Foster Care Training

How can we help mindfulness strategies work best for youth with trauma exposure? While mindfulness can be a support to trauma recovery, certain aspects of mindfulness practice may be counter-productive for those with exposure to trauma, or simply ineffective. For example, most traditional formal mindfulness practices first encourage a person to sit still and close their eyes. For someone carrying a heavy trauma load, this directive takes away their ability to self-regulate through unconscious motor movement, and will most likely put them in closer touch with an experience of dys-regulation. So how do we re-invent, or adapt mindfulness practice so that it supports a person with trauma exposure, rather than challenging their system?

In this training we’ll explore the physiology of trauma, and how it shows up in the body, behavior, and subjective experience of the client. We’ll then develop a model of mindfulness intervention based on responsiveness to the present moment state of a client’s nervous system, taking into account their exposure to trauma and how this may manifest moment-to-moment. We’ll explore which practices are generally supportive for those with trauma exposure, and how to tailor practices to meet client’s needs when they are in fight/ flight/ or freeze responses. We’ll also examine how trauma in clients impacts the experience of caregivers, and explore measures caregivers can take to help themselves maintain wellbeing and resilience when working with trauma in youth clients.