those impairments are going to be. So it's kind of like three out of five instead of five out of five. All right. So what we want to look at is what are the problems? Well, these people with an FASD have problems in multiple domains which interfere with treatment and life success. Some of these problems, they have difficulty remembering program rules or following multiple instructions.  You might want to wonder, are they breaking them intentionally or can they not remember them? Can they not process them? They may be able to remember them and tell you exactly what the rule is, but not really understand what it means. It's kind of like when the analogy I can give you is when I tell my kids to clean their room. And it's important for them to keep their room clean in order to get certain privileges. And they can tell me that rule. Now what exactly does a clean room mean? What exactly does it mean to clean their room? And that's not exactly on point, but it gives you a little bit of an idea about how what may be going on or what you may be hearing as a clinician or as an administrator where somebody's spitting the rules back to you, but they're not able to operationalize them. And following multiple instructions when children are younger, especially, and people with an FASD tend to have a younger developmental level cognitively than their actual physical age. But think back to your children. I remember when mine were young, they couldn't follow multiple directions. You'd be like, okay, you need to do this. And then you need to do that. And then you need to do the other thing. But if you told them, I need you to do this, that and the other thing, they would hear this. And that and the other thing would go out the other ear. So we need to make modifications to help them follow multiple instructions. And a lot of the children or people with NFASD can be misdiagnosed as having autism. So we want to look at exactly where the functional impairments are. And there is some overlap, but we'll look a little bit more at that as we go. They have difficulty remembering and keeping appointments or they may get lost on the way there. They have difficulty independently making appropriate decisions about treatment or life needs and goals. What is it that I need to do in order to get a job? What is it that I need to do in order to recover? And they can't put together a treatment plan. They can't put together a cause and effect, especially of chained behaviors. You know, sometimes they can see if I do this right now, I will get this. And we're going to talk about difficulty with understanding cause and effect in a few minutes. They have difficulty appropriately interpreting social cues, which can lead to a lot of inappropriate sexual behavior and sometimes some inappropriate aggressive behavior. They have difficulty observing boundaries with staff and other clients. And a lot of this is because they have underdeveloped social skills and they have difficulty understanding and interpreting social cues, especially nonverbal ones. So this is a huge area that we need to help clients with, especially if we're talking, you know, I come from a residential treatment setting. From my perspective and working with clients in that setting, making sure that they are not misinterpreting the nonverbal communication from staff or other clients and setting themself up for a situation in which they could be victimized or end up feeling threatened and acting out. They have difficulty attending to and not disrupting group activities. They're not processing information as quickly and accurately as everybody else. This is also a group that you tell them to act their age. They can't because they may be physically 16, but cognitively they may be 11. We need to understand from that perspective, what age are we asking them to act, we need to understand what age they are developmentally, not necessarily physically because that's kind of where we're going to be focusing. When any of these indicators occur, particularly if they occur across multiple domains or if there's multiple indicators, it's worthwhile to apply the FASD four digit code caregiver interview checklist. And the Astley 2004 there's the link there so you can go ahead and click on that and go to the FASD four digit code caregiver interview checklist. You can use that now a diagnosis of an FAS of FAS or an FASD requires a multi disciplinary team. A lot of testing there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes into it it's not something we're going to diagnose in a mental health clinicians office in an hour. But it's important for us to screen for it so we can say this might be going on, and we can refer out. To the input from the developmental specialist and the neurologist and anybody else who needs to be involved. When we're talking about adolescents. Evidence shows that the adolescents will commonly exhibit learning and behavior challenges. So on top of social challenges and everything they have difficulty getting along from day to day, remembering what to take to school remembering what to put in their backpack. It feels like you are still trying to deal with them like they are in kindergarten. But again, you want to think back, cognitively, what is their cognitive developmental age. They have difficulty remaining organized and regulated. So you're looking at an 18 year old who may have the cognitive development of an 11 year old. What did your kids, how well did your kids remain organized and regulated when they were in late elementary or middle school. So you need to try to put your head in the space of where they are cognitively. They learn information slowly, especially what is said to them. So it's hard for them to hear information process it, interpret it and apply it. Because of that, they tend to forget things. Well, in part, they tend to forget things that they've recently learned because a lot of what we learn is verbal, you know, I'll tell people what the rules are for the program. Yes, they have written instructions, but they also have to read those written instructions and remember them. And there's a whole lot of stuff going on when they're in a brand new program. So that's also confounding what's going on because they're distracted they're trying to get settled. There's a whole bunch of stuff going on. They may make some mistakes over and over. One of the things that I would always look for when I was working with clients is looking at their criminal history. A lot of times clients with an FASD will make have the same charges over and over and over and over again they don't escalate, whereas in a more traditional criminal behavior pattern.  But with people with an FASD, you often see they are making the same mistakes. It's like they're, they get caught, but they don't learn from that mistake and they get caught again. So if you see something like that, you might say why is this person not learning from their mistakes or continuing to make the same mistake. They have difficulty with impulsivity finding it hard to inhibit responses. So when they feel like getting up and walking around their propensity is to get up and walk around. As far as social communication, remember I said their social skills were underdeveloped they have difficulty reading nonverbal communications and verbally they have difficulty understanding what the important details are so they can tend to be very, very vague. If you're used to working with clients who have oppositional defiant disorder conduct disorder addictions. Some of these things you might attribute to them trying to be manipulative. So again stepping back and going, is it them being manipulative and intentional, or is it that they can't do any better. And they need some sort of modification to help them out. They're very suggestible and influenced easily by others so in a residential setting, whether it's residential child welfare residential treatment. It's important to be aware of the fact that other children and other staff are in the position where they can be very influential over this person. And if their motives are not good, then they can kind of lead this person into a position where they're making poor choices. Their immature social skills can lead them to be too friendly and trusting and make it difficult for them to recognize dangerous situations. So I want you to think of somebody with FASD as being more gullible, if you will, and easily influenced by others wanting to be befriended and kind of get your head right there with them. There's some evidence for distinguishing between children with FASD and children with ADHD using the four factor model of attention. So I found this really interesting because children with FASD have difficulties with encoding, which means taking in the information, processing it and coming up with something meaningful and shifting attention. They have more of a hyper focus. So if they're on one task, they find it much more difficult to switch to the next activity or switch to the next topic in the discussion. Children with ADHD on the other hand, tend to have problems with focus. They, they, you know, they're kind of all over the place and they have trouble staying on one topic and sustaining their focus. So, you know, it's a really interesting article. Again, I put the hyperlink here for you because if you work with youth or adults who have FAS and or ADHD. This is one area that you can look at for trying to start to differentially diagnose what's going on. So suicide intervention, like I said, it's different for people with an FASD because they have difficulty thinking abstractly. They have difficulty understanding the consequences. So a standard suicide assessment needs to be modified. Instead of saying something like how does the future look to you. We want to ask them something more concrete. What are you going to do tomorrow? Or what do you think about you're going to do tomorrow or next week. Something very tangible, very concrete, very planning oriented. How does the future look, not only talks about the future, but then some abstract concept about what does it look like. So you want to, again, think cognitively, where's the person that are they thinking and abstract, formal operational thought, or are they more concrete operational. Additionally, the seriousness of the suicidal behavior doesn't necessarily equal the level of the intent to die because they may not understand the consequences. They may not understand it's permanent. So if they are using, you know, a knife they're trying to hang themselves are trying to shoot themselves.  