Children and Youth In Care

Michele Chaban MSW, RSW, PhD.Director of AMM-MIND

An inter-professional certificate on Applied Mindfulness Meditation

University of Toronto, Factor-Inwentash School of Social Work .

Intentions

• To explore ways to enhance the health, wellness and resiliency of ourselves and those in our care, based on evidence based science.

• To begin to develop an understanding of the new neurosciences and how it is impacting on how we see and know the world.

• To integrate mindfulness and mindfulness meditation practice into our own practices.

• To begin to work differently , integrating the new sciences, for the sake of all –M/WE.

Attitudes of Gratitude

• Inquiry : What one thing can we be grateful for in this single moment in time? ( Rick Hanson’s work)

• You care for some of the most vulnerable populations amongst us….if we take care of the most vulnerable…the rest of us will be okay….because a society that integrates compassion and caring into its very fiber is a society that takes care of all…equally (a world of M/WE)

Attitudes of Gratitude : a brain exercise

• Gratitude for the work of Dr. Carmen Maggisano and the CYIC team for bringing us together.

• Gratitude for the Ministry of Education and the Children’s Aid Societies for recognizing the need.

• Gratitude for all of the attendees who came to learn how we can be more helpful to those in need, including ourselves.

The simple act of practicing attitudes of gratitude brings our attention to

what is right in the world rather than reinforcing our habitual way of

focusing on what is wrong with us and others….try practicing gratitude at

day’s end, rather than ruminating over problems and what went wrong with

the day. ( Hanson, Chaban, HH the Dalai Lama)

In lecture experiment : Who here has not suffered?

Suffering

Usually we have a 100% response rate that everyone has suffered.

That is an remarkable outcome….

Suffering

• Usually when we suffer, suffering arises in our bodies, touches our bodies and our brains and our relationships

(Bessel van der Kolk).

• When others suffer, we feel for them…we resonate …and then the same response arises in us.

• The research shows that if we sit with another, our heart beats begin to beat the same as theirs.

• If they suffer… we suffer.

Suffering

• In the psychiatric , psycho-somatic and psychological literature, suffering is most often referred to as “stress”. ( Chaban)

The 4 “F” responses to Stress

• Fight

• Flight

• Freeze

• Faint

Stress

• Stress is a part of life• We cannot banish stress from our lives.• Even the concept of stress reduction and

stress management has us wrestling and struggling with something that we think should not be. ( Chaban)

Stress

• Some stress is a good thing…it helps us stay motivated.

• Too much stress and we engage our stress response of the 4 “F’s” ( flight, fight, freeze, faint).

Bessel van der Kolk , The Body Keeps the Score.

Stress

• Stress is deeply personal . Stress is what a person says it is, it is individualized.

• Our grandmother’s womb, can impact on our children’s children…because stress reaches our brain and our genes.

• Stress can be passed on inter-generationally and inter-personally. ( Sonya Lupien)

How is this possible?

What hope is there for anyone who has gone through challenging

times? Who amongst us has not…

Two new sciences inform us

• There is a burgeoning body of literatures that is changing how we see our selves, others and the world we live in.

• Quantum science is telling us that “we are in relationship to all we meet”.

• The new neurosciences is telling us our brain and mind is shaped by experiences: “ what is fired is wired”.

Scientific Materialism

• Scientific Materialism has influenced how we see and experience and know the self, others and the world….. for about 500 years.

• This is one way to see, know and be in the world. It represents on epoch, era, or episteme.

Scientific Materialism

Scientific Materialism emphasized:• Objectivity ( the subjective view and voice was

suspect).• Reductionism ( we can break the whole into

smaller parts, the whole is known through its parts),

• Isolationism ( separate something from the whole in order to know it ie biopsy ),

• Functionalism ( we are knowable and measured by our doing more than our being)

Scientific Materialism

• We began to see ourselves as individuals, who were separate and isolated units rather than a part of a whole, we were apart, a part.

• Now quantum physics and neuroscience are challenging this view. They say we are not and cannot be separate.

Scientific Materialism

• Scientific materialism promoted the belief that our brains were like blocks of cement.

• What you were born with is what you had to live with.

