Personal Safety 101 For Everyone. This gives an organization the basics about personal safety. Recipients benefit from having a common language to address safety concerns. This training is available at no cost. Includes:
•Personal Safety 101 Seminar
Personal Safety 101 teaches what an assailant is looking for and how to avoid being that target by teaching awareness skills, body language, and using one’s voice to prevent or stop an assault. We address how our socialization and media images affect how we react in threatening or dangerous situations. Students have an opportunity to question safety information they have received in the past to discover whether it is relevant or effective. We show a video of our courses so that people can see what we do in our experiential classes, but also so that students can see someone who looks like them (size, gender, age, etc.) talking their way out of a bad situation/defending/taking care of themselves. People can’t do what they don’t believe is possible, so it’s important to shift those expectations.
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Click on a class or seminar within each package below for more information
RESILIENCY FOR ADVOCATES |
CULTIVATING A HEALTHY WORKPLACE |
WORKING WITH CHILDREN |
SERVING WITH COMPASSIONATE BOUNDARIES |
Resiliency for Advocates. The goal of this package is to give social service professionals tools to be able to have longevity in their fields. Providers often take regular risks in order to their work – whether it is simply working late, hearing clients’ distressing and painful stories, or managing disturbed clients. It can be hard enough to hear the difficult stories, experience budget shortfalls, and work with too few staff/supplies without also having to be concerned about physical safety in neighborhoods or with unstable clients. Learning personal safety and self-defense skills relieves nagging doubt and fear, so it is a vital part of self-care that can prevent burnout. As one participant said; “I work with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, and knowing I’m trained balances out the fear that what happened to them could happen to me. It makes me a more effective advocate because I have faith in their strength and ability to survive, too.”
Personal Safety 101 teaches what an assailant is looking for and how to avoid being that target by teaching awareness skills, body language, and using one’s voice to prevent or stop an assault. We address how our socialization and media images affect how we react in threatening or dangerous situations. Students have an opportunity to question safety information they have received in the past to discover whether it is relevant or effective. We show a video of our courses so that people can see what we do in our experiential classes, but also so that students can see someone who looks like them (size, gender, age, etc.) talking their way out of a bad situation/defending/taking care of themselves. People simply can’t do what they don’t believe is possible, so it’s important to shift those expectations.
•Intuition Development Seminar
Physical and sexual assaults are perpetrated most often through manipulation and coercion rather than through physical force or physical force alone. In this seminar, students identify and analyze manipulative behaviors. They discover why the manipulation techniques are effective and how to avoid being drawn in. Intuition, the semi-conscious part of the brain that stores more information than the conscious part, often sends signals when someone is manipulating us. In this seminar we explore how the intuition sends us messages and how to deconstruct and use those messages most effectively.
•The Roots of Violence Seminar
People are assaulted differently based on the way that they are perceived. These perceptions are based on cultural legacies around factors like gender, race, and class. This seminar explores the link between casual use of derogatory language and hate-crimes like gay-bashing or domestic violence. Participants in this seminar identify how the use of this kind of language serves to socialize the behavior of the group or culture they belong to and how this socialization limits personal expression and encourages the continuation of institutional oppression.
•5-8-Hour Experiential Verbal & Physical Workshop
Awareness & avoidance skills; verbal de-escalation and dissuasion techniques; boundary setting skills with people we know; physical skills for a face-to-face confrontation. A longer workshop includes defense against predatory attacks (attacks from behind). Longer sessions allows for more physical skills that not only may save their lives, but also tends to make students’ verbal skills and body language stronger simply because they know that they can take care of themselves if the situation worsened.
Cultivating a Healthy Workplace. Social workers and providers do some of the most important work in our community. These fields tend to attract highly empathetic individuals. Clear communication and boundary-setting skills create an environment that support the sometimes difficult work these professionals do. The benefits of this package are decreased job fatigue, more cooperative and direct communication in the workplace, more confidence in handling “difficult” clients, and being a good role model of appropriate, kind boundaries for clients. Including physical skills answers many “What if” questions so that providers can approach their work with more confidence and less worry. Includes:
“Bullying” is not just something kids do to each other in school. There are many names for bullying when adults do it: harassment, intra-office violence, and lateral violence, to name a few.
In Bullying & Harassment 101, a 1.5-Hour seminar, participants learn about the manifestations of manipulation and control that often affect the workplace. We look deeper into why people try to control or punish others through manipulation. Participants examine the ways in which they use manipulation. The group identifies when it is appropriate to have a conversation and when to depend on subtle cues.
