Situational Awareness for Neurodivergent & Trauma Impacted System-Involved Youth

Shoshana Phoenixx

Training Description

In this training, we will discuss the role of situational awareness as it affects neurodiverse and trauma-impacted system-involved youth. Situational awareness is being aware of one’s surroundings and any potential threats that may exist. A person who has experienced trauma and/or is neurodiverse may have altered emotional self-awareness that can turn to either hypervigilance of threat or a lack of awareness of hazards in their environment and how to respond successfully. A person who practices situational awareness successfully (as in fire alarm drills or active shooter drills) can recognize the possibility of being attacked, harmed or put in a dangerous situation and can follow instructions to be prepared to protect themselves. For neurodiverse youth, practicing the skills of situational awareness can allow them to work on their hyper and hypo observation and assessing skills so that they can become better strategic thinkers and navigate social situations.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

● Identify and explain the four stages of situational awareness

● Acquire 3 methods for supporting youth in developing situational assessment skills

● Explain 2 unique styles of expression skills for neurodiverse system-involved youths

Agenda

10:00-10:45am  Group Introductions, laying the foundation of the workshop’s structure and housekeeping

· The instructor introduces herself and expectations of the class

· Students introduce selves and respond to instructor questions about their familiarity and experience with neurodiversity

· Class process and housekeeping information

10:45-11:15am Teaching: The four main characteristics of situational awareness

· Observation and Orientation

· Decisions and Actions

11:15am-12pm Large Group discussion

· How neurotypical youth use these skills

· How neurodiverse youth use these skills

· Utilizing hypervigilance

12:00-12:30pm  Lunch Break (CE hours will not be offered for this time)

12:30-1:00pm  How stressors of environmental changes affect neurodiverse youth

· Identifying environmental variables

· Developing management plans to interrupt stressors

1:00-1:45pm  Small group Breakout activity- Using scenarios provided and sample youth descriptions/needs, Develop a customized environment plan for minimizing impact of these variations

1:45-2:15pm  Discussion of outcomes of small group practice

· Discussion of outcomes

· Large group problem solving

2:15-2:30pm  Break (CE hours will not be offered for this time)

2:30-3:00pm Engaging the challenges of intellectual and emotional self-awareness

· Intellectual self-awareness and cognitive capacities

· Emotional self-awareness variances and engagement strategies

3:00-3:15pm  Review of workshop information presented

3:15-3:30pm  Final group questions and discussion

3:30-3:45pm  Closing appreciations and reflections on learning

3:45-4:00pm  Wrap-up

Meet Our Trainer

“We can create together. We can heal together. We can mark the moments of ritual together. May the work of our hearts and hands speak together the truth of our lives.”

Shoshana has been working with communities and professional caregivers educating and training on the issues and challenges around progressive illness, trauma, death and bereavement for families for over 36 years. In that work she has supported people in many ways and forms as they experience illness, grief, healing, recovery, and transformation.

She began her grief and loss professional journey during the illness and death of both of her parents when she was a teenager. She subsequently served a residency in Berkeley to become an interfaith chaplain and now describes herself as “a Jewish chaplain, who works from an interfaith perspective”.

She has trained, counselled, and supported adults and children dealing with terminal illnesses, (and students/volunteers wanting to learn) using art modalities and non-traditional approaches

The thread that stitches together all the pieces of her work life is care, compassion and comfort for suffering people who find themselves outside the system of norms in American mainstream culture.

As a person who has lived outside those norms all her life, Mama Shoshana says with conviction, “We have our unconventional ways, and I am here to tell you that they are valid. There are many roads up this mountain called life, and we survive the unimaginable by stitching together all that we learn from one another.”

This course meets the qualifications for (5.25) BBS CE hours for LCSWs, LMFTs, LPCCs, and LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences & is provided by Fred Finch Youth Center, CAMFT Provider #045295.