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Activities to help kids connect to Trees

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The answers surround us! Learn about the power of viewing the world through a Biomimicry lens.

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This assessment tool provides an overview of effective strategies to maintain self care. After completing the assessment, you can move on to developing a full self care plan.

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Forestry/Natural Resources Lesson Plans (K-5)

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Forestry/Natural Resources Lesson Plans (K-5)

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Forestry/Natural Resources Lesson Plans (K-5) (Department of Ecosystem Science and Management)

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Forestry/Natural Resources Lesson Plans (K-5) (Department of Ecosystem Science and Management)

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Keywords: paper recycling ;Grade Level: third grade (ES) ;Total Time for the Lesson: This is a unit spread over a several-week period (depending on the length of time given for the assigned project and the number of students giving presentations). I have given the unit outline, however, this lesson is for Day 1.

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This audio affirmation is a meditation and gentle reminder to return home to yourself no matter what you’re walking through. I originally wrote this meditation for a non-profit called “The Body a Home for Love.”

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360/365 Foundational Skill Area and Resource List

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360/365 Foundational Skill Area and Resource List

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California School Age Consortium, put together a list of Program Activities and Strategies for the 6 areas in CASEL's Social Emotional Learning Areas (self awareness & self management; social awareness & interpersonal skills; self efficacy & growth mindset

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Adverse childhood experiences and how we can be trauma stewards in the prevention of these traumatic experiences.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

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For educators and youth developers practicing SEL skills.

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3 Trauma-Informed Practices Backed By Science

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Getting Started with Trauma- Informed Practices

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Getting Started with Trauma- Informed Practices

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Cultivating Cultures of Care- the importance of Trauma Healing Lens in Building Trust & Relationships

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Getting Started With Trauma-Informed Practices

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The difference between Empathy and Sympathy

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Reflection on Belonging with Prentis Hemphill

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Reflection on Belonging with Prentis Hemphill

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Guided Somatic Embodiment Experience on Belonging

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About our guest

Prentis Hemphill is healer, Somatics practitioner, teacher, writer, and organizer who works at the intersections of healing and justice. As the former Healing Justice Director at Black Lives Matter, Prentis committed to supporting and nurturing the brilliant strategies of organizers and healers to address trauma, move through conflict, and center wholeness in the BLM network and in the broader movement for Black freedom and liberation.

Prentis continues their ongoing work as a teacher of somatics and personal transformation with Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD), a training program for Black organizers throughout the US, and with generative somatics, which is focused on bringing a politicized Somatics practice to movement building organizations. Prentis has worked for years with communities developing transformative responses to violence and envisioning new ways of being together, including work with generationFIVE and Communities United Against Violence.

Prentis is committed to transformation on the cellular level and the belief that who we are and how we are in our most intimate spaces is vital for our collective liberation.

Conversation: "Blackness & Belonging"

Check out the corresponding conversation to hear Prentis talk about the ways anti-Blackness shapes all of us to deny our own humanity, the role of shame, how we heal so we can give our unique contribution, avoidance, the Black Lives Matter Healing in Action toolkit, how healers are real people with limitations who aren't better than anybody else and belonging as a decision we make, not an external condition.

Support this work

Help us keep this project going: donate, become a sustaining member, and leave a positive rating and review in whatever podcast platform you listen.

Join the community

Check out our community homepage to learn about ways to get engaged in our community of practice, join our email list, and connect with us on social media.

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13 Practice: Reflection on Belonging with Prentis Hemphill - irresistible

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Published January 25, 2018 This practice with Prentis Hemphill, former Healing Justice Director of Black Lives Matter, leads you to cultivate a sense of belonging within yourself that is untouchable by external conditions. It is a political act to claim a belonging and dignity that cannot be thre

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The Trauma Exposure Response and the 5 Directions Trauma Stewardship Handouts

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Dr. Farima's Glossary of Terms for the Manifestation of Social Toxicity

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Dr. Farima's Glossary of Terms for the Manifestation of Social Toxicity

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Glossary of Terms: Manifestations of Social Toxicity.docx

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Practice- Tapping Meditation for Racial Anxiety Relief

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Practice- Tapping Meditation for Racial Anxiety Relief

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Racial Anxiety Relief - Tapping Meditation

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Article-Educating Children in a Socially Toxic Environment

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Article-Educating Children in a Socially Toxic Environment

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When I was in high school, I wrote an opinion column for the school newspaper. One month I criticized the fraternities at my school, an act that led many of my peers to become angry at me. As a result, late one night a car pulled up and dumped garbage on the lawn of our house: I was the victim of a drive-by littering.