Cultural sensitivity training in the workplace aims to counter issues of racism, sexism, exclusion and ethnocentrism by making workers aware of different cultures, backgrounds and personality traits. Participants receive the necessary skills to understand inherent prejudices and combat natural barriers to effective workplace communication. A lack of sensitivity to these differences can erode morale and detrimentally impact productivity. The benefits of diversity sensitivity training programs include higher employee retention rates, reduced harassment incidences and discrimination lawsuits, reduced instances of being misunderstood or misrepresented.
In this seminar, we address what the experience of being sexually harassed is and what sexual harassment is legally. We look at the question, “What is the difference between flirting or teasing and sexual harassment?” in order to create a sensitivity to harassment and prevent hyper-sensitivity (wherein people feel forbidden to participate in normal, playful socializing). Participants learn to identify harassment for themselves and others, and how to prevent it and advocate for themselves and others. This class gives participants permission to stand up for themselves and utilize resources for help with harassment.
•3-5-Hour Experiential Workplace Conflict Resolution
Participants practice a variety of concrete communication skills in realistic role-play scenarios with in-the-moment feedback. Participants learn effective body language and verbal skills to set boundaries appropriately, using strategies such as humanizing, empathizing, de-escalating, etc. It will be decided during the initial consultation whether the focus of the scenarios will be conflict resolution between coworkers or clients or both, which will determine the length of the class.
•3-5-Hour Experiential Verbal & Physical Personal Safety Workshop
Many people want to learn physical self-defense as a part of this package, especially if they work with volatile or potentially aggressive clients, if they often work late hours and/or alone, or if they provide services in high-crime areas. Learning personal safety and self-defense techniques addresses the questions that can create burnout, like, “What would I do if that (what happened to my client) happened to me?” or, “Is it worth the risks I have to take to do this work?” or, “What can I do if this client escalates and I am in danger?” We know fear for one’s own safety is typically the biggest barrier to helping. The point of learning physical strategies to defend oneself is not actually to use them, but to answer “what if?” questions as well as create confidence that translates to more effective body language and tone.
Working with Children. Providers often wonder what information they need to give young clients in order to keep them safe and how much they can withhold to keep these children from becoming unnecessarily fearful. First we address how we ourselves can keep safe and what myths about safety we may have absorbed. Then we address what perspectives and skills we can develop at home to help children without creating fear. Includes:
Personal Safety 101 teaches what an assailant is looking for and how to avoid being that target by teaching awareness skills, body language, and using one’s voice to prevent or stop an assault. We address how our socialization and media images affect how we react in threatening or dangerous situations. Students have an opportunity to question safety information they have received in the past to discover whether it is relevant or effective. We show a video of our courses so that people can see what we do in our experiential classes, but also so that students can see someone who looks like them (size, gender, age, etc.) talking their way out of a bad situation/defending/taking care of themselves. People simply can’t do what they don’t believe is possible, so it’s important to shift those expectations.
•Developing Children’s Intuition
In this seminar, adults learn how to model an approach a healthy approach to safety for children in their lives as well as learn how they can reinforce good boundaries in everyday life to help keep children safe.
Serving with Compassionate Boundaries. This package addresses sometimes difficult issues providers face. The class is tailored for each group by a discussion where providers are able to share situations that have been difficult or what they worry might come up. Themes often addressed include power struggles that may arise between clients, between clients and staff, and between staff and the administration and/or client’s family members. By exploring how harassment and bullying relate to attempts to “control” another, we set the stage for talking about how as providers, it is our job to guide behavior in effect ways, without bullying. The experiential portion is practicing verbal strategies and effective body language to set boundaries and de-escalate stressful situations. Includes:
•”The Clients I Worry About” Seminar
Participants debrief with IMPACT staff and each other about the challenges they have experienced in the classroom or halls and what their concerns are from what they hear from colleagues and/or the media. This sharing is useful for the group as well as for shaping scenarios for later classes.
•Harassment & Bullying 101 Seminar
Participants learn about the manifestations of manipulation and control that often affect interactions at school. We look deeper into why people try to control or punish others through manipulation. Participants examine the ways in which they use manipulation. The group identifies when it is appropriate to have a conversation and when to depend on subtle cues.
•2-Hour Verbal Assertive De-escalation
Participants learn practice a variety of concrete communication skills in realistic role-play scenarios with in-the-moment feedback. Participants learn effective body language and verbal skills to set boundaries appropriately, using strategies such as humanizing, empathizing, de-escalating, etc.
