Dates: November 14, 2017
Time: 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

REGISTER

Professionals working in close contact with parents and children have a unique role in helping parents manage their feelings and deciding what action to take when caring for their child.  When the child behavior or the caregiver’s response is extreme or seemingly incomprehensible we often lose our freedom of response and resort to a rigid reaction and at the same time we lose our connection with self and other.  Mindful parenting is a specific state of mind and set of activities that enables caregivers to respond, instead, from a thoughtful and intentional mind state, rather than a mind state of distress and reactivity.

In this three hour workshop, participants will explore how their own reactions as professionals are informed by their cultural and family beliefs, their early experiences, and their desires and fears for parents and children.  Facilitators will guide participants in a variety of experiential exercises using mindfulness practices that shift the mind state  from an aroused fight or flight state to a more grounded and spacious state in which the capacity to choose our responses and maintain our connections are regained.    Specific tools that address challenging interactions between parents and children will be shared, as well as techniques on how to engage caregivers in the process of being more mindful in their responses to their children’s needs and behaviors.

Sabina Fila, LCSW, is a faculty member of Ackerman’s Center for the Developing Child and Family and a clinical member of the Developing Family Project.  In her 20+years as a social worker and psychotherapist she has worked with a wide variety of individuals and families with some emphasis on substance abuse and recovery, trauma and healing, family reunification, and cross-cultural couples and families.  Over the last twelve years, as part of the Center for the Developing Child and Family, Sabina has worked in supporting parents of infants and toddlers in different settings as well as supporting community based agency staff who work with families with young children.  Sabina maintains a private practice in Manhattan and is a certified Hakomi therapist.

Tuition:  $98.00

CEUs for NYS: 3.5

CEUs for NASW-CT: 3.5
Registration: www.ackerman.org or contact Brenda Nikelsberg, 212-879-4900 ext. 108 or bnikelsberg@ackerman.org