In groups of 4 persons, identify aspects of the early intervention profession that could be used as motivators for investing energy and increasing the work potential of the professional. Write down the list you developed and present it in a creative manner in front of the group. You can find a symbol that will reflect the resources of the practitioner in early intervention in front of the burnout phenomenon.
Form triads and give a role to each member of the triad: 1. professional in early intervention who has a job-related issue (ex., feels tired from home visiting activities, has a difficulty with a parent, is unhappy with the schedule etc.), 2. the head of the early intervention department, 3. observer of the interaction.
Play the role of the professional who assertively discusses with his/her superior the issue encountered at work. The observer notes the statements of the professional that reflect assertive communication of attempts to phrase in an assertive manner the issue.
After 15-20 minutes of role play, exit your roles and discuss in the triad:
1. how assertive was the communication between the professional and his/her authority figure?
2. what aspects could be improved in the communication?
3. what were the most difficult moments of the interaction?
Summarize your conclusions and bring them into the group after the role play ends.
o Abdominal breathing: when a person is anxious, he/she breathes rapidly and through the upper part of the body (chest), which in the absence of physical activation leads to an imbalance in the level of oxygen and CO ₂ (O>CO ₂ ). Abdominal breathing balances oxygen and CO ₂ levels by applying slower and deeper breathing (belly). By slowing down and calmer breathing, you affect the slowing down of the heart and control other physical symptoms of anxiety. Inhaling air through the nose, you push the abdomen outward and draw air into the lower part of the lungs. You keep our hand on the abdomen during inhalation and exhalation. This is a very simple but very powerful relaxation technique because the effect is visible already after three inhalations and exhalations.
o Holding the breath - you inhale air through the nose counting to 3 and drawing the air into the lower part of the lungs. The air should be held while counting to 3, and then release the breath through pursed lips as you say to yourselves "relax".
o Rhythmic breathing – you breathe in through the nose while counting to 3 or 6, depending on what is more comfortable. Exhale through the nose in the same number without holding the breath in between. You should breathe like this for several minutes.
- Mindfulness exercise: Three-minute meditation “Space to breathe”
Step one: become aware
In a sitting or standing position, take an upright and dignified posture. You may close your eyes if you want. Direct your attention to your inner experiences. Ask yourself, "What am I feeling right now?" and accept any disturbing or uncomfortable feeling without judgment or attempt to change them. Next, observe your thoughts. Ask yourself: “what thoughts are going through my mind?” and try to accept them.
Pay attention to any sensations in your body. Take a moment to scan your body and notice any tension or stiffness. Accept these sensations and feelings without trying to change them.
Moving on to the next step, narrow your focus in your abdomen as you breath. Notice the rising and lowering of the abdomen as the air enters and leaves your body. Focus on each breath to connect with the present moment. If your thoughts tend to
wander, gently bring your attention back to your breath.
Now, expand your awareness to your entire body, your posture and facial expression as you breath. If you notice any discomfort or tension, focus your attention on their strength and imagine the breath entering and surrounding them. By accepting these
sensations and by not trying to change them, you create space for exploring them more easily. When they no longer demand your attention, return to your meditation, being aware of your whole body, moment by moment.
- Reflection Exercise with imagery and body awareness
First of all, please find a quiet place for you to relax on a comfortable chair or on a couch. Allow yourself to find a sitting position that best fits your needs right now, with your body comfortably seated, and your head supported on a wall or the
back of the chair. You may close your eyes for some minutes or you may remain with your eyes open if this is more appropriate for you right now.
While sitting there, in this position that your body found, allow yourself to pay attention for only a few moments to yourself, to your body. And just notice how you are at this moment. How is your body feeling? Are there any physical sensations that draw your attention? Allow yourself to feel your bodily sensations from inside out. And you can allow yourself to just pay attention to how you are at the moment, comfortably seated, how your body touches the chair, how it is positioned.
And just as you are freely floating with your attention to your bodily felt feelings, you can guide your attention towards your face, feeling it from the inside out. Caress with your attention your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your ears, your cheeks and the back of your head, your hair. Then allow your attention to flow down to your neck, chest, shoulders, paying attention to the subtle or more intense reactions and feelings that you can find there.
Your attention flows towards your arms, feeling the movements, shivers, tiny changes that your body makes to adjust to the sensation of relaxation that comes into your body as you pay attention to its needs and just notice how it feels from the inside out.