Because they may not understand that that outcome is is really permanent. You want to obtain family and collateral input regarding exacerbating and mitigating factors whenever possible, because remember the person with an FASD is going to be somewhat vague and their responses to questions not understanding what important details to give you if they even remember them. So it's important to get with family and friends, whoever you can to figure out what may have triggered the situation and what things does this person have to look forward to what hope is there in the future for them. Be careful about using words regarding other suicides or deaths. So what do we do to reduce risk? Because, you know, once they get to that point, obviously we're in crisis stabilization mode. But things we can do with people with FASD to help reduce risk include addressing basic needs and increasing their stability in their living environment. So if they're bouncing around from foster care to foster care, if they're having difficulty adjusting when they first start in a new program, whether it's treatment or educational or whatever, we want to help them feel stable. We want to help them feel welcomed and, you know, like they belong. Address depression issues, which are very common with people with an FASD. They do tend to want to make friends. They do tend to be suggestible. Some things that we, without an FASD would blow off, they hear, and they don't understand. It can be a confusing world for them. So we want to treat the depression. Teach distraction techniques to help them deal with, you know, distress tolerance techniques to help them deal with unpleasant emotions when they occur. They remove lethal means. So if somebody is in a, in a place where they might become suicidal, they don't have easy access because remember people with an FASD tend to be very impulsive. And increase social support, which is easier said than done sometimes. If your staff and or the participants in your program, students or clients or whatever they may be, don't understand this person's behavior. Think about it. If you've got an adult who is in an adult treatment program, but has the cognitive development of, you know, an 11 or 12 year old. So that's how they're kind of interpreting the world. Yet, they can hear rules and they can spit stuff back out, kind of tell you what the rules are, but they may not be able to apply them. So people are like, well, I'm here. I'm seeing you're an adult. I'm hearing you say that you get it, but then you act a completely different way. So I don't understand how all this fits together. And we don't want to single out the person with an FASD and go, All right, everybody, we're going to have a group on how to understand john. It's totally inappropriate, but we do want to help people in the program understand that everyone's different and try to approach it from a more global perspective. When you're working with people with an FASD, don't use suicide contracts. They're useless. I mean, there's a lot of research that out there that shows that in large part suicide contracts aren't really very helpful anyway. People with an FASD have so much impulsivity. The only one it makes feel better is the clinician, and it doesn't do anything to actually prevent the action. Monitor risk closely because of the impulsivity because of difficulties with interpreting nonverbals. The situation can go south really fast. Build reasons for living, being literal. And again, this goes back to anything if you know this person you've already worked with them in your program and getting with family and friends and supports and roommates anybody you can reach out to to identify specific reasons. This person wants to live. Remember, they're more vague and strengthen the advocate-client relationship. So help them understand that you're there for them. You hear how much pain they're in right now. Once you're past that crisis phase, if the person is in a treatment setting, it's important to understand how to make it safe, not only from a risk management standpoint, but from an ethical client standpoint. We all do no harm. We need to make sure that we create an environment that's not going to victimize these clients. So understand that clients with an FASD may be maybe less able to use judgment, consider consequences or understand abstract situations. They need concrete. So if you're working with a staff that has a lot of text, you know, help them again understand, because sometimes abstract versus concrete, they're just like, huh. But help them understand that you really want to make it more like a situation you would do with elementary age children, because that's concrete. I didn't tell them, you know, about things that we're going to do that would make them happy. You might want to talk about specific things like does going to the circus make you happy. Social isolation and loneliness may drive the person to seek out any type of friendship and lead to victimization. They have the poor development of their social skills, their difficulty interpreting nonverbals, they have difficulty making friends. And like everybody, they want friends, but even to a greater extent, it seems people with an FASD tend to want friends. So they may seek out friendship and in a treatment environment that can easily be taken advantage of. And for situations where victimization is possible. So with this particular client in individual session you may need to role play personal safety and specific scenarios that they may face in the in that setting, who is a stranger who's a friend, what they need to do in order to be safe, what happens if they're in this particular situation, you know, at our facility. It would happen where somebody would bring contraband onto the unit. So you want to role play personal safety. What do you do in that situation, videotape the client doing it right in the role play. So he or she can watch it repeatedly reinforcing the lesson. Because remember, even if you talk about it, you rehearse it you role play it. There's a likelihood that they're not going to actually remember that and it's not going to be committed to memory so allow them to continue to watch that videotape. Establish written routines and structured time charts and have these where they're easily seen throughout the day. If you're in a unit where you have a general structure. In our unit we had a wall where the schedule was for the day and the at the end there was also the menu for the for the cafeteria. But you can also have them keep it in their notebook so they can look at it anytime of the day and they know what's supposed to go on. If you have the ability, if you have clients where you can create a buddy system. It may help decrease opportunities for victimization. So the client find a healthy structured environment in after care to help them avoid criminal activity or relapse. So, looking for situations, you know, maybe if they go back to that same situation. They're going to be too vulnerable to relapse because there are people who might take advantage of them. So they may need to go into a recovery residence or a sober home or whatever they call it where you're at. The client adjust to a structured program or environment and develop trust and staff is the first step as soon as they come in. I mean some people adjust better than others individuals with NFASD tend to be trusting, but they need a great deal of structure and tend to have trouble adapting to changes in routine. Remember, I said they have difficulty switching. I don't remember what they called it in the four four factor attention model. If there's a change like normally there's a 1pm group, and all of a sudden there's no 1pm group. It may be really stressful on the person when the routine changes, especially if it's not a permanent change. One of those places where it kind of overlaps with some autism like symptoms. If you think back to Rain Man, when there were certain things that you know, Wapner happened at three, and that was what they were going to do and it was very very distressful or distressing if he couldn't do that particular activity at that time. Put instructions and writing and remind the client often. So again, they don't process verbally as well. You want to remind them, but have them read them.  They can do that every morning before they start group they can review rules before each group. There are certain things and you can cue them, you know, tap them on the shoulder or give them certain cues so you're not singling them out. At the beginning of group you can also go over the rules every single time in order to make sure that everybody in the group is on board. The rule is broken. Remind the client of the situation and help strategize ways they can better follow the rule in the future. And that's starting to get somewhat abstract. So it's going to be difficult to actually implement this with the client is not impossible, but you don't want to assume that the rule is going to be broken, you're going to strategize and you're done with it not going to have any more problems.  