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VOLUME 15 # 3

 

FOR THE SOUL AT WORK

It Starts at the Top

By:  Patricia Berendsen, RMFT, RSW, SEP

This reflective article is directed to those who manage, lead, support, or oversee people in their organization.  It summarizes key elements that will help leaders to facilitate a positive work environment necessary for keeping the soul in our work.

LINKS TO RESEARCH

The Perspective of Early Childhood Educators:  Emotional Development of Young Children

By:  Ashley Feindel, BA (Child & Youth Study, Honours),  Joan Turner PhD, CCLS

Bronfenbrenners’ ecological framework  includes early childhood settings as important contexts of the microsystem emphasizing that early childhood educators influence and are influenced by the children and their families in their care (Swick & Williams, 2006). In an effort to acknowledge the role of the early childhood educator within the microsystem of the child, the honours student embarked on the completion of a research study examining the perspective of early childhood educators on the emotional development of young children in child care. We anticipate that this brief research report will shed light and raise further questions for study about ways in which emotional development is understood and supported by early childhood educators.

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LINKS TO PRACTICE

Play Therapy:  It’s Serious Business

Interview with Dr. Nancy Riedel Bowers, B.A., MSW, RSW, RPT-S, PhD, Resigered Play Therapist – Supervisor

Dr. Reidel Bowers answers questions about various models of play therapy, setting up “healing” spaces, and international concerns regarding the treatment of childhood trauma.

 

EMDR Therapy With Children: Journey Into Wholeness

By:  Ana M. Gomez, MC, LPC & Francine Shapiro, PhD

Trauma and adversity affect millions of children and their families. Without appropriate treatment, many of these children are destined to a life of hardship and suffering, transmitting their unresolved trauma into the future generations.  Fortunately, treatment approaches such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy can now help children find healing and a path that will lead them to achieve full mental health.

 

Relationships that Promote Children’s Self-Worth  

By: Tina Thomas, CYW

In Canada, we are fortunate to have working conditions, staff ratios, programming resources, and abundant information which are often unheard of, or unavailable, in other parts of the world. We follow “best practices”, to ensure our children experience quality programming.  In 2009, I was a Child and Youth Worker in the School Treatment Program at kidsLINK (a children’s mental health agency in Ontario), and an active foster parent, when I was given the opportunity to spend ten days at an orphanage in Bolivia, as part of a training exchange between our two organizations.  I found myself in a place where materials and resources were minimal but resilience was plentiful.  I witnessed the flourishing spirit of childhood, in a disadvantaged land, rooted in the development of loving, caring relationships.

 

LINKS TO TRAINING

A New Member of the Canadian Forces Team in Helping Families with Mental Health & Wellness

Jessica Grass, Marketing and Education

Who would have thought a friendly green dragon called Iris would be called upon to assist the Canadian Forces in addressing the mental health and wellness of children of the military? Well this past year, Iris the Dragon Charity, specialists in producing books that address mental health and wellness for children, was commissioned by the Director of Military Family Services, to develop “Project: Kids Let’s Talk” a special edition Iris the Dragon book for military families.

 

Book Review:  Life After Trauma: A workbook for healing       

Reviewed by:  Gabriela Elias

Life After Trauma, Second Edition:  A Workbook for Healing was written by two experienced psychologists in private practice experienced in working with clients who survived a variety of traumatic events in their lives.  The book adopts a majority of the concepts discussed in other specific trauma treatments such as the Trauma Focused – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT) with the exception of not pursuing the trauma processing and not creating the trauma narrative.

 

Book Review:  Helping Teens Who Cut

Reviewed by:  Leah Anderson

An excellent resource authored by Michael Hollander, PhD, a practicing psychologist who has over 30 years of experience working with adolescents who engage in self-harm. He is now a director of Training and Consultations at a Massachusetts hospital where he developed the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) program, which is a highly supported treatment modality for self-injury. Hollander does an excellent job of using more parent-friendly language, as opposed to clinical jargon, in order to more effectively communicate the values and practices he outlines in the book…. Hollander writes from a very non-judgemental, non-confrontational position that allows him to align with parents to teach them the skills of validation, boundary-setting, and mindful awareness.

Book Review:  Getting Past Your Past

Reviewed by:  Dr. Patti Levin

“This book is about understanding the ‘Why’ in your life, and in those around you. More important, it’s also about understanding what you can do about it,” comments Dr. Francine Shapiro about the goals of her book. Throughout Getting Past Your Past the reader is led on an odyssey of self-discovery through the vehicle of case reports that encompass all aspects of human experience combined with specific techniques that open one’s own history to examination. In this well researched book, Dr. Shapiro describes how personality develops. She also examines how even simple events like being embarrassed or humiliated in school or by a family member can inhibit healthy development and create potentially life-long problems. In everyday language, she shares the likely physical and emotional reactions to the full range of disturbing life events and provides readers with EMDR techniques (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to help them identify the areas where they may be held back.  Using the techniques, readers will be able to identify their stuck points and the specific life experiences that are negatively influencing them.

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