The optimal state for learning is one of safety, connection, motivation, and engagement. Every student and teacher is different, but there’s one thing each has in common: a responsive nervous system ready for action. Whether it’s a fight breaking out on the playground, a difficult conversation with a parent, or an impromptu fire drill, understanding how the nervous system responds can help keep teachers and students on an even keel. Polyvagal Theory (PVT) has had a tremendous impact on the mental health field, shedding light on how the nervous system predictably moves between different states in response to changing situations. School consultant Debra Em Wilson introduces PVT to educators and shows how using PVT-guided strategies can help create optimal learning environments. When school staff understand the role of the nervous system in learning, they can better help students develop the skills leading to increased resilience, adaptability, and flexibility: essential qualities for social, emotional, and academic success.

Maybe you have heard the terms 'trauma-informed' and 'restorative' - but how do you go about becoming a trauma-informed, restorative educator? This practical book outlines the values, ideas and neuroscience behind trauma-informed restorative practice and its proven effectiveness. It clearly explains key theories relating to shame, trauma and your autonomic nervous system, and explains how to apply this knowledge in practice. Examples and stories of restorative practice feature throughout to inspire and emulate, as do practical protocols, tools and systems to develop your skills as a trauma-informed educator. Critically, it also explains the personal and professional qualities you need to nurture to truly engage in trauma-informed, restorative practice, with reflection points to aid learning and self-development. Read this book and take your first steps to creating a trauma-informed, restorative classroom - even if your school isn't doing it!

Research shows that a highly stressed brain does not absorb or remember information, causing learning to essentially shut down. Today’s students are more stressed and anxious than ever, and classrooms have become tense places. Educators require knowledge and skills to facilitate and teach students stress-management techniques and find creative ways to embed them in the classroom culture and daily routines. Calming Student Stress is a synthesis of empirical-based mind-body practices that have been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, help students remain centered and focused, and connect with the learning and each other. Various methods, techniques, and strategies that draw from mindfulness, yoga, tai chi, breathwork, and visualization are clearly defined, situated within current research, and geared towards both elementary and secondary students. Suggestions on how to introduce mind-body practices to students, as well as administrators and parents, are also provided within this helpful guide.

An all-in-one guide to taking charge of your mental health, with research-proven strategies to alleviate daily struggles such as depression, anxiety, panic disorder, ADHD, and insomnia “This helpful book is filled with research and practical approaches for coping with a wide variety of mental health conditions. . . . A great resource for families.”—Ken Duckworth, MD, chief medical officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and author of You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health Months-long therapy wait-lists. Out-of-pocket costs. Online misinformation. There are more barriers than ever to accessing reliable mental health care—and when your mental health is suffering, you need help now. This book, written by three practicing therapists, is your comprehensive mental health tool kit. Drawing on the techniques they use with their clients, they offer a holistic understanding of more than twenty all-too-common life challenges, plus compassionate, evidence-based strategies for when you’re struggling. Even better, these are techniques that anyone can do at home. In each chapter, you’ll find: what the research says about the issue coping mechanisms that are used in actual therapy rooms step-by-step guidance on using these strategies in real life and overcoming common obstacles tips for communicating about the issue with your loved ones You’ll also find practical advice on accessing professional help, deciding if a therapist is the right fit for you (and breaking up with them if they’re not), and paying for therapy. You Will Get Through This illuminates the road to wellness so you can take charge of your own healing.