So either what prevented you from doing that or how can I help you remember to do that the next time. Focus on all aspects of the client's life, not just the substance abuse mental health or criminal justice issues. They are a whole person in order for them to function in society they need to, you know, have the life skills and the interpersonal skills. Help the client develop appropriate goals within the context of his or her interests and abilities. And remember, think vague. I've had clients come to me going I want to be happy. Okay, I don't know what that means for you so let's talk about that. So we can take their vague statement from what their goals are or their interests and abilities. And we can help them kind of narrow it down but it's writing the treatment plan or developing the goals is going to be a lot more incumbent upon us than it necessarily is with clients who do not have an FASD. Provide opportunities to role play or practice appropriate social behaviors. This is a huge thing for people with an FASD. To develop an awareness of who's safe who's not safe prevent victimization and develop enough social skills where they can have a supportive social network in the general population, if you will. Areas of focus may include impulse control dealing with difficult situations such as being teased or somebody disagreeing with them and problem solving. It's important that we assume the presence of co-occurring issues and include the client in treatment planning and modification. Again, some of it's going to be difficult for them to kind of participate in or wrap their head around, but it's important to have them there and discuss it with them so it's not being done for them or to them, but it's being done with them. If there is a appropriate family or caregiver who wants to be involved in treatment, which is ideal, build them into the plan with a clear agenda of what's the goal here. What's the goal for mom and john to get out of our group sessions together. Recognizing that some family members may also have an FASD. It is not unusual for a child with an FASD to have a parent to have a mother who has an FASD. Again, if you can't really think about connecting actions and consequences, it's difficult to connect drinking alcohol when I'm just barely pregnant to having birth defects 10 months later. It's hard to make that connection. So, and there are some impulse control issues and if the person was drinking there may also be some addiction issues. So, understanding that, you know, FASD is seen intergenerationally in many, many families and preparing to deal with that. Incorporate multiple approaches to learning such as auditory visual and tactile. And I say this for everybody, not just for people with an FASD. If you're doing group, talk about it, give them an outline or give them something to read and have them acted out role play it do something where they can apply it and actually kind of manipulate the information in order to make it meaningful to themselves. The guidelines do say to avoid written exercises and focus more on hands on practice role playing and using audio video recording for playback and reinforcement of learning. Now you may not want to, if you do the recording, you may not want to replay it and dissect it if you will in group. If you're videotaping a group and you're videotaping a role play you may want to go over that with that person in individual. But that will also help them see what they're doing well. Use multi sensory strategies to assist in the expression of feelings and take advantage of the skills that clients with an FASD do have and that tends to be more on that creative side of the brain more than the mathematical side of the brain. Not always, but tending to be. Remember sensory issues and this is another easy peasy or relatively easy peasy adjustment we can make light smell and sound. If you have those obnoxious fluorescent lights, you know they're bright enough anyway and it can be distracting and bothersome to certain clients, but if they're flickering.  If somebody's got epilepsy it can actually trigger a seizure. So understanding that lighting in the room needs to be consistent. If there are certain strong smells, it may bother the person or distract them and same thing with sounds and it may not be, you know, loud sounds from them buffing the floor in the cafeteria. It may be somebody sitting next to them in group clicking their pen. After a while it gets really old and so many of us are able to filter that out and just be like okay that's annoying not going to pay attention to it. Someone with an FASD may not be able to filter that out. So be especially aware of what types of sensory issues that person may have and they may not know when they first come to treatment. So that may be an issue that you can work on with them about what things in the environment make them more vulnerable to being impulsive to being uncomfortable to having difficulty staying in that environment. Remember that more effort may be needed to convey basic concepts and promote a positive therapeutic relationship and environment. And in the next segment on FASD. I'm going to talk about some clinician survival tools, because it's hard enough with a traditional client to build a positive therapeutic relationship and environment and everything and keep everything going in a positive direction. This particular set of clients has even more difficulty with building this positive therapeutic relationship because it seems sometimes like they're being intentionally oppositional. It seems sometimes like they're intentionally trying to get attention. And I could say a lot more of those it seems sometimes, but their behaviors seem to be counterproductive to the treatment process so we can get really frustrated as clinicians and be like, why is this person not progressing and stepping back and figuring out where that client is cognitively, interpersonally, etc on a developmental scale can help you understand a little bit more but also once the report comes back from the diagnosing team, you'll understand a little bit more about any neurological problems they may have any problems that we know that might cause problems with memory or impulse control or whatever. Set appropriate boundaries when you're working with these clients. And I recommend more so than with other clients having sessions videotaped, not only so the client can see, you know, successes that they're having, but also because it's protective and if your agency disagrees with that if you disagree with that totally get it. But because of social communication problems, some clients with an FASD may breach boundaries by making inappropriate comments, asking inappropriate questions, or touching the counselor inappropriately. So you can see where ethical issues may come up and misinterpretations of the counselor's intentions may also come up so being very, very, very cognizant of the communication and setting and maintaining boundaries. Repeatedly have the client walk through the rules and expectations and demonstrate expected behavior, and it can be very, very confusing in addictions treatment. Because in many 12 step based programs and all the programs I've worked in have been 12 step based so from my experience in those. The clients at the end of certain groups will hold hands will hug, etc. and that's not considered inappropriate. And sometimes the clinicians are involved in that whole group hug and it's not considered inappropriate. So it's very confusing for somebody with an FASD to understand when is it okay to touch. When is it not okay to touch what is a good hug versus a bad hug and it gets really confusing. So ensuring that the clients have guidance as to what to do and maybe looking at modifying program standards, if that's necessary, and that's on a case by case program by program basis. Persons with an FASD frequently expect experience difficulty with memories and may be able to repeat rules but not truly understand or opera operationalize them. So I need to follow my treatment plan. Yes, you do. What does that mean chirping of the different crickets. So keeping things simple, keeping things concrete that means you need to go to group at 9am. That means you need to go to group at 11am and helping the person repeat that until it's ingrained limit the number of rules and review them repeatedly role playing different situations in which the person will need to recall the rules. So if you've got rules and maybe you're going out for an outing, you know role playing that situation before the outing so the client is reminded of what they need to do when they're in that particular situation because they have difficulty translating. When I'm in this situation these behaviors are okay, but when I'm in this situation. These behaviors are okay, but they're not the same behaviors. You act at work versus how you act at home. Be aware of the client's strengths. You know so far I've talked about all of their deficits, but clients with an FASD have tons of strengths. They're compassionate. They are often very creative. So, learn about the client and figure out what's this person bring to the table. A common theme that we need to be attentive to is powerlessness and these clients may undervalue their own competencies because all their life they've heard that they're a troublemaker, or they can't remember or they're dumb or, you know, you can imagine what people would say to someone who has some of the deficits we've talked about. They may view others' needs and goals as more important than their own because, you know, they want to be liked, they want to be appreciated. So when they've complied with others, then they've gotten the reinforcement that they're looking for. So they pay attention to those people and not so much themselves because they're afraid of rejection. And a lot of times it's difficult to get to that point with someone with an FASD getting to that abstract concept of being afraid of rejection, but from a clinical standpoint we can look at what's the motivation. They may have an inability to obtain nurturance and support for themselves. If they're