Then your attention can go to the sitting part, notice how your body touches the chair or the couch on which you sit, to the legs and feet and you notice how they are positioned and how they feel in your shoes or on the ground.
And you can be amazed by the multitude of feelings that your body feels as life pulses inside it and as you notice life pulsing inside your body your attention can slowly move to your breathing.
And you do not need to modify it, just notice how the air enters and exits your body with each inhale and exhale, with each breath in and breath out.
As you stay there, noticing, thoughts can come and go, feelings can appear and disappear and a full inner experience, rich and unique unravels as you just breathe.
As you sit there, relaxed, or just attentive, allow yourself to become curious about what comes next.
And I will invite you to bring a professional experience into your inner awareness. It can be an experience you had in the past, a more recent one, or it can be an experience you are still doing, you are in the middle of it. Maybe you will choose a challenging experience, maybe a more relaxing one, or it may be an experience of success in your professional life, whichever is most appropriate for you at the moment.
And as this experience comes into your awareness, you can ask yourself the question: How was it for you? What is the general inner feeling about this experience?
Were there any joys? Any disappointments? Any fears? Was it a fulfilling experience for you? Was it hard to do? Please just allow the feeling to come from the inside, without any effort to find it, just let these questions sit inside yourself and without any effort to answer any of them, allow yourself to reflect upon the effect that they have on you.
You can connect with the intrapersonal level of the experience, the level of your emotions, knowledge, experiences, skills in relation to the experience.
What did you learn about yourself? What was most difficult, challenging? What was easiest? What new things did you learn about yourself?
And just let these questions wander inside, without effort to paying attention to answer them, just letting them be there with you as you pass to the reflection at the interpersonal level, the group in which the experience took place, the group in which it was immersed.
What did you learn about others in the group? What about yourself in relation to others? What were the skills of your group? How did the experience change your perspective on human beings? On cooperation and group work?
And just let these questions sit there with the others, there is no need to make any effort to answer them, just let them be there as you move to the reflection on the practical level, the lessons you learned, to the applications within the experience.
How can you use what you learned in this experience for your professional life? What about your personal life? In what situation can you use what you learned? What would you recommend to others?
And now that so many reflection questions are going through your mind and are flooding your inner space, maybe some sort of discomforting feeling appeared and it is welcomed, it is just a feeling that arises naturally from the confrontation with questioning, wondering and reflecting on experiences.
It is the natural feature of our mind to select the relevant and leave out the unnecessary information and it is just what your mind will do.
But for now, I will invite you to thank your mind and body for all these rich experiences, and to leave behind you all these questions and memories about experiences and move back to your breathing, feeling how it moves your abdomen area and with each inhale and exhale you become more and more aware of what is happening around you, of the sounds in the room, of my voice, of the feelings in your body, sensations, movements and you are more and more connected to the chair you are sitting on, to the room you are in, and slowly, at their own unique pace, your eyes may open. You are fully aware, present, and ready to come back to the room we are in.
- Self- compassion exercise
Choose one exercise of self-compassion from Neff’s website: Self-Compassion Exercises by Dr. Kristin Neff: https://selfcompassion.org/category/exercises/
Practice in pairs the exercise and share how you felt.
- Compassion focused therapy (CFT) techniques
Self-compassion break (long version, 13 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_80y_CT32c&t=6s
Self-compassion break (short version, 6 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ax8Y741rxA&t=3s
Loving-Kindness for Ourselves CFT meditation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mILRWPdQPKs
Soften Soothe Allow CFT meditation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmQi3VQCdCQ
The perfect week tool can be used by a person to describe an ideal week, in a manner that is realistic and achievable with existing resources and budget. In a broader perspective it helps people to express how they want to live their lives by making the best use of the available resources. With this tool a person specifies elements of an ideal week and notes people, interests and places that are important to him, as well as the available resources. The Perfect week tool facilitates the matching of personal resources and development of specific steps to achieve aspirations and the elements of a perfect week for a specific person.
How it helps
This tool can be used as an effective person-centered care and support plan helping people organize and utilize their own resources, persons and budget to improve the quality of their life in a practical way.
(http://helensandersonassociates.co.uk/person-centred-practice/personcentred-thinking-tools/perfect-week)
FIGURE 12.EXAMPLE OF A PERFECT WEEK SHEET
- What’s working/not working
This tool allows a first a mapping of the current condition of a person’s life, and most particularly what works well and what needs to be improved or changed. It also takes into account the person’s own perspective as well as the perspectives of other persons’ involved in their lives.
