Nervous System Regulation for System-Involved Youth and Families in Times of Crisis During the Holiday Season

Rachel Michaelsen, LCSW

Training Description

During this intense period of the COVID-19 Pandemic and protests against racial injustice, so many people have experience increased levels of fight or flight/sympathetic dominance. We all need strategies to address our fear, anger, overwhelm and stress. The holiday season tends to bring on extra stress for both providers and the families with whom they work. It is unclear what this will look like during the continued Pandemic, but it is likely to be even more difficult. In this class participants will have a chance to talk about their experiences over the last many months, explore how they can better help themselves and the system involved youth they support to manage stress during another Pandemic holiday season. They will learn simple exercises from the field of energy medicine and energy psychology which they can use to regulate their own nervous systems and teach to system involved youth and families. Material will be taught through lecture, small group discussion, large group and dyadic practice.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• Explain how stress negatively impacts the nervous system;
• Implement at least four energy medicine techniques;
• Teach at least four energy medicine techniques which can be used with system involved youth and families;
• Articulate a plan for self-regulation when in a crisis;
• Develop a plan to support system involved youth and families through the holiday season.

Agenda 

9:30–10:00am      Introductions,   opening exercise

10:00–10:30am    Definitions: Crisis, stress, holiday stress

10:30– 11:00am    How have you been handling stress since   the Pandemic began and how do you usually manage stress during the holidays?

11:00–11:30am     How Stress and Trauma Impact the Nervous   System & How Energy Medicine and Tapping impact the nervous system and   address stress and trauma

11:30am–Noon     Break (CEUs will not be issued during this time)

12:00–1:30pm       Energy Medicine Techniques – group and   dyadic practice

1:30–2:00pm         Develop Plan for self-regulation and   stress management during the holiday for self and others - individual, small and large group share

2:00pm                    Adjourn

Meet Our Trainer

Rachel Michaelsen, LCSW, is a clinical social worker who has worked in HMOs, public agencies, and private practice as both a mental-health provider and a supervisor for more than thirty years. She has taught courses in clinical supervision, law and ethics, diagnoses, childhood psychopathology, vicarious traumatization, trauma informed care and energy psychology at universities, conferences, and mental-health agencies. She provides consultation and supervision to agencies and maintains a private practice.

This course meets the qualifications for (4.5) BBS CEUs 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.