I often think about that incident when I visit schools and communities. How would that incident play itself out if I were an adolescent today? What might well happen is that I would become the victim of a drive-by shooting. Things have changed.

Some of this difference between then and now simply reflects today's greater awareness of problems. When I was in high school, kids certainly were using drugs and alcohol. Girls did get pregnant. Child abuse did exist. But for the most part, we didn't know about it. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize that, as kids, we were shielded from knowing some of these things by adults who thought we would be better off not knowing. Some of the change is therefore a change in awareness all around.

But the change we are observing is more complex than a combination of greater awareness and better reporting. For instance, Fordham University's Institute for Social Policy produces an Index of Social Health for the United States, based on 16 measures, including infant mortality, teenage suicide, dropout rates, drug abuse, homicide, food stamp use, unemployment, traffic deaths, and poverty among the elderly. The Index ranges between 0 and 100 (with 100 being the best). From 1970 to 1992, the Index showed a decline from 74 to 41 (Miringoff 1994). This means that the overall well-being of our society decreased significantly.

Kids today are in trouble, more trouble than kids were when I was growing up. Evidence of this is found in research on emotional and behavioral problems among American children. The most compelling study of this change (Achenbach and Howell 1993) used a tool called The Child Behavior Checklist. This assessment instrument is widely used in research in many countries. Parents (or other adults who know the child well) indicate the presence (or absence) and intensity of each of 118 specific behaviors or feelings in words such as "can't sit still, restless, or hyperactive," "lying or cheating," "feels worthless or inferior," "cruelty, bullying, or meanness to others," and "nervous, high-strung, or tense."

In 1976, 10 percent of all children studied were judged to be doing so poorly that they could be candidates for therapy (even though only a third of these kids actually received such therapy). By 1989, 18 percent of the children were doing badly enough in their behavior and development to warrant needing therapy (and about half were getting it).

Achenbach and Howell's data certainly conform to the observations of teachers and other professionals who work with children. In the past few years, I have had occasion to ask those who have worked with children professionally for 30 years or more what they have observed. They overwhelmingly agree that more and more children are in greater and greater trouble.

Why do greater numbers of our children display signs of serious problems? I believe that children are most vulnerable to the negative influence of an increasingly socially toxic environment. Unless we do something about it now, the situation for children will only continue to deteriorate.

What I mean by the term socially toxic environment is that the social world of children, the social context in which they grow up, has become poisonous to their development-just as toxic substances in the environment threaten human well-being and survival. The nature of physical toxicity is a matter for public policy and private concern. For example, we now know that the increasing rates of cancer throughout the 20th century result at least in part from the buildup of toxic substances in the air, the water, and the soil. We know that air quality is a major problem in many places, so much so that in some cities, just breathing "normally" is a threat to your health.

What are the social equivalents to lead and smoke in the air, PCBs in the water, and pesticides in the food chain? I think some social equivalents include violence, poverty, and other economic pressures on parents and their children. They include disruption of family relationships and other trauma, despair, depression, paranoia, nastiness, and alienation-all contaminants that demoralize families and communities. These are the forces in the land that contaminate the environment of children and youth. These are the elements of social toxicity.

Social life is more risky now than it was just 40 years ago; the level of social and cultural poison is higher. How is the environment for kids more socially toxic now than it was when I was a child? For one thing, no kid ever died from a drive-by fist fight, but the proliferation of guns among growing numbers of adolescent peer groups means that conflict and confrontation that once were settled with fists now can lead to shooting. The littering I experienced in 1963 was radically different from the threat faced today by a teen who angers his or her peers.

Kids today are bombarded with messages about the potentially lethal consequences of sex. There is no comparison between the threat of AIDS today and the threat of venereal disease during my youth, and it is striking to hear teenagers routinely asking potential partners to take an AIDS test before initiating sexual intimacy. More generally, children and youth today must contend with a constant stream of messages that undermine their sense of security. If it isn't the threat of kidnaping, it's the high probability of parental divorce. If it isn't weapons at school, it's contemplating a future with dim employment opportunities.

Beyond the immediate threats to children, many other issues are subtle, yet equally serious. High on the list is the departure of adults from the lives of kids-and some studies report a 50 percent decrease over the past 30 years in the amount of time parents are spending with kids in constructive activities. The lack of adult supervision and time spent doing constructive, cooperative activities compounds the effects of other negative influences in the social environment for kids. Kids "home alone" are more vulnerable to every cultural poison they encounter than are children backed up by adults.