speaking in vague terms, they have difficulty with communication. They are not really understanding nonverbals. They may not know what they need and they may have difficulty communicating, you know, maybe that they just need a hug or maybe they just need to be listened to. And that's a pretty advanced concept. I wouldn't expect, you know, someone who is cognitively at the age of an 11 or 12-year-old to be able to necessarily know exactly what they needed in terms of nurturance and support and effectively ask for it. They may have feelings of depression, anger and frustration about their lives because it seems like they just keep growing up and they have feelings. They're not oblivious to the fact that people get frustrated and, you know, it hurts. So we want to understand that they may feel powerless to make people like them. They may feel powerless to do the right thing because they make mistakes seemingly all the time. And they may have low expectations for their own success because up until now they have been trying to function in a non-FASD conducive environment. And they haven't been succeeding because their supports, their environment has not been modified to meet their needs. So we want to help them see that they are very capable of succeeding. They just need to have certain interventions and they may need to learn certain things in order to be successful in the way they want to be. Help them cope with losses and address self-esteem and any personal issues because they're going to lose friends. We all lose friends over the course of growing up. It just happens and there are other losses, but these are things that may be more difficult for someone with an FASD who has difficulty understanding actions and consequences and abstract concepts like death. Address resistance, denial and acceptance. And, well, women with an FASD may fear becoming like their mothers. They may not want to accept that they've gotten FASD and they may be terrified that they're going to become like their alcoholic mother or their mother who drank when she was pregnant. That is an important caveat I need to state. Not every woman who gives birth to a child with an FASD is an alcoholic. It does not take that much alcohol to permanently damage the fetus. So it's important to understand that, you know, the birth mother may not be an alcoholic, but she may have introduced a harmful substance to the fetus at a particularly critical time and caused the birth defects. People with an FASD may have difficulty with forgiveness of the birth mother. So they realize that they're different and they may realize that for some reason something their mother did made them different and gave them a birth defect. So they may have difficulty reconciling that relationship. It's important that we reassure clients that they're not responsible for their disability. They didn't give themselves an FASD. And some of them will think, well, if I were a better person, this wouldn't be happening or if, you know, all the ifs. So we want to reassure them that they've got strengths. They've got capabilities. This isn't their fault, but this is the hand they're dealing with. So let's figure out how to deal with it.  That'll just go over their head. We also want to help educate them about the science of their condition. You know, help them get into the weeds of their diagnosis and understand what they need. You know, it's like if somebody who has a physical disability needs certain modifications, it's okay to talk about that and go, this is what you need in order to help you, you know, kind of level the playing field. There's another metaphor in order to help you function the same way that other people do. Assess comprehension on an ongoing basis by asking the client to summarize what you've said and review written materials such as rules at each session. Don't assume that the client is familiar with the concept or can apply it simply because you've gone over it several times. So you want to take that concept, whatever it is, and explore their understanding beyond being able to say, yes, I'm supposed to follow my treatment plan. But what does that mean? And how is that, how can these activities help you? So having them explore it so they understand what goes into following my treatment plan. In group work, explain group expectations concretely and repeat these ideas often, preferably at the beginning of every group. If a person monopolizes conversation or interrupts, you can use a talking stick as a concrete visual reminder of who should be speaking. We've used these in groups in several facilities that I've worked in. So it helps manage the discussion. Give the person time to work through material concretely within the group time. So if they're getting overwhelmed, you may need to take a break, but you want them to be able to process the information in the group. Encourage clients to ask questions and check understanding in the material and listen for key themes to emerge so we can reinforce that. Selectively paraphrase if he says, you know, some concept, you can say exactly, and what else could you do in that situation to help them further their understanding of the concept. So if a friend asks you to go out and use drugs with them, you know, what should your response be? And they can tell you what the response would be. And then you would say, okay, what would be the next step after that? If in group, the client needs to get up and walk around, let them. And I do this with all my clients, but it's important with people with an FASD because sometimes they have difficulty controlling their impulsivity. Use concrete representations, marking the floor to show the concept of physical boundaries. I've used Legos before to represent each person. Each person has a Lego, and then we'll talk about teamwork or something and I'll have them use break up into groups. And each person's, they all combine their Legos together to come up with some sort of design or object or something. So we talk about how everybody's important and you can use water to represent energy. I've done that before where I've had a picture. Full of water and we talk about, okay, what things did you do today? And every time they talk about something they did, I pour a little water out so they can see how everything they do uses energy and why they might feel exhausted and how they can better take care of themselves. Use symbolic charts and alarm reminders for routines and role play. I know I've said that a bunch, but this is one of the ways that people with an FASD best internalize what's going on. If medication is used, simplify medication schedules and provide support. So, you know, ideally not something at weird times or every third Tuesday or I don't know what it would be. But if you can simplify, it's better twice a day. If you can do once a day, that's even better. Once a month injectables if they need antipsychotics, anything like that that can help. Find someone, something the person likes and have the person do that regardless of the behavior and that's a recommendation. Not necessarily one I would particularly use, but that was one of the recommendations in SAMHSA tip 58. Create chill out spaces in each setting where the person can go and just kind of clear their mind if they're feeling completely overwhelmed. And be creative about finding ways for the individual to succeed by setting achievable short term goals. Well, that's not super creative. And reconsidering zero tolerance policies because our clients are going to make mistakes. So if we say you make this mistake once you're out. That could be really problematic for somebody with an FASD. Now, obviously there are safety considerations, but be consistent in appointment days and times considering shorter, more frequent meetings or sessions. Give them a specific chunk of information to deal with in a 20 minute session, instead of talking about three different things in an hour session. If they're an outpatient arrange for someone to get the person to appointments for at least six months. Hopefully after six months you'll have established enough of a routine that they know what they need to do. And have the meetings on the same days each week. Discuss each meeting with the person. And for some people if it works with your schedule as a clinician and for that client using open meeting times which means I need you to come in at some point on Tuesday. Have pictures of counselors on their office doors because that helps trigger that visual for particular clients. I mean, I'm bad with names anyway. So, you know, if you're walking down a hallway with 15 different counselor names, you may be like, okay, I remember my counselor's name started with a T. But if you see a picture of that counselor, it's easier. Well, think about somebody who has an FASD. It may be probably is a lot more difficult for them to remember. So this makes it more conducive to them. Identify possible buddies to ensure that clients get to appointments if they're an outpatient. So they may need various people to transport them. Help them identify people who are appropriate supports for them as well as people who are not helpful. And this can be in treatment as well as outside of treatment. Again, we're talking about safe people versus not safe people or helpful versus unhelpful. And program important numbers and reminders into their cell phone for them with permission, of course, in order to help them start establishing this new routine. Oops. I skipped over one.  