• From the moment you were born, your brain cells were dying.

The New Sciences

• Our brains are not blocks of cement.• They are plastic-like and can be shaped and

molded by experiences.• Our brains are constantly creating new brain

cells and respond to experience….up until the moment you draw your last breath.

• This is neuro-plasticity.

Stress, Suffering and the new sciences

• What if your primary relationship is with poverty?

• What if you are deprived of the social determinants of health ( housing, nutrition, education, social networks)?

• What if you live in emotional, social and fiscal deprivation and neglect?

Stress

• A child conceived into this kind of deprivation is a child who is bathed in and birthed into stress .( Remember stress gets into our brains and genes). Stress changes us.

• A child born into this life may have a present history of neglect but also a past history …

Stress

• It is not that we should strive to be stress free…this is unrealistic and maybe even not helpful to motivating us….

• But, how we respond to stress, our relationship with suffering and stress is something that matters.

How we respond to stress and our relationship with suffering is central to

health, wellness and resiliency.

eg. Worry is a prayer for what we don’t want to happen.

How do we change our relationship to suffering and

stress?

We train for it…

Just as we train for reading , writing and arithmetic ….we can

train our minds how to respond to stress and suffering.

Training the brain

• This can be viewed as brain exercises, brain physio (Richie Davidson), brain hygiene (Dan Siegel) .

• In training the brain, we cultivate the mind.(R. Davidson).

• Learning suggestion: google both these scientists and learn from them or read their books.

The brain

• Because we thought of the brain as a block of cement, we did not think it was changeable.

• Now that we know about neuro-plasticity , we know the brain cannot only change, but that when you exercise your brain with specific exercises, that you cultivate your mind.

Suffering , Stress and Trauma

• When you come from a history of deprivation, harm, abuse and neglect, your body holds that –not just your brain-but your whole body and mind. ( Bessel van der Kolk)

Our Amygdalas

• In fact when your stress response is activate, the amygdalas ( two small almond shaped parts of our brain) are activated and respond like smoke detectors to the presence of a fire.

• When the amygdalas begin to fire and warn us of danger, we have a perceived sense of risk.

• The stress response is activate….

Settling down the stress response

• Fight • Flight• Freeze • Faint• Abide and Reside• Tend and Befriend

How to respond to our stress reactions?

• How do we begin to settle down the stress response and those smoke detecting amygdalas?

• How to respond rather than react?• How to connect rather than correct?• How to discern rather than burn?

In learning how to respond, connect, discern, we learn to drive ourselves differently…the way we

would drive a car.

We learn when and how to apply the brake and accelerator to our

stress , and modify if not determine our responses-and not

be taken off course by stress determining us more than we determining our own intent.

After we practice the use of the brake and the accelerator ( self regulation) …we then have to learn how to drive the car( agency) ….following the road signs

-as we take the journey.

This is self awareness….and self awareness helps influence our sense

of self regulation ( brake and accelerator).

Without an awareness that we have the option to apply the accelerator,

the brake and drive the car…a person can simply stay in reaction mode and

never cultivate their mind.

This metaphor of the brake, accelerator and how we drive the car is Dr Dan Siegel’s work from Harvard and UCLA.

Harm, trauma, suffering , stress, reactivity , correction, can set

those amydalas off…reacting to everything as a threat.

This can be exhausting and depleting.

Stress also shuts down our social engagement .

( van der Kolk)

What does healthy social engagement look like….it can be

viewed by our sense of social connectivity, social capitol.

It is our attachment.

Dr Dan Siegel• Dr Siegel is a child, adolescent and adult

psychiatrist.

• He and his colleagues identified 8 qualities of attachment that one exhibits if one has a secure attachment.

• He also noticed those who have a mindful, mindful meditation practice, also have these 8 qualities of attachment, plus one other quality : intuition.

Secure Attachment : the 5 S’s

• Seen• Safe• Soothed• Secure • Survivorship

How can we get secure attachments?

• We used to think that secure attachments were cultivated in the first 5 years of life and that if you did not have this strong attachment by age 5, you would never have it.

• This was the view of scientific materialism.

• It was the view based on the belief our brains were cement.