Although everyone is vulnerable to toxicity in the social environment, children (like the elderly) are the most vulnerable-just as when airborne pollution gets really bad, it is the children (and our elders) with asthma or other respiratory conditions who show the effects first and with greatest intensity. And who are the children who will show the effects of social toxicity most dramatically? They are the children who already have accumulated the most developmental risk factors.

I can acknowledge and celebrate progress in some aspects of American life (for example, the decline of the most blatant forms of racism and sexism) and yet still maintain that the concept of social toxicity explains a great deal of what troubles us about children and youth growing up in the 1990s. At stake is the essence of childhood as a protected time and place in the human life cycle.

Imagine living in a city plagued by cholera. In this city, the challenge to parents to keep kids healthy would be overwhelming. Yes, the most competent parents and those with the most resources would have more success delivering drinkable water to their children than would other parents. But even these "successful" parents would sometimes fail. Would we blame them, or point the finger at the community's failed water purification system? In a socially toxic environment, the same principle holds.

To fully understand what is happening to our children, we need a view of what childhood ought to be. What does it mean to be a child? What are the rights of children?

A global consensus about the meaning of childhood is emerging, as seen in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Cohen and Naimark 1991). This document represents an international effort to define what it should mean to be a child, based on what middle-class societies have learned about children and child development. The United States stands among a hand- ful of renegade countries that have not ratified the U.N. Convention.

The Convention proposes that to be a child is to be shielded from the direct demands of adult economic, political, and sexual forces. It proclaims that childhood is a protected niche in the social environment, a special time and place in the human life cycle, having a special claim on the community. Regardless of their economic value, children have a right to receive support from their families and communities. They have a right to be shielded from war and violence, to lead a life free from adult sexuality, and to have a positive identity.

The U.N. Convention tells us that children need not pay their own way and earn their keep. They have a human right to be cared for. Typically, families want to provide this support and, as a rule, will do so if possible. But when families cannot provide for their children, the U.N. Convention says that society should pick up the tab. This deeply held principle gives moral force to ongoing efforts to eliminate exploitive labor and poverty from the lives of children. And specific articles in the document testify to this impetus to offer every child what middle-class families offer to their children. We should bear this in mind in the United States, where we see a high and growing rate of poverty among children.

Children and economics. At present, about one in five of all U.S. children, and two in five among children age 6 and under, live below the officially defined poverty line. By historical and global standards, this may seem a relatively small number-in many countries of the world, the figure is more like 65 percent. But when contrasted with the affluence of our society and the success of other modern societies in protecting children from poverty, the U.S. data represent a telling statistical accusation, particularly if we factor in the finding that among modern societies, the United States has the biggest gap between rich and poor. Whereas in Sweden the top 10 percent of families make two times what the bottom 10 percent earn, for the United States the difference is a factor of six times (and for Canada, four times) (Rainwater and Smeeding 1995).

But the economic foundations of childhood go beyond protection from poverty. The idea of childhood as a protected niche implies that children are not direct participants in the cash economy. Any work they do should be guided by their parents and should serve educational and developmental purposes. We can celebrate the strides that have been made in many countries in protecting children from work-force participation. Dramatically reducing child labor was an important accomplishment in creating childhood in the United States; around the world, it remains a hot issue. But the economic rights of children go beyond being protected from adult work.

The child also has a right to be protected from the excesses of the consumer economy. In this view, the child's consumer purchases are to be kept separate and sheltered from commercial advertising that exploits the cognitive, emotional, and social limitations of children. The fact that children are often not so shielded is a violation of their rights. Turn on a television set during the children's hours before and after school, on weekends, and in the early evening, and you can see for yourself where our society stands on this matter. Children are commercial targets. Walk around any shopping mall, and you can see today's parents trying to cope with the fruits of this commercial exploitation of childhood. You may well be one of these parents.

Children and government. In addition to advocating for the economic protections of children, the U.N. Convention discusses political rights of children. The most important of these is to stand in a privileged position with respect to government. Children cannot vote, are not legally accountable (except in special circumstances when they can be tried in adult courts for especially violent offenses), and are not expected to be used by competing political forces in society. And yet government has obligations toward children. They are to receive special protection in case of war and community violence. Children are off limits during times of war and entitled to special rehabilitation if they are affected adversely.

Children are to be protected from violence in general. The U.N. Convention prohibits the execution of minors. It urges that parents and teachers adopt a nonviolent approach to discipline. More and more middle-class adults around the world have come to acknowledge that "children are not for hitting." As a result of this growing awareness, many schools ban corporal punishment, and parents seek alternatives to spanking and beating children. Child development research and human rights go hand in hand here.

