All Scheduled Dates
Tuesday Cohort
The Tuesday Cohort will meet on the following Tuesdays from 11:00am-1:00pm:
- November 10
- November 17
- December 1
- December 8
This cohort will be taught by Julia Bennett and Stacey Younge.
Friday Cohort
The Friday Cohort will meet on the following Fridays from 10:30am-12:30pm:
- November 13
- November 20
- December 4
- December 11
This cohort will be taught by Jess Trane and Vanessa Nisperos.
Applications for both cohorts close 10/20
Course Type
Multi-Session
Course Length
8 hours
QUESTIONS?
If you are having trouble opening the application link or have any other questions regarding this course, please email us at [email protected]
ATTENDANCE POLICY
We expect participants in the Academy's cohort-based courses to attend all course sessions. Each session builds on prior weeks. Attending and contributing consistently will enrich your experience and that of your peers.
To receive a certificate of completion, we ask that participants attend and engage in at least three of four sessions, submit reflective writing responses, and complete the post course survey.
Foundations of Care
Part of a Trauma-Informed Supervision Learning Path
DESCRIPTION
Foundations of Care is the first in a series of courses that prepares learners to advance trauma-informed supervision within NYC non-profit care settings.
This course recognizes the strain of persistent systemic inequities on NYC non-profit care providers and the communities you serve, including experiences of stress, primary and secondary trauma, and loss. Supervisors are often called to support others through these complex challenges, while navigating significant challenges themselves.
Foundations of Care invites supervisors to cultivate practices that help protect against the impacts of stress and trauma, including for nervous system regulation, self-awareness, and connecting to values and purpose. These practices serve as a foundation for offering a grounded and skillful supervisory presence to others.
If you have ever felt exhaustion, a lack of motivation, or cynicism; if there is a passion for the work that you no longer feel present to; if you have felt hopeless or helpless as you navigate changes – you are not alone. These experiences are common among care providers who respond to pain and injustice in their communities, often with too few resources.
Over 4 weeks, supervisors will be guided to re-center or strengthen practices that nurture your wellness. Participants will explore unique stressors that non-profit care providers face; gain tools to transform common reactions to stress; and, affirm your guiding values, purpose, and imaginative visions for the future. Together, these tools will help you connect to both small steps and broader visions for advancing trauma-informed, equity-centered practices.
LEARNING PATH
Foundations of Care is a prerequisite for Care-Centered Supervision, the next course in a trauma-informed supervision learning path. This learning path supports supervisors to become proficient in a range of trauma-informed practices, so you can in turn model and share these with supervisees. These courses have been developed, tested, and refined with input from a cross-section of staff and supervisors from NYC community-based organizations (CBOs) and city agencies.
While there are many paths to cultivate skills for self-awareness, self-regulation, and radical imagination, we ask supervisors to complete Foundations of Care before Care-Centered Supervision to access shared practices, concepts, and language. Learners may enter Foundations of Care with a range of relevant prior experience; every learner’s background and insights will enrich these courses.
Academy courses center care for the well-being of helpers as foundational elements of trauma-informed care. We aim to address the high levels of stress, trauma, and loss experienced by NYC non-profit providers and the communities they serve. This includes experiences of collective trauma; historic and intergenerational trauma; race-based trauma; and, vicarious or secondary trauma.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Each week will include group discussion and practicing tools that support your own wellness. Some sessions incorporate multimedia, psychoeducation, short readings, and reflective writing. Participants will identify and practice tools for your own nervous system regulation, self-awareness, and wellness between sessions, and discuss and reflect on these practices in the cohort.
To fully engage with course material and each other, participants are asked to:
- Join from a quiet, private space.
- Use a desktop or laptop computer with updated Zoom. Due to the interactive nature of this course, it is not possible to participate from a mobile phone.
- Join and stay on camera for the duration of the session.
- Bring any needed supplies (from readily available household items).
