Speaker Recommendatos

Thank you so much! I’ll pass that on to my Director!

Hello,

 

Please consider me as a speaker "to talk about resilience and motivating positive change to an audience of teachers, child protection workers, social service workers, faith community members..." With my forthcoming book: Self-Compassion for Teens (PESI Publishing & Media) coming out later this year, I train educators, clinicians, and parents all over North America. The uniqueness of my approach is that youth leaders co-created and co-lead the workshops with me, as a means of demonstrating engaged pedagogies, which are healing and resilience building in and of themselves. As a clinical & forensic psychologist, educator, and author, I bring a unique lens and cross section on resilience and motivating positive change.

Kind regards,

Lee-Anne Gray, PsyD
Author, forthcoming book: Self-Compassion for Teens (PESI Publishing & Media)
Author, The Happy Family: 10 Strategies for Bringing More Happiness Into Your Home
Contributing Author, Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect
EMDR Certified Clinical Psychologist, License #19540
President & Chief Executive Officer, The Connect Group, a 501(c)3 corporation connecting communities with innovative educational solutions since 2011. 
Co-Founder, The Connect Group School, EmpathicEducation for a CompassionateNation
~Huffington Post
Twitter: @DrLeeAnneG & @ConnectGrp

Kerry Fair posted:

If you could recommend a speaker to talk about resilience and motivating positive change to an audience of teachers, child protection workers, social service workers, faith community members...who would it be?

Lots of great suggestions here. My take is slightly different, because all of these suggestions are cognitively based lectures that might give better understanding. Resilience isn't a notion though, it's a capacity of the nervous system. My suggestion would be someone who not only understands how ACEs impact brain development, but also looks at the influence of generational stress, and then trains you with a tool that actually builds resilience in the nervous system. Something tangible you have once the presenter is gone. 

Hi Kerry.

While you make a valid point about the types of presentations that may empower service providers, I can't agree that resilience is just a better tuned up nervous system. While our nervous system obviously plays a major role in an individual's capacity for a resilient response to adversity, this is a very individualistic perspective embedded within earlier research on resilience.

I believe the top people in resilience research would argue that resilience is so much more. It is a transactional process embedded within a social ecology. Reaching IN...Reaching OUT was asked by the Ministry of Child & Youth Services in Ontario, Canada to develop a synthesis review on resilience. As part of that work, we developed a definition that pulls together the most up-to-date research and perspectives on resilience.

Definition of resilience: Here is the link to a brief FAQ sheet we wrote on what resilience is and is not -- see "Resilience in 8 Q&As" at: http://www.reachinginreachingo...20Answers%202010.pdf

I hope this will be helpful to anyone working to support resilience in children and adults.

Re presentations about resilience: I agree with Kerry that leaving people with some tangible strategies they can use to support resilience is really important. However, it is not really possible in a short period of a presentation to do the kind of skills training that makes major shifts and changes. In this case, if I had to choose what things were most important, I'd vote for:

1) emphasizing that RELATIONSHIPS are the KEY to RESILIENCE;
2) that children often learn best through ADULT ROLE MODELING during everyday interactions;
3) if ADULTS ROLE MODEL CALMNESS AND PATIENCE using deep breathing techniques (3 deep breaths and repeat as necessary) , this can help children and adults gain greater self-regulation which, in turn, contributes to building a "culture of resilience" at home, classroom and playground.

Cheers,

Darlene Kordich Hall, PhD
Reaching IN...Reaching OUT
www.reachinginreachingout.com 

Hi, Kerry: Whomever you choose, I think it would be critical that they're steeped in ACEs science (the epidemiology of ACEs, the neurobiology of toxic stress, the long-term biomedical and epigenetic consequences of toxic stress, and resilience research). Having that new foundational understanding of human development changes the lens on any solutions.

I would recommend Dr. Kenneth Hardy and/or Dr. Joy DeGruy.

I'm the author of The Bullying Antidote, which starts with ACES and provides solid, evidence-based positive parenting tools for preventing them!  My co-author is Dr. Louise Hart, author of The Winning Family and On the Wings of Self-Esteem, who spoke to large audiences worldwide in the 1980s and 1990s. She is retired now but I have inherited her materials, methods, and sparkling personality... Uplift Programs is our family business!

I would suggest myself or any of the SEDNET project managers in Florida.  We do trainings on Trauma Informed Care in the forms of overviews and follow up strategies to create trauma informed schools and classrooms.

When I do my trainings, I include my story of personal trauma as well as my son's experience.  I have been told it brings realism to my trainings.