Imagine telling children they must earn their dinner or their parents' interest on the basis of their accomplishments- what they do. No. Children are to eat and have the regard of their parents because of the fact of their relationship, who they are. Governments must protect these rights.

Children and sex. Besides being economically privileged and politically protected, children are supposed to be off limits to adult sexuality. They are not sex objects. Their interests, their attitudes, and their bodies are off limits.

In modern Western societies, this principle used to be reinforced by the distinctly different clothing worn by children. Only about 50 years ago, boys wore short pants until adolescence as a symbol of their childhood status. Girls waited until adolescence for makeup and stockings. Today, even young children wear clothing undifferentiated from that worn by teenagers and grownups. Visiting the children's section of a department store recently reminded me of this change. The only difference between the styles for boys and girls, on the one hand, and adults, on the other, is size. Children were certainly subjected to sexual abuse before the change in clothing took place. But the change shows how we are failing to recognize childhood as a special time that is very different from adulthood. Dressing children like adults sends a message.

To be sure, children are physical, even sensual creatures. But they are not sexual unless corrupted by adults (or adolescents). Although some kids are more physical than others, children generally respond well to physical affection. It's more than that, really. Children need physical affection to thrive emotionally, so much so that kids who are deprived of this affection are put in jeopardy. Ironically, these children may even be at greater risk of being sexually abused by predatory adults who exploit this unmet need seductively. As David Finkelhor (1979) makes clear in his analysis of sexual abuse, children are not in a position, developmentally or socially, to give informed consent for sexual involvements.

They lack the cognitive and emotional equipment to figure out the consequences. Also, they lack the independent status necessary to decide freely. In any interaction between a child and an adult, there is the presumption of adult authority. When children are involved, there can be no liaison between consenting persons. Children cannot say "no" with sufficient authority and awareness. Therefore, they are prohibited from saying "yes" (just as adults are prohibited from asking).

The key to detoxifying the social environment and to strengthening children to resist it lies in a human rights perspective on child development. We need to focus positively on what children need to thrive; we must channel our efforts into realizing that vision. This is the fundamental purpose for government as laid out in the Declaration of Independence. Recall that after listing the fundamental, unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the Declaration states "that to secure these rights governments are instituted." That's the foundation for educating children in a socially toxic environment.

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Educating Children in a Socially Toxic Environment - ASCD

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When I was in high school, I wrote an opinion column for the school newspaper. One month I criticized the fraternities at my school, an act that led many of my peers to become angry at me.

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Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping with Maryam Hasnaa

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Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping with Maryam Hasnaa

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EFT with Maryam Hasnaa for shock, panic, fear of the unknown, worry, anxiety, stress

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@yourpositivenews
#selfbelief #fatherhood #motivation #inspiration
♬ original sound - Your Positive News

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Anxiety Reducing Yoga Practice with Aya from Haji

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Everything you need to celebrate trees in your classroom.

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Free, with a free AskNature account | Biomimicry Institute

Activity with educator guide

In this interactive exercise the functions a building must perform are compared to the functions a tree must perform, helping students see that humans are not alone in our need to solve technological problems.

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Free, with a free AskNature account | Biomimicry Institute Activity with educator guide In this interactive exercise the functions a building must perform are compared to the functions a tree must perform, helping students see that humans are not alone in our need to solve technological problems.

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Ecosystem of Belonging-Safe and Supportive Learning Environments JVH Tip Sheet.pdf

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From the Introduction

The essayist E. B. White once wrote that the early American author, naturalist, and philosopher Henry Thoreau appeared to have been "torn by two powerful and opposing drives-the desire to enjoy the world, and the urge to set the world straight."

This book is written for anyone who is doing work with an intention to make the world more sustainable and hopeful-all in all, a better place-and who, through this work, is exposed to the hardship, pain, crisis, trauma, or suffering of other living beings or the planet itself. It is for those who notice that they are not the same people they once were, or are being told by their families, friends, colleagues, or pets that something is different about them.

This book is a navigational tool for remembering that we have options at every step of our lives. We choose our own path. We can make a difference without suffering; we can do meaningful work in a way that works for us and for those we serve. We can enjoy the world and set it straight. We can leave a legacy that embodies our deepest wisdom and greatest gifts instead of one that is burdened with our struggles and despair.