COURSE OUTLINE
Session 1: Centering Care
Description
In Session 1, we uncover the unique stressors that social services providers face, including the systems of oppression that cause harm and exacerbate trauma in marginalized communities. We begin to build a foundation for acknowledging and working with these harms. We will practice nervous system centering tools that protect against the impacts of stress and increase a sense of calm. Participants will rethink self-care from a more empowering perspective and leave with accessible tools to support their wellbeing.
Objectives
Participants will:
- Create a shared sense of purpose for our time in this course
- Acknowledge unique stressors that supervisors in non-profit care settings face
- Explore physical, emotional and behavioral changes we experience under stress, along with our capacities for self and co-regulation
- Practice nervous system centering tools
- Investigate learned messages about care
- Plan to integrate one or two good-fit practices into your routine for the coming week
Session 2: Tending to Our Care
Description
Intense emotional experiences are a normal part of life, yet many people feel overwhelmed by intense emotions. In this session we learn how to identify the unmet needs behind intense emotions, and practice tools to discharge and care for the body's experience of intense emotions. We also explore systemic and historic harms that have impacted ourselves and our communities, and which often underpin intense emotional experiences. Through understanding the systemic harms that impact social service provision, participants explore where they may have internalized disempowering messages and move toward a more empowered approach to ongoing self-care.
Objectives
Participants will:
- Identify our own experiences of intense emotions
- Practice emotional discharge and tending to intense emotions with somatic, mindfulness, and DBT skills
- Reflect on systemic and historic harms and their impact to ourselves and communities
- Reflect on the experience of using 1-2 care practices over the past week
- Plan to practice at least one nervous system centering tool in the coming week
Session 3: Connecting to Care
Description
In our third session, participants will explore the values we hold in our work and our shared purpose for being in a helping profession. In addition to cultivating physical care practices, deepening our connection to purpose and values decreases stress and protects against burnout. Building upon our values and purpose, we explore additional coping strategies and supports available in our workplaces and communities to reduce the negative impacts of workplace stress.
Objectives
Participants will:
- Reflect on personal and shared motivations and values in the helping professions
- Continue to practice nervous system centering tools
- Through a creative activity, map resources that support your personal and professional wellbeing
- Increase your ability to connect with available supports, including trusted colleagues and friends
- Reflect on the experience of integrating care practices into your life between sessions
- Plan to integrate good-fit care practices into your routine over the coming week
Session 4: Centering Care in Our Work
Description
In the final session, participants will reflect on the learning and practices from the course, while tapping into your capacity to imagine more just future states and next steps. Drawing on the work of social change leaders like Norma Wong, scholar activist of the Hawaii Sovereignty movement, we will use guided meditation to access our long-term vision for healed and healthy communities. Envisioning this future, we build our capacity for radical imagination and other ways of knowing – key components of building long term paths toward health and wellbeing for ourselves and our communities. On this foundation of future visions that inspire and move us, we close with affirming our commitment to ongoing wellbeing and care strategies to support ourselves and our communities. Participants will leave with a tangible action plan for ongoing care.
Objectives
Participants will:
- Practice radical imagination and other ways of knowing
- Identify how envisioning more just futures can support individual and communal wellbeing
- Reflect on the role of values in helping us thrive, personally and professionally
- Reflect on the lessons and practices that have been most helpful for you in this course
- Create an intentional plan for your ongoing self-care
ELIGIBILITY
This course is open to supervisors in NYC non-profit care settings, which include community-based organizations, government agencies, or public hospitals that deliver non-profit social services or behavioral health care in NYC. It has been especially designed for supervisors who:
- Supervise one or more direct care staff. Direct care staff means any person who regularly interacts with or provides services to the community members your organization serves, including front desk or security staff.
- Hold a middle manager role:
- You both supervise staff and report to a more senior supervisor, manager, director, or executive
- You may be charged with implementing programs or policies that you did not design
Learners who completed Foundations of Care are eligible for Care-Centered Supervision, the next course in a trauma-informed supervision learning path.
HOW TO APPLY
Applications for both upcoming cohorts can be found here and will close on 10/20.
Please reach out to [email protected] with any questions.
