Heading 1NDMTSS Conference
Description
Teachers have always needed to know and practice protective strategies in their social emotional first aid kits to manage the daily stressors of working on the front lines of a human-service oriented profession. That need has never been greater given the massive increase in uncertainty and unpredictability in the teaching profession and in one's personal life due to COVID.
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In short, teaching is emotional labor-- the effort required to manage and metabolize strong emotions like anger, shame, guilt, anxiety, and overwhelm, as well as generate and stoke positive emotions like joy, hope, and compassion.
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Stress significantly diminishes a teacher's capacity to regulate their negative emotions and cultivate positive emotions. Ironically, teachers who leave the profession often cite their inability to cope with their own emotional reactions to loss of control, unpredictability, and lack of purpose in their teaching as the primary reason for burnout.
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There are many, many strategies and practices rooted in cognitive and affective neuroscience and social and behavioral sciences that teachers can learn, practice, and integrate into their personal and professional lives as teachers to metabolize stress, manage negative energy, protect themselves from the burnout cycle, and find joy in teaching the whole year through!
Learning Objectives
In this session, teachers will:
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Explore the core elements of the teacher burnout cycle and learn how to protect one's self from the 2 paths to burning out,
Sustained and Strategic
Educator Healing and Mental Health Support
The Problem
“For schools to be well, educators need to be well.”
(Bettina Love, We Want To Do More Than Survive, 2019)
While teachers have always encountered unique mental and emotional stressors in their teaching roles, teacher burnout has become a public health crisis in the midst of a global pandemic and our collective call for social justice and anti-racist practices in the educational community.
“The call to help teachers take a more proactive stance to insulate themselves from the onset of burnout is just beginning to be heard” (Larrivee, 2012), and never has the need for strategic, systematic, and research-based professional development opportunities for teachers to learn how to metabolize stress in ways that stoke mental health, emotional resilience, and social and emotional learning (SEL) been more necessary.
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Self-care/personal development is professional development.
The Potential
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How might we help educators and educational caregivers relate to internal and external expectations around time and competing demands with balance and perspective?
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How might we help educators and educational caregivers heal from burnout and stave off the manifestations of compassion fatigue and emotional exhaustion that negatively impact their core sources of joy-- student and peer relationships?
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How might we provide educators and educational caregivers with perspectives, knowledge, and practices that deepen core competencies of educator well-being -- self-awareness, emotional resilience, unconditional positive regard -- so they can routinely adapt to school-related stressors in flexible and functional ways?
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How might we engage educators and educational caregivers in research-based mental and body health practices so they can strategically and systematically:
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perseverate on the positive in their classrooms and relationships with others
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deepen safe and trusting relationships with students and colleagues
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seek joy in the current struggles
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de-escalate a stress reaction and feel grounded and centered
The Plan for
Strategic Support
Foundations Training
District or Building Well-Being Retreat
Format offered: In-Person or Virtual
Length: 1/2 day (3 hours) or Full day (5-6 hours)
The Presence Impact
The 3 R's of Educator Restoration, Resilience, and Renewal
In this retreat session, educators are introduced to the curriculum of teacher well-being-- the 3R's of Educator Restoration, Resilience, and Renewal.
Our well-being as educators is collective! In this foundational retreat, educators gather as a community to intentionally engage the curriculum of educator healing and restoration. Together, they learn and engage the foundational elements of being a relationship researcher. They learn, experience, and practice what it means to study their relationship to themselves, their joy, their stress, and their relationships with students.
In this all-day retreat, teachers learn about and experience the foundational competencies of the Presence Impact:
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REST: Utilizing the power of active rest and connecting to the breath to settle a busy mind and reactive nervous system
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RESTORATION: Engaging the potential embedded in stress for educators to metabolize triggers into opportunities to exercise and embody SEL and value-based actions
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REVITALIZATION: Creating the possibilities and opportunities for learning, joy, and belonging in their classrooms through their presence
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90 minute training: $2,5000
1/2 Day: 3 hour training $3,500
Full Day: 5-6 hour training: $6,000
*for up to 200 educators and educational caregivers
Investment Cost
Core Trainings
Professional Development Experiences
in Adult SEL and Well-Being
Format offered: In-Person or Virtual
Length: 1/2 day (3 hours) or Full day (5-6 hours)
All Present TeacherTM Trainings are designed to integrate and intersect with one another to provide educators with multiple layers of experience, knowledge, and insight around the core foundations of educator and school/community well-being: REST, RESTORATION, and REVITALIZATION.
After educators have engaged the foundations training (all-day retreat) and/or the Present Teacher Restoration ProjectTM, they often ask, "What's next?!"
Once educators have learned and engaged the fundamentals of their own mental and emotional resilience (e.g., self-awareness, self-compassion, stress metabolization), then they are ready to engage the next level of curriculum where they learn how to bring these SEL and well-being practices to their students.
Present Teacher ∞ Present StudentTM is a synergistic professional development training program. This transformation opportunity combines the philosophies, practices, and strategies of both Move Mindfully® and Present Teacher® into one complete program that provides teachers with concrete mind and body practices to assist the self and students with trauma informed de-escalation and self-regulation strategies that calm the nervous system to promote optimal teaching and learning.