We use those a lot. You saw I use two or three of them in today's presentation at least people with an FASD don't understand those concepts so it's important to stay concrete and very literal. And don't use sarcasm because a lot of times it's misinterpreted as honesty. They don't understand the difference with sarcasm. So in summary, with people with an FASD about age 12 to 21 normal development, they can evaluate their own behavior in relationship to the future and understand their consequences consequences of their behaviors. In FASD, there's a lack of connection between thoughts feelings and actions they may want to do something and impulsively do it, not understanding the consequences. So, to address that we want to repeatedly, or have repeated skills training with role playing and videotaping, let the person rewatch the videotapes of themselves doing it right. And if they do it incorrectly, and I try to avoid using the word wrong, they do it incorrectly, then we want to go back and look at why did they do it incorrectly what things triggered them to choose an alternate alternative reaction. In age 12 to 21 in normal development, there's an important peer group and development of intimate relationships, you know, high school, this is what we're talking about in college. With a person with an FASD they have difficulty resisting negative peer influences and accurately interpreting social cues. So they have difficulty establishing a healthy supportive peer group, let alone intimate relationships. So it's important that we help them connect with pro social peers, mentors and coaches who will help them establish a network and provide social skills training with repeated discussions of sexuality and intimacy as appropriate in order to prevent a misunderstanding of nonverbal cues and potentially unfortunate behavior choices. Additional modules on FASD will focus on topics including accommodations for the clinician to prevent exasperation and burnout, FASD in the criminal justice system, and case management and unmet needs for caregivers. Got through that one. All right, I saw a few people comment in here. And yes, there is an awful lot of overlap between FASD and autism for a long time. FASD was lumped into the autism spectrum. Now we have FASD as its distinct entity, but it is important to understand that there is some overlap. More important is to understand that it is a biological as well as a cognitive issue. So it needs to be addressed and treated from a multidisciplinary perspective. There are links in the class to help you connect with some of the FASD centers for excellence so you can learn more about the assessment process and what happens. There are literally thousands of pages of material that you could read if you are interested in this particular topic. And yes, there are physical characteristics of people and generally, not always, but generally they don't start showing up until the more significant end of the spectrum. And again in SAMHSA, let's see, I can pull that up real quick. In the SAMHSA tip, they do talk some about that. One thing they have come forward since I really started learning about FASD is initially when they started identifying the facial features of someone with an FASD, they did not take into consideration ethnicity or, you know, certain differences by gender. So they're refining that criteria, but it's important not to rule someone out simply because they don't have the facial features for an FASD. Let's see, I might be able to find a graphic of it really quick. Sorry, that's a Google link. There are several images that can point you towards some of the things that a pediatrician or family physician may be looking for and that we can keep an eye out for in terms of tips that someone may have FAS as opposed to something else or in addition to something else. Telling the difference between FASD and autism really requires the multidisciplinary team to get in there, do an assessment about specifically what kinds of things trigger the person and what skills and the history of the pregnancy and all kinds of stuff like that. And I am not educated enough about diagnosing autism to tell you any more specifically than that if, let's see, I think tip 58 does talk some about it. I'm going to look that up real quick. Universal prevention. No, actually they do not talk about diagnosis in the tip. Mainly because it's not something that we as independent clinicians can do. I will add that to the second section. Just for a counselor's perspective on how to know the difference or what the differences are between FASD and autism, in addition to survival tools for the clinician. Alrighty everybody have a wonderful afternoon and I will see you on Thursday. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. This episode has been brought to you in part by allceus.com providing 24-7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006.


Well, good afternoon. I want to acknowledge Admiral Aiken. Very good to have you here Jim, our our provost Dr. Gartner as well as Dr. Tomlinson. Very good to have you here, sir. Admiral Guillermo, Berrera Hurtado. Very good to have you here, sir. And wonderful to be sure that we have this honor today, this privilege to be able to honor you. Admiral Berrera has been with us for a while, but he served in the Colombian Navy for over 40 years with distinction and extraordinary leadership and certainly with many years of command at sea. His assignments as a flag officer were commander of the Colombian Navy and the chief of operations of the Navy, the commander of the Caribbean Naval Forces and chief of integrated action J5 at the joint command of the Colombian military forces. In this job, he executed the transformation of the department from psychological operations to integrated action and prepared the final version of the strategy of integrated action for the military forces. He was part of the governmental team that transformed Colombia from the brink of failure to stability and democracy with a people-centric approach. He did this at great risk to his own life and to the life of his family. His heroism at the time was noted so much so that one of the people who also wishes to extend his regards is a former chief of naval operations and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullin. Admiral Mullin wanted to be here and he could not, but he asked me in person to say about the Admiral this. He's a great man, a heroic man, a man of the Navy and a man who I highly regard as truly a friend. So Admiral, I wanted to extend to you Admiral Mullin's best regards. As a student at NPS, the Admiral not only engaged in rigorous and technical research, but also became a catalyst for academic discourse and maritime strategy in the roles of navies in national development. So Dr. Fouts, why don't you come up? And the other day I must tell you Admiral, Dr. Fouts, who is an expressive man, had his hair waving a little bit and his tie floating a little bit as he talked about you as a student of his doubly classes. The title of Admiral Barrera's thesis is Target Acquisition with a Curved Controlled Digital Sampled Data Servo. His thesis advisor was Dr. George Thaler, the second reader Alex Gerba, and the ECE department chair at the time was Abraham Sheingold. Unfortunately, none of these people are with us anymore. But seeing the thesis, I went ahead and read parts of it. It's an outstanding technical work bringing together aspects of computer engineering and control theory. He truly displayed that he understands both applications and theory of some very difficult electrical engineering concepts, concepts which he still knows. So we all owe you a thank you for your contribution to computer storage technology and control algorithms. He got things done. Isn't that the definition of a leader? This is the great man, the great leader who got things done, who we recognize and honor today. Admiral? Thank you very much for being up with us. Admiral Lincoln, sir, to please help Vice Admiral Rondo in unveiling the Hall of Fame plaque. What a tremendous distinction.  Allow me to receive this on the name of all international students that have graduated here and have come back to their countries to serve with distinction because they were located here. I have a tremendous gratitude with my professors. Starting with Professor George Thaler, who cannot be with us today. I used to wrote letters to him until he passed away. And also Robert Stroom. He was the person who sat with me, helping me to decide what was the next term, subject that I would be taking and why. When I left, I kept communications with my professors for some time. Most of them retired and died. And I remember them with a special love because they helped me to learn. Not only the technological things, but also the human things. And slowly I started shifting a little bit from the technological with the time, to the operational, to the strategic, and to policy making areas. Ten years later, I went to the Naval Postgraduate School. I mean Naval World College. And I had another continuation of what I started learning here. Not just the technological, but with the following orientation for a normal Naval officer. In 2005, I was in their mind. Another level, quite important, quite relevant, that helped me also to project myself more into the future. But what I learned along those years is that the beginning of my education started here and cannot end until I die. Thank you very much to the Naval Postgraduate School, that together with the Naval World College allowed me to be a better human being. Not a perfect one. I have many mistakes. I have committed many mistakes. But learn from them and being able to recover, that is the most important part, and keep going ahead because we serve people. Therefore, I learned here, and I say that with a tremendous sense of gratitude, I learned here to love and serve my family, to love and serve my friends, to love and serve my countries, because I am also American and humanity. Because that is the responsibility of a great power. And I have been thinking of great people in my country that probably deserve this much better than me. But I am their representative today. I represent them today here. I am sorry for being that long, but I am really worth coming out of my heart. God bless you all. You are trying to build up a better world. Thank you.


