Sharmina, our in house Healing Together Programme Facilitator, shares her insights on direct delivery of our 'Domestic Abuse: Resourcing Parents & Carers' module.
At Innovating Minds we have been directly delivering the Healing Together programme to parents and carers, to empower them with knowledge and resources to support themselves and their children. The sessions are delivered online - in groups and as one to one - which many parents have appreciated as it provides more flexibility, and most have found this easier to commit to.
Many parents struggle to understand how to best support themselves and their children after leaving an abusive relationship. There are many challenges they face post abuse and often after leaving the relationship the abuse continues whether it is issues with child custody or other obstacles placed by the perpetrator. Parents are either in survival mode or still impacted by the trauma of their past experiences.
During this difficult time the Healing Together programme is welcomed by parents who find this to be helpful to support their children to understand and learn the coping strategies, to understand the importance of the connection between the body and the brain and how to incorporate these skills in their daily life. Although the focus is to support their children, parents are encouraged to think of themselves while attending this programme, as we know if the parent is grounded and well-regulated they can successfully continue and offer co-regulation with their child.
The feedback from parents has been very positive and encouraging! They have said the programme has helped them to feel calm and to feel safer. It has also developed their understanding about the body and brain and they feel they can use these skills to improve their relationship with their children. The resource packs with the worksheets and information were much valued by parents who were keen to work through them with the children.
We have also delivered this programme to foster carers who, just like the parents, have really appreciated and benefitted from the programme. Foster carers have expressed this programme helped them to understand how to best support a child who has lived with domestic abuse experience. They found the programme to be highly valuable especially as they face the day to day challenges of supporting a child on their healing journey.
If you want to know more about our Resourcing Parents & Carers module then just click here or fill in the form below.