debor016

This week I taught a Risking Connection© Basic three-day training for a Connecticut agency.  This agency provides various types of home-based services, school-based mental health clinics, out patient clinics, parent resource centers, and day care. It was a joy to teach such caring and thoughtful people. At the end of the training we did an exercise that involved people saying what they would keep from the training. Here are the top five things staff will keep: I learned tools that help me understand my clients’ behaviors in a new way I have new ideas for how to help my clients more effectively. I feel more connected to my agency and the individuals within it. I feel more valued by my agency. I learned it is okay to be a human being with human feelings, and how to take care of myself to remain energized and hopeful. It is always inspiring to participate in the increase of hope and energy that this training creates.

My colleagues and I are engaged in an effort to develop a reliable and validated measure of beliefs favorable to trauma-informed care. When complete, this measure will help establish the effects of training, will assist in agency self-assessment, may be used in hiring decisions, and could have many other uses. As part of the process we are asking many professionals in the field to take a longer version of the survey, which will help us determine which questions work best. Would you like to join us? Dear Colleague, At this time, there are no reliable and valid measures of trauma-informed care. For this reason, we are working on an instrument to measure staff beliefs related to TIC. When finished, this could be used to measure such things as the extent to which a school or agency is trauma-informed or the outcome of trauma-informed change interventions. We need your help. We need as many health and education professionals as possible to participate in a brief online survey. The online su...

Jennifer's home passes have been going well. She and her mom Nancy have had some fun together. When disagreements have occurred they have worked them out. Jennifer has been going home for long weekends and even a week over school vacation. The team decided it is time to set a discharge date, and chose the end of the school year. Then Jenn blew up. On her next home pass she went out and didn't come back until late. Her mother was clear she had been drinking and smoking. When Nancy came to visit, Jenn told her she hated her and didn't ever want to go home. She said she wanted to go to independent living. As soon as Nancy left Jenn called her and begged her to come back and take her home immediately, and started swearing at her when she wouldn't. Going Home is Hard The ambivalence our kids feel about going home is agonizing and acute. What are some of the contributing factors? They all involve various sorts of fear. Fear that they will not be able to handle it, will hurt t...

Have you seen the moving new video ReMoved yet? It is available at: http://fstoppers.com/removed-an-incredible-film-by-nathanael-matanick It is about a young girl’s journey into and through foster care. It is $25 to purchase for training use. I have now used it in quite a few training settings.  Here are some discussion questions I have used: 1.     When Zoe was living with her family what was one of her sources of satisfaction? 2.     What did you notice during the scene when the police came? 3.     Why did Zoe throw the record player over the fence? 4.     What do you notice about Zoe's feelings management skills: feelings management, sense of worthiness, and inner connection? 5.     What happened when Zoe's foster mother gave her the dress? 6.     What did Zoe think when she saw her foster mother on the phone? What did you think? 7.     What did Zoe's foster mother give her t...