I just like to play this clip and get your reaction to this clip and you tell me what you think statements like this from the former CIA director, how they affected the conversation around these issues. Why won't the president confront Vladimir Putin? Why won't he read the cards and say the things that you say need to be said to Vladimir Putin? Do you believe he's somehow in debt to the president of Russia? I think he's afraid of the president of Russia. Why? Well, I think one can speculate as to why, that the Russians may have something on him personally, that they could always roll out and make his life more difficult. I have two reactions and I will get to the disinformation thing in a second, but the first thing I'll say to come back to the question of the ruling party is that the sort of tricked understanding how the ruling party operates in America is that it is because it is run by the perhaps the most untalented incompetent group of people ever assembled in the country's history that they have insisted on such a, insisted on these coercive and monopolistic tactics for controlling the government. I mean, I think Brennan is a, by the sort of the standard measures of what you would expect from the nation's intelligence chief, phenomenally untalented and unaccomplished, where he is excelled is as a party hack, you know, as a Soviet or Chinese style party hack. And the claim that he is making there, which is that Donald Trump is controlled by or indebted to or somehow under the thumb of Vladimir Putin and therefore, by extension, the Russian security services is a claim that he is, in many senses, singularly responsible for entering into the official record of American politics when in one of his last acts, a CIA chief, he basically singularly orchestrated what was known as the ICA, the Intelligence Community Assessment. So this was the, I believe it came out in January 2017, but it was the first, the seminal Intelligence Community Assessment, which declared that not only did Putin interfere in the 2016 election, but that he had a preference for Donald Trump. What we later found out through classified house testimony that, you know, people who had been privy to it spoke about was that rather than being a statement on representing the opinion of the 17 different intelligence agencies, which is what an ICA is supposed to be, a consensus statement, in other words, that in fact, Brennan himself had handpicked a group of analysts and had personally led the drafting of the ICA that declared that Putin had a preference for Trump and that in doing so, he had excluded the analysis from Russia experts who not only didn't find that credible, but who said that no, in fact, as Russia experts, they had found that Putin's preference was actually for Hillary Clinton because Putin considered her the more predictable candidate, not that there was any nefarious relationship with Clinton, but simply that in ways that are quite easy to understand, that he wanted the sort of stock neoliberal candidate because he could guess what move she was going to make. And so that was Brennan's doing. Brennan, you know, the fact that he left the CIA to immediately become a MSNBC analyst, tells you a lot both about Brennan and about MSNBC and the relationship between the media and the intelligence agencies. And the media here simply providing the amplification system for narratives that are originating elsewhere. You know, that's why I talk about the weakness of the media in relation to these other members of the counter disinformation complex, not because the media doesn't play a critical role in amplifying and enforcing these narratives, but because it doesn't generate these narratives on its own. And therefore, it's not in charge of their final direction and orientation. So I may just, I would like to point out that Morning Joe is kind of like the Maxis, Kansas City or the Studio 54 of the ruling party, right? This is, it's, you know, not accidental that this happened and on MSNBC and on NBC News and things like that. So when you are, when you observe this fact pattern around John Brennan and see that he discarded certain information and privileged other information is making these very pointed, well not pointed, but let's say very broad speculation on national television, is your analysis that this is a kind of tunnel vision that he can, he believes this or that this actually is something more nefarious that this is that he's trying to actually be a disinformation purveyor? Well, two things. So one, I would never accuse somebody of being a disinformation purveyor because I don't use the term in that way. I think the term is deliberately obscurantist and it's an espionage term and I'm, I'm not in the business of espionage. So I'm not accusing anybody of disinformation. I think, I think they get things wrong or they get them right. Look, I don't see any reason to try and impute motive here. I think that the, the facts of the case speak for themselves. What we know about the crafting of the ICA is that Brennan omitted contrary analysis and you should, people should go back and read that ICA from 2017. When I, when I talk about how untalented he is, you know, I think sometimes the documents speak louder than these characterizations. Go read the ICA. It, it establishes nothing. It proves nothing. It's not well argued. It has a 12 page appendix drawing on Russia today articles from 2012. It's like a, a shoddy nomenclatura kind of document that is a sort of placeholder Brennan's willingness to, or, or interest in transitioning from the CIA to talking ahead on, on MSNBC to signatory to the false national security official document claiming that the Hunter Biden laptops were disinformation speaks for itself. That was reasons live stream with Jacob Siegel. If you liked it and want to hear the whole thing, go here. If you want to listen to another excerpt, go here and come back every Thursday, one PM Eastern time for Zach Weismiller and I's reason live stream


kutibu niit reassituatu nilataka. Taka kama hana na ya namata na yawanu, na yawanu militaka na yawanu na yawanu nii ma virusuka na yawanu nii ma superheroes raubiza. Kwa nii maQUAivity of the public who may have particular information pertaining to this particular god saga to report and inform the investigating winds of the information they may have in order for the investigating winds to expedite this particular process. We, as the government, have nothing to hide. This morning, we are going to lead a delegation of media houses to go to the airport and see for themselves that the plan in issue is under our custody. In the individuals who are alleged to be involved in this matter and which individuals were detained by the police are still in custody. No one has been released by the investigating group. I also want to appeal. That politicians must not use this particular unfortunate situation to scandalize the president. The president and members of staff at state house should be left out of this scheme. Let the investigating winds investigate the matter. The truth will be known by the public at an appropriate time. We also want to appeal to the nation and those individuals who are fond of making malicious allegations without verifying the truth that in dupos appropriate action will take it. It's not a threat. We, as government, have stated on several platforms that we shall ensure that the rule of law is adopted.


