debor016

As I begin to write about resiliency, I have to mention what Geoffrey Canada said when I heard him speak at a National Council conference. He said he was not that interesting in studying what helped people succeed despite bad situations; he was interested in creating fewer bad situations. Still, when I heard Mark Katz, PhD speak at the Joint Commission Behavioral Management Conference I was struck by the overlap between his presentation and our training. Dr. Katz is the Director of Learning Development Services, a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist in San Diego, California, and author of the book On Playing a Poor Hand Well, published by W.W. Norton and Company (1997). In the book, Mark explores the lessons learned from those who've overcome adverse childhood experiences, and discusses ways of incorporating these lessons into our existing system of care. http://www.learningdevelopmentservices.com/ In his presentation, Dr. Katz emphasized that the meaning people attribute to misfo...

In October, my colleague Steve Brown and I taught both Risking Connection© and the Restorative Approach© to Child and Family Service of Hawaii. This excellent agency is especially interested in improving the services in their group homes for girls. They also have an array of other programs which will benefit from being trauma informed, such as domestic violence shelters and in home services. The staff was eager to learn and felt that this approach was exactly what they had been looking for. And this was the first training in which I was given two leis, one at the beginning and one at the end of the training. I also did a Risking Connection© training with Dr. Kay Saakvitne in at Elmcrest Children’s Center in Syracuse, New York. I appreciated the staff there who had the courage to embrace change in their methods and appreciate the possibilities within trauma informed care. It was also a treat to teach with Kay, one of the original authors of Risking Connection©. I always learn a lot from...

I am trying to create an explanation of the Restorative Approach for parents, to be given to them at admission. This is what I have so far. Any suggestions? Welcome to Klingberg Family Centers! We appreciate the opportunity to work with you and your child. We hope the following explanation of our approach will be helpful to you in understanding how we do things at Klingberg. We believe that all healing takes place within relationships. We will do anything we can to create a strong relationship with your child and with you. We understand that children and adults do things to try to meet their needs in the best way they know how at the time. Many of the children and families that we work with have experienced bad things in the past. These difficulties have changed them. If people have been hurt by other people, they stop trusting. They do not believe that relationships can be a source of help and can be counted on. Instead they have come to see relationships as unreliable and painful. So...