This tool allows reflection on the current situation and starts to develop outcomes and strategies to ensure that the desired changes actually happen.
What it is useful:
It can help you realise what is working and what is not working in your life from various viewpoints so as to decide the right way to proceed.
How it helps:
By incorporating the perspectives of various persons involved in your life, this tool helps you identify the areas of agreement and disagreement. This way, the tool allows you to become aware of areas of common ground in order to get the support you need in a way that makes sense to you.
(http://helensandersonassociates.co.uk/person-centredpractice/person-centred-thinking-tools/whats-workingnotworking)
The decision-making profile gives you a clear idea of how you make decisions and how you could be supported in this process. It can be used to empower you to take control and make choices for your own life. Furthermore, it assists you in presenting your choices and decisions to others in a way that makes sense to you.
There are 5 steps to follow for decision-making according to the tool:
1. How I prefer to receive information
2. How choices should be presented to me
3. Ways used by other people to help me understand
4. What is the right moment for decision-making
5. What are the moments that are not right for decision-making
When completing the decision-making profile, it is important to reflect on a previous real-life decision-making case and identify what worked and what didn't in terms of the support you received.
How it helps:
This tool is essential since it helps you understand the available choices and make well-informed choices. This is particularly important when considering your own and your child's wellbeing.
(http://helensandersonassociates.co.uk/person-centredpractice/person-centred-thinking-tools/whats-workingnotworking)
- Technique Connecting to Resources #1
Resources are the strengths of the personality, these are the qualities, people, events, environment, nature, sports, pets, etc. which give you security, a sense of safety, a sense of coping.
Art Therapeutic Technique Creating a “Safe Space” from clay. This technique is preferably conducted together with a psychologist, social worker or psychotherapist.
Material needed: Clay or play dough
Clay takes away some of the tension, clay is the earth, it can be a resource, relieves tension. The clay has a pleasant texture, plastic, pleasant to the touch, amenable to processing. It allows the expression of spontaneity and the transformation of created emotions.
Pieces of clay or play dough are distributed. Instruction is given: Draw your safe place out of the clay. After 10 minutes, someone from your group is invited to present their symbol, their safe place.
Questions from the facilitator:
Where is this place?
What's in this place?
How do you feel in this place?
Who can go inside? How?
Who would you let in?
Is there someone who can't come in, you don't let them in?
What are the sounds of this place?
What are the aromas of this place?
Where does it resonate in your body, in which part of the body
do you feel your protected place?
What helps you feel secure?
The goal is for you to name and find the resources within yourself, around you, you are guided to connect with this place, to find the source, the "anchor" in your body. These anchors mean that every day you can use them, and when you have anxiety, you find that place and connect with it, it stays installed, nurtured you.
To guide you to what is available here and now so that you feel security and safety. From this place to have interaction in the world and so when communicating with different people and problems to feel protected. The symbol made of clay can be kept and you can put it in a place at home or where you can look at it and draw the sense of security from it.
- Technique Connection to resources #2
Materials needed: paper, colored pencils, colored markers
You are given the materials and given instructions to draw a picture in which there are three elements: Ship, storm, lighthouse.
You are given 10 minutes to work. The presenter invites you to present your drawing and asks questions:
Describe what you depicted in the drawing?
Who is on this ship?
What happens in the ship?
Which of the travelers reacts?
What helps the people on the ship to keep calm?
What happens in this storm, in your story?
Does this drawing have a title?
What is the end of the story?
What does it mean?
Where does the ship reach?
The goal is again for the individual to seek and name available resources, salvation, direction.
"Imagination is our vital and creative energy"
- The Circle of Friends and Ecomap Tool
This tool whether it is used by professionals to identify their own supportive environment or the circle of support of the person in focus, provides information to be used for developing a plan for improving their life conditions.
Information for applying this tool is gathered by having conversations and using the relationship circle. Through this tool one can map the important people in one's life, who they know, how they know them, what the relationships are among different people in one's life and how this network of relationships can support one to achieve one's aspirations and live a meaningful life. Proper use of this tool provides insight into who is important to a person, and improves planning by helping to identify the people that should be involved in the planning process revealing the relationships that need reinforcement and support.
THE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS TOOL SHEET
THE ECOMAP