As we strive to reduce the spread of COVID-19, many suddenly find ourselves working from home without our normal routine and scrambling to get back some sense of normalcy. Our trauma-informed team pulled together some helpful tips for establishing a routine and developing coping strategies to stay physically and mentally healthy during this disorienting time.
While we are all trying to do our part to practice social distancing in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, many parents and foster parents now find themselves at home with children who were previously in school or childcare. Here are some constructive enrichment activities you can do with your kids.
It’s hard to know how to talk to kids about frightening or traumatic events in the news. Between the coverage of wars, pandemics, political uncertainty, neighborhood violence, where do we even start? Thankfully, the National Center for Traumatic Stress Network has outlines some best practices.
We are dedicated to making sure all of the children, families and staff we work with are treated with dignity and affirming who they are as individuals. However, if we are not aware of the ways people experience that dignity, we are liable to violate it, even if unconsciously so. Check out this list by Donna Hicks from Harvard University outlining the fundamental ways we experience dignity and the principles we all should adhere to when seeking to affirm that dignity in others.
Mindfulness — the practice of being present in the moment instead of rehashing the past or imagining the future — has many great health benefits. But it can be a challenge to achieve in our fast-paced world of multi-tasking. One way to practice mindfulness is by using your senses to explore the world around you. Learn how you can do this every day with a simple pause at mealtime.
