Self Care and Resiliency for Parents and Staff Serving Autistic Individuals (BLENDED/ONLINE)
Being a parent or staff member serving individuals on the Autistic/Special Needs population can be one of the most challenging endeavors a person can undertake. Employing practical tools based on principles of yoga, mindfulness and social /emotional learning, this program teaches practical ways the parents and support personnel serving the Autistic/Special Needs population can take better care of themselves and the children they serve.
CONTENT
- Focus on taking care of yourself first, so you can better take care of those you serve
- Improves participants’ relationship skills and leadership ability by reinforcing essential life skills such as: focused listening, communication, forgiveness, taking responsibility and conscious choice.
- Teaching and practicing specific yoga/mindfulness tools for stress management that can be taught to others and incorporated into one’s daily routine.
- Suggestions for practicing life enhancing nutrition.
- Tools and techniques to support individuals with ASD to enhance self-regulation especially during times of high anxiety and meltdowns.
- Presenting and practicing ways of staying supportive and present during stressful moments.
- Addresses many of the challenges that the parents and caregivers encounter such as:
- Proper nutrition and the avoidance of certain foods
- Circumstances and events that may trigger their child’s anxiety
- Communication challenges with your child and other family members
- Sleep deprivation
Along with many of the additional unique challenges that parents and staff serving individuals with Autism encounter:
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- Accepting the child’s limitations and at the same time envisioning greater possibilities for the future
- Moving from Survive to Thrive, looking to the future with faith and optimism
- Understanding and accepting other people’s attitudes towards an individual with Autism
- How you relate to the issue of supporting an individual with Autism
- Specific techniques to support and enhance self-regulation especially during times of high anxiety and meltdowns
FORMAT
- Presented to parents and staff that serve the Autistic/Special Needs population
- Six-weekly live/online (Zoom) sessions presented to no more than 18 parent participants.
- Each week the parent participants will view, at their own schedule, 4 ten-minute presentation videos that relate to the Social/Emotional Learning topic presented at the weekly Zoom session. During the week the parents will have an opportunity to practice these skills with family members along with implementing yoga practice, life-enhancing nutrition suggestions, and ways of getting adequate sleep information.
- In that the principles presented are universal, the training is relevant for parents, professionals and staff serving of children of any age, ethnicity or nationality.
- Other family members, who have the interest and capacity, can also benefit greatly by participating along with their parents.
- All written online materials (books, handouts, etc.) are available in Spanish as well as English
MATIERIALS
- Yoga, Meditation, Enhanced Nutrition online videos along with 22 Social/Emotional Learning online videos
- The book Masterful ParentingThe book and course text, Masterful Parenting…Creating meaningful connection with your child
FOLLOW UP
Once the training is completed, as a way of reinforcing the lessons presented during the program, a bi-weekly newsletter with a relevant quote from the Masterful Parenting book and practical life-enhancing yoga suggestions will be emailed to the participants.
FACILITATORS
With 35 years of yoga and meditation practice, Sharon Manner has experience firsthand how yoga helps to reduce stress. For the past 11 years, inspired by parenting a 26 year old daughter with Autism, she has developed and presented programs exclusively tailored to benefit individuals on the Spectrum. To date, Ms. Ms. Manner’s work has positively impacted the lives of thousands of adults and children throughout the United States and Canada along with more than 150 individuals trained to bring her trainings into their schools and community organizations that serve individual with Autism.
Since 1993, Dr. Marc Rosenbaum’s organization, Education for Excellence, has presented social/emotional learning programs to more than 5000 New York City public school parents, teachers and administrators. He has authored the course texts and curriculum guides Masterful Parenting (the book your parents had read), El Arte de Ser Padres, Masterful Parenting (creating meaningful connection with your child) and Education for Transformation.