Innovative clinicians share their experiences integrating Polyvagal Theory into their treatment models. Clinicians who have dedicated their work to bringing the benefits of the Polyvagal Theory to a range of clients have come together to present Polyvagal Theory in a creative and personal way. Chapters on a range of topics from compassionate medical care to optimized therapeutic relationships to clinician's experiences as parents extract from the theory the powerful influence and importance of cases and feelings of safety in the clinical setting. Additionally, there are chapters which: elaborate on the principle of safety in clinical practice with children with abuse histories explain the restorative consequences of movement, rhythm, and dance in promoting social connectedness and resilience in trauma survivors explains how Polyvagal Theory can be used to understand the neurophysiological processes in various therapies discuss dissociative processes and treatments designed to experience bodily feelings of safety and trust examine fear of flying and how using positive memories as an active "bottom up" neuroceptive process may effectively down-regulate defense shed light on the poorly understood experience of grief Through the insights of innovative and benevolent clinicians, whose treatment models are Polyvagal informed, this book provides an accessible way for clinicians to embrace this groundbreaking theory in their own work.

Offers therapists a low tech–high impact, interactive way to explain polyvagal theory to clients. When clients are stuck in the cognitive experience of their story, an explanation of polyvagal theory helps to bring their attention to the autonomic experience— to bring the importance of the biology of their experience back into awareness. Yet polyvagal theory can be challenging and intimidating to explain. This flip chart offers therapists an easy, standardized way to support clients in understanding the role of the autonomic nervous system in their lives. Using a flip chart makes psycho-education an interactive experience. Therapists can feel confident in teaching their clients polyvagal theory by following the chart. With a flip chart visible during sessions, the therapist can: remind clients of the ways the autonomic nervous system has been shaped and is active in their daily living experience, display a page corresponding to the present moment, thus anchoring that experience in the theory, keep a page of the hierarchy visible when working with a client's habitual response pattern.

Active Learning in the 21st Century Classroom is an essential guide for teachers who want to promote critical thinking, problem solving, and independent learning in their classrooms. Monica Sevilla gives you valuable insight into the benefits of active learning and how to develop standards-based lessons, activities, and projects with use of the higher order thinking skills to fully develop your students thinking skills and potential. Uncover important strategies and tips for effective student learning are also included in this must-have book.

"This book consists of 19 chapters on heuristics written by 21 diverse researchers. Heuristics are reflexive tools, designed to heighten awareness of actions and thereby afford reflection and other contemplative activities that can catalyze desired changes. The 33 heuristics provided in the book have been produced, revised, and adapted in more than two decades of scholarship. Six key foci are addressed in Transforming Learning and Teaching: Heuristics for Educative and Responsible Practices with respect to heuristics: teaching and learning, learning to teach, emotions, wellness, contemplative activities, and harmony. The book is an ideal resource for researchers in education and the social sciences, and an excellent text for graduate level courses in which research, professional development and transformative change are goals"--

Educators must both respond to the impact of trauma, and prevent trauma at school. Trauma-informed initiatives tend to focus on the challenging behaviors of students and ascribe them to circumstances that students are facing outside of school. This approach ignores the reality that inequity itself causes trauma, and that schools often heighten inequities when implementing trauma-informed practices that are not based in educational equity. In this fresh look at trauma-informed practice, Alex Shevrin Venet urges educators to shift equity to the center as they consider policies and professional development. Using a framework of six principles for equity-centered trauma-informed education, Venet offers practical action steps that teachers and school leaders can take from any starting point, using the resources and influence at their disposal to make shifts in practice, pedagogy, and policy. Overthrowing inequitable systems is a process, not an overnight change. But transformation is possible when educators work together, and teachers can do more than they realize from within their own classrooms.

Deb Dana is the leading clinical translator of Stephen Porges's influential polyvagal theory. Here she further extends the reach of this groundbreaking perspective on mental wellness in the form of a card deck. These cards have been thoughtfully created to provide polyvagal concepts and prompts grouped into four areas representing three sections of the autonomic hierarchy: ventral; sympathetic; dorsal (a section about regulating the system); and a bonus section exploring play, stillness, and change. The cards will enable clients to enhance a broad understanding of their nervous system as well as guide them through a process of tuning in. Clinicians can use the cards at the beginning of a session to frame the work or at the end to create a plan for ongoing work. Clients can reach for the cards any time they want some nervous system support.