This is stock number 9088, a 2014 Ram 2500 Crew Cab Short Box. This truck has a 6.7 liter Cummins Diesel. From this HD video you'll be able to tell that this truck is super clean all the way around and just really good looking, well done, lifted truck all the way around. Has some nice LED fog lights, has the projector lamp headlamps. We have Nitto Trail Grappler, 40x15.5 R20 tires, and they are on 20 inch, it's like DLS rims. I can't really see what that says, but good looking rims, they're a really nice condition. It has a BDS suspension lift kit on it, we've got the Fox Chocks 2.0 Performance Series all the way around on this suspension, very clean underneath. Front grill is in excellent shape, no dents, stings, scuffs, or cracks on that. Has a road armor front pumper. Down this side of the truck you can see just how clean the body is, how reflective the paint is. Take a quick look at this rim as well, so DL535 must be the model number of that rim. Anyways, down this side of the vehicle you can see just how clean the body is, how reflective the paint is. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just can't make the trip down, you can still see the truck here, the truck and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. BDS stuff back here as well, very well done lift, very clean looking. Underbody on the truck is very clean as well, has chrome step bars, lower rockers and everything look really nice on the truck. You can see that these tires have a lot of tread left, I'd say 60 to 70%. Max steel, probably one of my favorite colors. Has a road armor back pumper as well, full towing package which includes the receiver hitch, 4 pin and 7 pin wiring. Tailgate's absolutely perfect, no dents or dings on that. Has a backup camera, also has a gator, soft tonneau cover, spray and bed liner, has the wiring for a 5th wheel and it has the shock assist tailgate drop.  Down this side of the truck just as clean as the passenger side, didn't see any dents or dings on this truck, very clean all the way around. It does have the tow mirrors, they fold out, they also fold in like that. Inside the Laramie package gives you the black leather interior, there are no rips or tears on these seats, very very clean. Has memory driver seat, both of these seats are heated and cooled, we got weather type floor mats throughout, carpeting's very clean underneath. We have the 7 inch TFT display screen here, can see that this truck does have 41,487 miles. Has the heated leather wrapped steering wheel with Bluetooth audio controls and cruise controls. We have factory navigation system on the 8.4 inch touchscreen radio, dual climb control, turned out 4 wheel drive factory brake controller, heated seats, cooled seats, heated steering wheel factory exhaust brake, stability control, backup sensors and then a tow hall mode. Also a dual climate control, you have your heated seat and cooled seat buttons up there as well and then you can, the backup camera shows up right there as well. Has the Alpine sound system in it, so the upgraded speakers and there's a custom subwoofer in the back which we'll check out in just a second. Passenger seat is very clean as well, no rips or tears on that, weather tech floor mat on that side and finally we have a 115 volt AC plug-in. In here we have the factory CD player which is an option on these trucks now, also the USB, SD and AUX jacks right there. Take a quick look at the back seats and then we'll check out under the hood. Back seats are very clean, no rips or tears back here. It's child safety system, factory weather tech floor mats back here. We got a storage container, also these back seats are heated and we have load floor right here so that's kind of a nice system if you've got kids or pets you can put the pets on there or the kids can put their feet on it and then under here is the other subwoofer that they put in but great sound system in this one, heated seats back here as well. Take a quick look under the hood, 6.7 liter power or Cummins diesel, engine bay is very clean, runs very smooth, this truck has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off, also got those LED lights turned on for you and to see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 400 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, you name it we got it go to our website www.SummitAuto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle on our lot, videos of every single used vehicle that we have all at SummitAuto.com thank you so much for checking out the video if you like it and want to make this truck ears give us a call right now<PHONE_NUMBER> ask for one of our sales professionals to make this one yours today once again that number is<PHONE_NUMBER> thanks again if you like the video on check out more go to youtube.com slash summit auto like subscribe and share and in fact in the second you'll see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left a link to more heavy-duty truck videos like this one on your right and if you're not on our website on the bottom a link to this truck on our website click those check them out and we look forward to helping you with the super clean 2014 Ram 2500 thanks again


All right. Welcome back. It's time for our first hot topic. I want to take a look at what's going on with NLC and TUC strike and CSOs kick against this upcoming strike. Shadow to take place on the 3rd of October. CSOs under the Ages of Civil Society and Workers Dialogue Forum have kicked against NLC and TUC Shadow for the 3rd of October and have vowed to organize anti-NLC protests across the 36 states and the FCT on the same date that NLC and TUC are planning to go on their strike. And I've been joined by Mohammed Abdul-Lahi, Public Affairs Analyst, and he's joining us from Kaduna State. Good morning to you, Mohammed. Good morning, Nigerians. It's my pleasure to be here. It's indeed a pleasure to have you. Mohammed, before we talk about this NLC-TUC strike, let's talk about something that's happening right now in Kaduna State, where you are. What's the truth about the election, the governorship election? Did the court say it's inconclusive or what? Thank you for that question. It's actually a bit confusing for almost everyone. You remember the court proceedings that journalists were actually not allowed to be in, and then the proceedings were actually held via Zoom as well. Precedents from what happened in Kaduna State ended. So technology is playing a crucial role if I was cheap in that. But again to your question particularly, yes, one of the challenges is the fact that since journalists were not let in, most media houses professionals actually relied on statements from, you know, the parties to the case. So interestingly, the ruling party, I mean the APC, led by Governor Ubasani, actually put up a request statement last night congratulating itself and the party that the court, I mean the tribunal would held its victory. But again, another shocking thing was, you know, the candidate of the PDP, I mean the main opposition party in Kaduna State also put up a contracting statement. I mean, saying, you know, the court declared, I mean the tribunal declared the election inconclusive. So it's quite challenging. So it means media houses that were sympathetic to any of the parties involved.  