Examples of Skill-Building in Positive Supports

Stay Afloat: Skills for You and Your Organizations (slides)

This skill-building presentation introduces key issues related to trauma and wellness in a way that helps people think both about themselves as well as the people they support. The activity is meant to help us recognize the trauma that we experience in the helping field, experience an informal mindfulness activity, and to reconnect to our values. Optimal health and wellness is a universal need for everyone to achieve. Encouraging everyone to focus on these needs helps to create a positive, safe, and trusting climate.

Video Recording - Stay Afloat by Dr. John Hoch

There are many different types of skill-building activities that you can choose in order to encourage health, wellness, and well-being. Whether you choose this activity or develop a set of skill-building sessions, the first step is to consider where you will begin. Informal meetings with others can be less stressful but may have to be repeated with multiple people over time. Adding short skill-building activities to staff meetings is another option to consider. You could ask staff to create their own health and wellness plan as part of their personal development linked to supervisory sessions.

Make a list of different skill-building activities and work with people around you to create an action plan for moving forward. Building activities into the meetings, trainings, and other events that naturally occur will help you work smarter not hard while improving quality of life for both staff and the people you support.