By Allison Cox, Director, Berry Street – Take Two
A group of our international colleagues recently came from Norway to spend time with Berry Street’s Take Two service.
The RVTS Sør (South) service is a Norwegian government-funded domestic violence, sexual abuse, traumatic stress, migrant/refugee health and suicide prevention resource centre and training service. They have a special focus on working with children and families.
By Jen Willis, Communications Consultant, Berry Street – Take Two
A Judge and some magistrates now have a better understanding of developmental trauma and neglect, and how they might impact the behaviours of the young people they are sentencing.
Berry Street’s Take Two program recently delivered professional development for the South Australian Youth Court. The Court deals with children facing criminal charges, as well as child protection cases.
Continue reading “Using neuroscience to understand why some young people offend”
By Clark Baim, UK presenter and Berry Street Childhood Institute Fellow
I was delighted to facilitate a training event hosted by the Berry Street Childhood Institute focusing on attachment-based practice with adults.
Attachment theory is often misunderstood as applying only to infants and toddlers. This training focused on contemporary theory and research, which demonstrates that attachment strategies are crucial to our psychological, social and emotional well-being across the whole of our lives. Continue reading “Attachment-based Practice with Adults: Understanding strategies and promoting positive change”
On May 12th I had the great pleasure of delivering training on mindful co-working. The training was hosted by the Berry Street Childhood Institute and participants came from a wide range of agencies around the country, including Berry Street.
Co-working is an aspect of our working lives that can easily be overlooked. It’s easy to assume that colleagues who are respectful and who have the right professional values will automatically work well together. That may be the case with routine or purely technical work, but where work is emotionally demanding, psychologically complex and ever-changing, co-workers need to develop a trusting and supportive and relationship that goes beyond ‘just the facts.’
During the training, we discussed the five principles and ten key skills of mindful co-working. We also looked at the importance of finding common ground at the start of the co-working relationship, the importance of planning and de-briefing, and how to anticipate and practice mindful repairs when the co-working relationship ruptures.
One idea that emerged from our discussions was the importance of bravery, in particular the bravery needed by co-workers to discuss emotionally charged topics and to ‘clear the air’ when ruptures occur. Where co-workers are brave enough to discuss the tricky parts of their relationship, and to work through them with mutual respect and a genuine desire to work well together, their relationship can be greatly improved.
This approach to co-working, where colleagues pay purposeful attention to the quality and tone of their relationship, and where they work through difficulties, contributes to a virtuous circle of communication in the workplace, where thoughtful and respectful interaction among colleagues leads to more of the same, at all levels of the organisation. Multiply this effect across the workforce, and you will have a transformed working environment where people love to work and where they do great work together.
For more information about this topic, a resource that may be of interest is my book Mindful Co-working, published in 2013 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Post written by: Clark Baim, UK presenter and Berry Street Childhood Institute Fellow
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