Over my years as the Lead Canadian Volunteer for the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint (AASR), I have been very fortunate to receive significant training and educational opportunities, which have included Studio III’s Low Arousal Training, the Mehrit Center’s Self-Reg Foundations Certificate Program, countless AASR live sessions, volunteer cross-training, and facilitating nearly 3 years of books studies involving a community of parents, advocates and self-advocates, educators, professionals and authors who have blessed us with the opportunity to learn from one another, and directly from the authors at the end of each session.
This past week, I was very proud to receive my certificate in the Heart-Strong International Changemakers for Children course, taught by Sandi Lerman. Signing up, I already knew that anything Sandi and Heart-Strong International had put together was going to be amazing! AASR has a long-running relationship and collaboration with Sandi and Heart-Strong International, including the ability to obtain professional education credits for our book studies. Sandi’s work certainly aligns with AASR’s core five principles of being trauma-informed, neuroscience-aligned, neurodiversity-affirming, relationship-driven, and collaborative.
Heart-Strong International has its own core values, of course, which I have truly found make a difference in our lives, particularly recovering from significant school trauma, and seclusion room incidents that left my daughter in an autistic catatonic burnout, where I couldn’t even speak to her.
One of the biggest values for me personally is that life needs to be Joy-Infused! As Sandi said in one of our sessions, “Joy is the antidote to trauma!”
For the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint’s recent Beyond Behaviorism conference, I myself did a presentation that brings you through our journey from ABA, school trauma and crisis, to a more peaceful life, where we learned to have fun again, and where my daughter started to take in more of the world around her and to display her own sense of joy, once she knew that she was safe. Safety also means a lot of things, including how I went about many things in our day to help us both regulate. In my daughter’s amazing return to school this year, joy, a sense of safety, and connection were literally my only goals.
The Changemakers for Children course helps to educate participants on current neuroscience, the brain-body connection, how our nervous system states and energy, as well as our children’s fluctuate, and how to help us all regulate over time, and throughout our day. A fantastic array of visuals and charts is provided to help the user assess where things currently stand for everyone, adult and children, how to meet our children where they are, as well as how to help, is provided throughout.
A Safety Planning kit that is a part of the process, is something that I fully intend to put into play for our family over the next short while, as we look at differences in our new home and our new neighborhood, her school environment, our common community stops and activities like the YMCA, as well as environmental safety measures like preparing for a potential British Columbia wildfire evacuation, which could happen where we live.
This course has helped me to consider details in our safety planning that I may not have considered before.
Planning and preparing important items for these possibilities will certainly give me peace of mind. It will also help to give me a better understanding of how to advocate for community involvement in planning to assist other families with children with complex needs in emergency situations. I’ve already started speaking with our local fire department. Police and ambulance services will be next on my list. Understanding the unique needs of families like ours is important for these first-responder service departments, as we know that a lack of understanding can lead to catastrophic situations. Alternatively, education and resources can lead to more positive outcomes for everyone, as well as less stress on the first responders themselves.
Recently, the YMCA was wonderful about understanding how some practices within the environment might trigger one’s nervous system, and were quick to instigate hand signals around the pool that we attend frequently, rather than having staff yelling across the room to one another. Helping people in the environments that we frequent to understand the nervous system and triggers can also help us to avoid safety issues.
The Changemakers for Children course was an amazing way to crystallize my 5+ years of education and training in just a couple of months, while also providing me with a wealth of additional information, strategies, tools, and resources that I did not have before. The ability to discuss the course weekly with other participants, as well as Sandi, was invaluable. Having the ability to go back and rewatch both Sandy’s presentations and our discussions each week on Heart-Strong’s learning platform was also really great, as I always find that I pick up and retain more information just by participating the first time around, then watching a second time to take my notes. All visuals, note-taking sheets, and planning tools are available in PDF format on the platform, ready for download and printing. I decided to compile a comprehensive binder containing all the downloads for easy reference anytime. Having the option to become a Certified Trainer of the program, as well as to continue in Heart-Strong’s online community, is an incredible opportunity available to participants upon completion.
A sincere thank you to Sandi Lerman, and Heart-Strong International for their sponsorship of our Beyond Behaviorism conference, their ongoing support and collaboration, and the opportunity to experience this wonderful in-depth dive into how to better help our family and advocate for others!