Foreword

When my friend and colleague, Laura van Dernoot, first told me she was thinking of writing a book on secondary trauma, my first internal reaction went something like, "That is the last thing the world needs." She will no doubt remind me if my internal reaction was actually externalized in words. (You who are about to enjoy this book will get a glimpse into the tell-the-truth-with-loving-concern person that Laura is.)

Whether I said it out aloud or only in my own head, my concern was that in many pieces of literature, notions of vicarious trauma (a.k.a. empathic strain, compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, burnout) are being thrown around with little appreciation for what they mean or what taking them seriously would require of us. (The same is true for many other meaningful concepts, including evidence-based practice, cultural competence, and authenticity.) Poor practice, errors in practice, agency insensitivity to employees, rudeness among colleagues, tardiness, sloppiness, and other minor and major events taking place in practice today are excused as "secondary trauma." All kinds of work-related stress, emotional or behavioral responses to the demands of the workplace, and other work-related conditions are also fluffed off as "secondary trauma."

You will find in the pages that follow that Laura has a keen understanding of trauma and the responses to it. This is a book written by someone who has walked the path and knows firsthand what trauma brings and demands of those who walk that path. Her honesty, humor, and no-nonsense approach make these vital topics accessible to all of us. Even the most experienced trauma worker will find a refreshing perspective here. Her idea of trauma stewardship is a great gift to our field. It erodes the artificial line between sufferer and helper. It recognizes that trauma has impacts that can be named and managed. Trauma stewardship calls into question whether the means of exposure (direct or indirect, through relationships with those directly exposed) has any relevance to the impact of the trauma. Most of all, trauma stewardship calls on us to remember that it is a gift to be present when people deal with trauma; it reminds us of our responsibility to care and to nurture our capacity to help.

You will soon read Laura's claim that she brings no new knowledge to this calling. This is far from the truth. Not only is trauma stewardship a new formulation, but in ways that no other book or trainer has done, Laura links the key components of responding to trauma together in a way that is seamless and natural. One cannot go away from this book without understanding the relationship between oppression and trauma, the importance of purposeful action to protecting others and self, and the vital role that spirituality plays in protecting us from and managing trauma's impact on our own lives, as well as on the lives of our clients and friends. It interests me that Laura comes to this appreciation of the role of spirituality from walking the path, although increasingly this is also a finding from research on vicarious trauma.

Laura directs our attention to the impacts of trauma work on those who help and witness. Rather than pathologizing those of us who experience these reactions at one time or another, she helps us to understand our feelings and behavior as natural responses that flow from our humanity. In the same way that oils splatter on the painter's shirt or dirt gets under the gardener's nails, trauma work has an impact. As psychotherapists, we know that when the sources of anxiety go unrecognized, the anxiety cannot be managed. When that is the case, not only we but also our clients may suffer unnecessary distress. Laura gives us a range of possible emotions, ideas, and behaviors that can indicate that the work is taking a toll.

Perhaps the greatest gift this book gives us lies in the sections on finding compasses. Instead of producing a cookbook, Laura takes us along on her own journey. The Five Directions invite us, it seems to me, on a single direction that is inward so we can again go outward to the work. I haven't told Laura until now that when I first read this, I was angry. "Laura, for heaven's sake"-maybe the real words were a bit stronger-"tell me what to do!" Then I came to understand, as I took the deep breath she invites her reader to take, that the answer for her cannot be the answer for me. She gives us a compass, but each of us has to find the direction.

Those of you who are about to read this book are at the trailhead of a path that holds great promise for you, for your work, and for those whom you are privileged to work with. In an age when the same ideas get repeated until they lose any meaning, this is a book with fresh ideas. Unlike cookbooks or manuals that invite quick responses that have not been thought out, this book invites us on a journey. On that journey, we are invited to take a fresh look at why we do the work, and how our work must be contextualized in efforts to end oppression and privilege. We are reminded that the work has inevitable benefits and challenges, that we are stewards not just of those who allow us into their lives but of our own capacity to be helpful, and that a mindful and connected journey, both internally and externally, allows us to sustain the work.

We are in this work together, all of us. Our best hope is to understand that it is a long journey. We need to take care of ourselves and each other. Laura has given us a great compass and map to help us on our journey.
- Jon R. Conte, Ph.D. Seattle, Washington

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Inside the Book - The Trauma Stewardship Institute

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From the Introduction The essayist E. B. White once wrote that the early American author, naturalist, and philosopher Henry Thoreau appeared to have been "torn by two powerful and opposing drives-the desire to enjoy the world, and the urge to set the world straight."

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Cultures of Collective Care-JVH Empower.pdf