Mindful Parents & Caregivers

Mindful Parents & Caregivers

This project was created by Mark Lilly, Erika Ruber and Adrienne Boxer.

Project Description

Street Yoga’s Mindful Caregiver Program builds on our existing mindfulness & wellness programs to bring tools of stress reduction, anger management, compassionate communication and long-term self-care to parents and caregivers grappling with cycles of abuse, extreme poverty, homelessness and/or involvement with foster care.

Street Yoga offers a model curriculum to help caregivers and parents cope with the extreme stresses of these occupations. Its training model blends focused yoga movements with instruction to combat burnout, build communication skills, make space for trauma, and encourage empowered network-building.

Our target clients include

1. parents and caregivers in high stress family situations, which place their children at high risk of abuse, homelessness, deepening poverty, interrupted education and poor health
2. social service staff who serve these families. The quality of the parent-child relationship is a key factor in a child's lifelong health and well-being, and all our partners support strengthening this timeless family connection.

Innovation

Our innovative approach to parent, staff and caregiver support acknowledges there is a physical and neurological response to stress and trauma, and that treatment needs to incorporate body, mind and community. Our work is informed by:

• The philosophy and practices of yoga and Nia, which integrate body, mind, emotions, and spirit.
• Dr. Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication
• The work of Dan Siegel, Jon Kabat Zinn, Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine and Bellaruth Naperstek.

These researchers have found that building self-knowledge through attentive body-mind practices helps people heal from trauma, build more stable communities, enhance personal health & emotional well-being, and increase lifelong resiliency.

Another reason that this project is innovative is because we attend to the consequences of trauma as they affect all stakeholders: children, parents/caregivers and service providers. Traditional parenting classes have left out the social worker, yet there is a growing evidence that secondary trauma has severe negative consequences on job performance, morale, turnover, and success of clients. By addressing the secondary trauma of staff as well as the primary trauma of families, positive change truly happens.

Overall Goals, Specific Project Activities, Outcomes in first six months

Long Term Goals:

1. Parents/caregivers provide a home environment conducive to safety, health and emotional well being and learning.
2. Parents/caregivers demonstrate safe and supportive relationships with the children in their care, and engage in strategies to build resiliency in children.
3. Parents/caregivers build community networks with other parents and supportive community members.

Outcomes anticipated in the first 6 months: Caregivers will be able to: 1) understand their own and their child's needs; 2) understand their own triggers to destructive behavior; 3) better deploy alternative behaviors in place of destructive ones; 4) model compassionate behavior for the children in their care; 5) increase body awareness to stay present, grounded, and connected (instead of dissociating and remaining at risk); 6) utilize tools to manage stress and express anger in effective, safe ways. 7) better manage their anger and reduce the use of physical discipline; 8) communicate with less violence and fewer threats; 9) communicate with a wider range of supportive emotional vocabulary; 10) build supportive community networks.

Need

Burnout is a severe problem for parents and caregivers alike. Many parents of challenged children, like many professional caregivers, face chronic crises. They are susceptible to fall into a state of emotional and physical depletion that erodes their capacity to give quality care.

When people feel unable to maintain inner resources, they are prone to dissociation, conflict, trauma, and social alienation. All givers of care, if they are to maintain personal well-being and interpersonal effectiveness, need to nourish their psyches and bodies alike.

Goals

The broad goal of the curriculum is to nurture body-mind wellness among parents and caregivers, so they can have greater personal resources to offer their children or clients. The program goals include:

1. bringing the tools of stress-reduction, emotional regulation, and long-term self-care to parents and caregivers
2. encouraging compassionate communication between parents and children, or caregivers and clients
3. helping participants to develop internal resiliency
4. building the skills to create create community and establish trusting relationships

Modules

The four course modules are:

1. Self-Care and Emotional Well-Being
2. Mindful and Effective Family Communication
3. Moving Through Trauma
4. Enriching Community

Contacting Us

If you are interested in bringing this innovative work to your site, or know therapists, mental health workers, counselors or social workers who might be interested, please contact us anytime.