New sciences and brain• But if our brain is shaped by experiences , and we

have experiences that cultivate secure attachments throughout life then we should be able to change our minds about attachment, cultivating attachments and how we respond to stress.

• If our brains are plastic, they can change, we can change –anytime we wish-by simply changing what we encounter and or how we respond to what we encounter.

Dr Dan Siegel

• Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation is a form of brain hygiene much like the public health initiative that had us all begin brushing our teeth.

• There once was a day , we did not brush our teeth, but once we realized it helped promote dental and cardiac health-we became more motivated to care for our mouths and what is in them…and how it impacts on the whole of us.

Dr Dan Siegel

• Siegel asked the question : how does a meditation practice lead to secure attachment?

• He hypothesizes that meditation and its time spent exploring the internal landscapes of thoughts, feelings and body sensations , is a way to deepen one’s relationship with self, of one’s way of being.

Mindfulness , Mindfulness Meditation and cultivating secure attachment

• Siegel says that through meditation we can “re-parent ourselves” any time we wish to.

Dr Dan Siegel

• To change your minds you need to exercise your brain differently and cultivate mind.

Dr Dan Siegel & Goldie Hawn : TedMed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OdBXGHwNCk

3 R’s• Reading• Writing• Arithmatic

New 3 R’s • Relationship• Reflection• Resiliency

Dr Richie Davidson

• Change your mind, Change your brain, change the world.

( Richie has many lectures on the internet)

Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation

• Attention >• Intention>• Self Awareness>• Self regulations>• Executive function ( organizing ourselves)• Co-regulation ( our impact on others)• Relationships

Harvard Business School

• Darwin had us thinking it was survivorship of the fittest….but now we know our ability to adapt and adjust to our environment can be cultivated ….and it is less survivorship of the fittest and more survivorship of the focused.

• Harvard Business school says it is the development of attentional skills that will cultivate our focus…and be a key ingredient of success.

How do we begin to develop survivorship of the focused?

• Develop attentional skills• Knot attention and intention• Cultivate self regulation • Consider self regulation impacts on co-

regulation ( our impact of others-the 2 minute connection of our hearts).

The new sciences are relational sciences

• Can we exercise Siegel’s 5 S’s to help children feel connected?

• Can we begin to use the 5 S’s with each other so we optimize our own natural resources with each other rather than starting up each other’s smoke detectors and stress responses?

The shift….the next episteme

• It will rely on the new sciences….we are in our infancy on these sciences.

• We will be driven by relationships and connectivity not just performance or functionalism ( machine based view of personhood from the industrial revolution).

• We will balance our data ( information revolution) with relationship ( neuroscience and quantum science) as a way of knowing…data will not be enough, functional evaluation will not be enough.

Wholism • The new sciences have begun our thinking

around wholism rather than reductionism.

• Our brains are meant to socialize with each other, to connect with each other. What happens when stress shuts our brain down to do what it was meant to do?

• Do we become less human? Are we viewed as less human, or a broken human?

Occupational Literature

• When we meditate our immune and cardiac systems are impacted upon positively as we change the way we are driven.

• We develop agency rather than reactivity, which is another form of stress response.

Occupational Literature

People with Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation practice :

-have fewer sick days,-less absenteesim,-less presenteeism.

The challenge to scientific materialism

• These two sciences, neuro and quantum, are challenging how we see ( phenomenology), how we know ( epistemology) and who we are ( ontology).

• Mindfulness and Mindfulness meditation also do the same.

Are we going to be satisfied with survivorship…

Or shall we learn to thrive rather than

merely survive!

The brain exercises are one way to change our minds.

If we have this practice , we will be more resilient people.

The children and parents in our care will learn from us.

Our peers will suffer less.When they suffer less, we will suffer

less.

This is a way to create a world of M/WE.

Michele Chaban MSW, RSW, PhD.,Director of the inter-professional

Applied Mindfulness Meditation Certificate,Factor-Inwentash School of Social Work,

University of Toronto.michele.chaban@utoronto.ca

http://socialwork.utoronto.ca/conted/programs-and-workshops/certificates/mind/

Denise IngRegistration & Communications Administrator & Liaison

Continuing Education * Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work * University of Toronto

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