Co-Presented with Kathy Flaminio,
Move Mindfully®
Co-Presented with Nuhu Sims,
Equity Director for Brooklyn Center Schools
The Present Schools ProjectTM
is an innovative professional development training designed to engage school staff, educators, and administrators in expanding their knowledge and embodiment of the foundational elements of holistic school wellness:
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
Mental Health
Embodied Equity
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Delivery Options
In-Person
(1) 3 hour (half day) session
(1) 5 hour (all day) session
Virtual/ Zoom
(2) 90 minute zoom sessions (3 hours)
(5) 60 minute zoom sessions (5 hours)
Hybrid
*Customize your delivery mode with (1) in-person session and a series of virtual/zoom sessions
3 hour training: $4,500
5 hour training: $7,000
Investment Cost
Online, Self-Paced
On-Demand Professional Development
Format offered: Online, Self-Paced Training
Length: 4 hours-- (8) 30 minute modules
Once educators have collectively engaged the foundational perspectives and competencies of the teacher well-being curriculum through the all-day retreat, the next layer of support is to provide them with individualized opportunities to ground the core concepts of rest, restoration, and revitalization into their personal lives and classroom spaces.
The Present Teacher Restoration ProjectTM is a strategically designed and sequenced curriculum of 8 (30 minute) modules that build off each other to guide educators through a "low-dose" sustained mental health and emotional resilience experience.
Each module includes:
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15 minute educational/direct instruction video
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10 minute gentle yoga/ mindful movement video
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5 minute guided mental health meditation
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Put Into Practice Handouts
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This 8 module training is delivered online, and each module is revealed weekly (or bimonthly) so to give educators space and time to integrate the core concepts and practices into their teaching and personal lives.
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To experience a module educational and yoga video
and to learn more about the training outcomes, the online platform, sequence of module topics, and investment cost:
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The benefits of offering educators a self-paced, online (8- 30 minute module) mental health and emotional resilience curriculum are many:
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Time starved teachers report appreciating the agency and freedom they have in engaging professional learning experiences on their own time when it makes the most sense for their busy schedules.
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Teachers engage a series of (8) "low-dose" 30 minute modules that provide just the right amount of support, encouragement, and information.
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Each 30 minute module includes an engaging 10 minute educational video that teachers are able to pause, rewatch, and take (downloadable) notes at their own pace.
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Teachers said they watched and re-watched the 10 minute yoga videos multiple times a week in the privacy of their own homes (some even reported having their partners join them!) to de-stress from the day and feel grounded and connected to their breath and body.
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The printable handouts for each module provide teachers with concrete strategies they can directly apply to their teaching and their personal lives to maintain mental, emotional, and soul health.
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Teachers report engaging the guided meditations in each module before school started to get their minds and bodies in a calm and centered state.
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Teacher report feeling supported and cared for when gifted a personal development training by their school that supports their well-being.
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Teachers indicate feeling seen and valued when the curriculum was supported by the district either through integrating it into the required PD sessions and/or by offering CEUs (or vitality points) for their participation.
BENEFITS
This training was a life saver!
Every week I was waiting for it to practice meditation, remind me of my strengths, and manage my energy in the best way possible to survive and find joy in the middle of a pandemic and distance learning- THANK YOU!!
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Minneapolis Public School Educator
Everything I learned in the PTRP can be applied to my teaching and well-being immediately!
I can implement the tools I learned with students, and they would be able to replicate them on their own for their own benefit.
Minneapolis Public School Educator
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I loved going through the PTRP modules!
The PTRP modules affirms everything we feel in a day, week, and year. This training gave me practical wellness tools that helped me with my stress levels, and it also addresses one to be self-reflective and honest in one's teaching practice to bring about more inclusiveness and equity.
1st Grade Teacher
I found the series to be calming, centering, and hopeful!
It was really nice to have short modules that I could complete anytime between my on-line teaching sessions and meetings.
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Elementary Teacher
Optimal Experiences for the
Present Teacher Restoration ProjectTM
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Provide as a self-paced, individualized professional development opportunity where educators earn "4 clock hours" that can be submitted for CEUs or district approved mental health activities.
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Invite teams of educators to engage the modules together during on-site during established PD hours.
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Encourage small groups or grade level teams to engage the modules collectively. As a group, they can:
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watch the videos together, stopping to discuss important concepts and ideas that resonate
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identify the "put into practice" strategies they will engage during the practice window
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come back together to reflect on their individual integration of the module ideas and practices to share their learning, insights, and impact.
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Provide training as optional professional learning activity as a gift of support and appreciation.
Licensing Options
*All licenses are for up to 16 weeks of unlimited access to the 8 module training
District License
$25,000
Building License
$12,000
Small Group License
$200 per individual (5 individuals minimum)
Individual License
$350 per individual
Investment Cost
Small Group Support
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Format offered: Virtual or In-Person on Site
Length: 30-45 minutes per session
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We want educator well-being to be self-sustaining!
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Present TeacherTM Infinity Groups are designed to be an "opt-in" practice space where educators in a building come together to engage Present Teacher training concepts and receive community support in their well-being practice.
Present TeacherTM Infinity Groups are peer led 30 - 45 minute practice spaces held at the school site where educators gather to practice mindfulness and support one another in being mentally, emotionally, and spiritually well.
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How to establish a Present TeacherTM Infinity Group at your school site:
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Identify individuals who are passionate about mindfulness, mental and emotional health, and burnout prevention, and are interested in learning how to hold practice spaces for others to engage the Present Teacher foundational well-being concepts.
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Jen meets with the cohort of Infinity Group leaders for a series of (4) 60 minute virtual certified trainings sessions to establish Infinity Group foundational practices and framework guidelines for hosting their own practice sessions at their school sites.
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After the 4 session certified training window, Present TeacherTM Infinity Group Leaders are supported with monthly mentoring and training materials by Jen as they begin to establish their site specific practice spaces.
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Jen provides routine check-in's with all Present TeacherTM Infinity Group Leaders throughout the academic year to provide additional coaching and training.
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$1,000 per individual for certified training
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(4) 60 minute training sessions for certified status
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Monthly mentoring and training materials to support site specific Infinity Group sessions