So that's why we have media conflicting statement in the media. I mean, if you look at the media landscape, you find some of the media saying it's inconclusive, some of the media saying the tribunal would held in the elections of the APC. So it's very confusing at the moment. In fact, at the moment we have not seen the court judgment to actually discern what really happened. So I think we have to give it a few more days for us to actually understand clearly what happened. But at the moment it's still a confusion in Kaduna State to what the tribunal judgment is all about. Interesting, very interesting drama there. Okay, let's go to a topic of discussion and that's the fact that CSOs are kicking against the plans struck by NLC and TUC. In fact, they want to organize anti-NLC protests on the same date. What do you make of this kick by the CSOs? Why? Of course they've given their reasons. They think it's uncalled for. They believe that negotiations are already ongoing and so NLC should hold on and wait for government. Do you see them as working for the government or just being concerned Nigerian citizens? It's interesting because remember this is democracy. So people have, I entitled to their own opinion. Sometimes even what you think is quiet, white. So people think it's black and that's what democracy is all about. You know, people just define their actions and then their opinion. Everyone has right to his or her own opinion. But again, some of the limitations of democracy is the fact that if you are part of the system, you actually do not have any right to criticize the system. So that is also another justification of democracy. So having said that, I mean the CSOs, yes, they have their right to also talk about countering the planned protest, I mean, the strike action by the NLC. Remember in the last discussion here, probably about two weeks ago, we talked about the fact that even the NLC itself is not united. Even some of the workers, I mean, like the TDC is actually countering the NLC itself. They are a bit more sympathetic to government. So I would sit down here and say the CSOs are working for the government. But I think, like I said earlier, every organization and society have got their own right based on their own thinking and what they feel the situation is at the moment. So yes, the negotiation between the government and the NLC is ongoing and they feel, yes, NLC should give government more time in order to reach a decision. I think that is their own right of thinking. But again, if you want to ask, how long would the federal government continue with the negotiation? Remember, I mean, the president I know is still out of the country, even more than five days or six days since the end of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. But the president, I don't know, is still out of the country. So like I said, the other time, some of these demands and negotiations, even though the minister of labor is here, I mean, Senator Simon Lalong, I mean, is in the country. But some of these ratifications will actually need the input and the final say of the president. So perhaps the president being out of the country, and perhaps maybe having back before the October 1 celebration, I mean, the independence anniversary, which is in perhaps two, three days time, maybe that might ease the tension, I mean, of both parties, but the NLC and the CSOs at the moment, we never can tell. But yes, the CSOs have their right. And then based on their own decision and the situation on ground, they also have their right to say their country in the NLC. In fact, despite the fact that if you look at the fact that even part of the members of the NLC, I mean, the two UC are also not in tandem with what the NLC is planning. Indeed, Nigerians are beginning to wonder why the president is not here back from New York, if indeed he is still in New York. And as you have said, October 1st we'll know where he will be addressing us from. Is it from Nigeria or outside of the country? Now the AGF, the Attorney General of the Federation, has warned Labor that they'll be going against the court ruling that they should not go on strike. But Labor is calling us, is calling it judicial terrorism. Yes, again, that's a bit funny. Because everyone of us should be bound, I mean, by the ruling of the court. And that's what the rule of law is all about. I know there's the ruling of the court that prevents Labor from continuing their strike action to, I mean, for the country to be in peace. I mean, it holds on every citizen and every organization to actually follow the rule of law. It's very important. I think if Labor wanted to continue with their strike action and their planned protest, it's simple to actually appeal the existing and subsisting court ruling. So rather than just shoving it aside and saying, calling the judicial in their own words now, judicial terrorism in order to continue with their planned action. So it's very important because it's some of the things that we feel that the past government, I mean, led by ex-President Mohamed Burani, was doing that wasn't right. There were so many court injunctions and so many court actions, I mean, that the former administration didn't respect. So I think in this new dispensation, all and some of you should understand that it's not in the right interest of the country, in the right interest of citizens of the country and the people at large to show aside court rulings. It is important that whenever we disagree with court rulings, we can actually appeal or seek for other court injunctions in order to carry out our own action, rather than just a blanket disposal of the existing court ruling in order to carry out our own actions. So I think NLC is wrong in this regard, in my own opinion, since there is an existing and subsisting court ruling, I think it behoves of them to respect it. Indeed, they should have. I won't wonder why they didn't appeal it. However, this government going to court to get this order is also perhaps part of the problem.  Yes, you understand. You know, when you're involved in war, you try every habit in you to become victorious. So all is fair in war. All is fair in war. Yes, all is fair. I think that is the right cliché. I'm sure the government was looking at it from the point of view that they are about losing and the time is very short. So what is the best way is actually to get a court injunction stop in labor. Perhaps why the... Okay, Mohammed? What is he called? The negotiation is continued. It has abandoned the negotiations. They feel the time frame is very short. So in order to continue this strike action on protest. All right. Well, this time TUC and NLC are on the same page. So I think, like we said, all is fair in war. It's just a game. I am proud of it. Okay. The network is making this conversation a bit untidy. Mohammed. Mohammed Abdullah. Okay, you're back. Okay, let's just try and wrap up now because the network is a bit problematic this morning as it's been in the last couple of days. TUC and NLC are united in this protest. It does seem like this one is going to be huge. How do you see the government responding? How do you see them reacting with all this caught thing in place and all of that? They are beginning to respond. The negotiation is on going. They caught injunction, stop it. It is fact that the government is jittery. Yes, because it's going to be very huge. If both parties, I mean the NLC and TUC can unite and hold government to the juggler. So they are beginning to, they are responding actually. And then the language, the body language of the government is that they are jittery. They actually do not want this strike action to take place because it's going to be very catastrophic. Remember, we are actually on the brink of economic growth. So the NLC is striking indefinitely again will compound our issues and problems. So the government is jittery and actually with my own understanding they do not want the plan action to take place. Indeed. Well, let's see what happens. It's few days from now. Three days to the day that has been scheduled for this NLC strike. The CSOs have also said they have vowed and they have written that they are going to also organize anti-NLC protest across the 36 states and the NLC. That day is a day indeed that most Nigerians are already counting down to NLC, have advised Nigerians to go stockpile on foods and make sure that they are ready for that day. Only God knows how it's going to turn out. We prefer a peaceful resolution. And perhaps even if the protest will go on, we pray for it to be very peaceful because that's one of the challenges. You know, sometimes these protest actions before we know it degenerates into chaos and conflict and crisis which compounds the problem. So whatever the situation may be, I think as Nigerians, what we should pray for is that there should be peace because that is very important. We don't want to have crisis coupled with the challenges that we have on the ground across the country. Indeed. Indeed. Thank you so much, Mohammed Abdul-Lahi, for your time. Thank you very much, my pleasure. Mohammed Abdul-Lahi, public affairs analyst, joined us from Kaduna State on our first hot topic. We'll be back with our second hot topic. You stay with us.