Aww just found this video from lockdown when we were doing ‘home learning’ videos.
It’s birch topping season and the instructions are the same now as they were during lockdown. Have fun 🎉
It’s birch topping season and the instructions are the same now as they were during lockdown. Have fun 🎉
It’s tick season again. We’re noticing them a lot this week. Remember to check for ticks after returning home from forest school sessions!
We've been working with a small cohort of our older and more experienced forest schoolers at our Wellness sessions on how their wisdom and experience might be of use to our younger and newer members. Together, they developed 'The Forest Council', with a scroll of responsibilities and a logo. We love it!
These 4 Forest Council Leaders make us proud every day that we spend with them. They have so much to share, and our younger members benefit from their support regularly.
#Autism #ADHD #NeuroAffirming #Leadership #YoungLeaders
These 4 Forest Council Leaders make us proud every day that we spend with them. They have so much to share, and our younger members benefit from their support regularly.
#Autism #ADHD #NeuroAffirming #Leadership #YoungLeaders
Lets talk about the nervous system and the window of tolerance.
When there is a healthy attachment with an available care giver as an infant, we learn over time and through co-regulation to effectively self regulate.
The window of tolerance refers to the ebbs and flows of the nervous system - we may experience things such as anxiety or fear that bring us close to the edge of our window of tolerance, or feelings of exhaustion that move towards shut down, but generally we are able to regulate these. If our nervous system is responding in the optimum way, we will move between activation and calm and be able to navigate this. This is known as optimal arousal.
When people have experienced adverse events in early childhood, or have not had early childhood experiences that enable their nervous systems to practice these ebbs and flows, senses become heightened and our nervous system is disrupted.
We can experience hyper and hypo arousal which means we are no longer within the window of tolerance - we can experience rage, aggression, hypervigilance or exhaustion, shut down and disassociation.
Knowing this when working with children and young people who have experienced trauma can help us to mirror and match energy and support young people back into their window.
We discussed it last week, and one of our wise owls (age 12) said of one of our new strategies to support a young person to access their group:
"This is working well. Its like when you bounce a ball. There's enough time for us to reset in between and reflect get ready for the next time"
Timing it so arousal is always within the window of tolerance, matching energy, mirroring body language, modelling the ebbs and flows.
We're excited to be expanding our specialist offer so we can now accept referrals on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays! PM for more details.
#TraumaInformed #WindowOfTolerance #TherapeuticForest #ForestSchool #NorthEast #AlternativeProvision #Northumberland #Newcastle
When there is a healthy attachment with an available care giver as an infant, we learn over time and through co-regulation to effectively self regulate.
The window of tolerance refers to the ebbs and flows of the nervous system - we may experience things such as anxiety or fear that bring us close to the edge of our window of tolerance, or feelings of exhaustion that move towards shut down, but generally we are able to regulate these. If our nervous system is responding in the optimum way, we will move between activation and calm and be able to navigate this. This is known as optimal arousal.
When people have experienced adverse events in early childhood, or have not had early childhood experiences that enable their nervous systems to practice these ebbs and flows, senses become heightened and our nervous system is disrupted.
We can experience hyper and hypo arousal which means we are no longer within the window of tolerance - we can experience rage, aggression, hypervigilance or exhaustion, shut down and disassociation.
Knowing this when working with children and young people who have experienced trauma can help us to mirror and match energy and support young people back into their window.
We discussed it last week, and one of our wise owls (age 12) said of one of our new strategies to support a young person to access their group:
"This is working well. Its like when you bounce a ball. There's enough time for us to reset in between and reflect get ready for the next time"
Timing it so arousal is always within the window of tolerance, matching energy, mirroring body language, modelling the ebbs and flows.
We're excited to be expanding our specialist offer so we can now accept referrals on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays! PM for more details.
#TraumaInformed #WindowOfTolerance #TherapeuticForest #ForestSchool #NorthEast #AlternativeProvision #Northumberland #Newcastle
Did you know we offer monthly family forest school sessions at Dukes Hagg for families with children 6 years and under? Our Family Fun sessions offer a great opportunity for those who work through the week to join us in the woods on Saturday morning. Join us 22 April, 13 May, 10 June and 22 July:
#focus=ev-sici-20230321103000" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://bookwhen.com/stompinggrounds?tags=family#focus=ev-sici-20230321103000
Last weekend Nikki made the most of the snowy weather! We kept busy under the canopy by practising our folding and careful snipping to make our own snowflakes to take home. Some of our group experimented with using hammers to crush up sticks of chalk to make chalk paint, noticing how difficult it was to get started and how much energy they had to put into their bashing! The chalk paint made some beautiful colours which brightened up our morning. We came together after lots of free play to share warm crumpets with each other, and tested out our fire lighting skills by having lots of goes with the flint and steels. After lots of patient encouragement and different techniques, our forest schoolers made their mini fires at the fire pit and high fived their grown ups!
#focus=ev-sici-20230321103000" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://bookwhen.com/stompinggrounds?tags=family#focus=ev-sici-20230321103000
Last weekend Nikki made the most of the snowy weather! We kept busy under the canopy by practising our folding and careful snipping to make our own snowflakes to take home. Some of our group experimented with using hammers to crush up sticks of chalk to make chalk paint, noticing how difficult it was to get started and how much energy they had to put into their bashing! The chalk paint made some beautiful colours which brightened up our morning. We came together after lots of free play to share warm crumpets with each other, and tested out our fire lighting skills by having lots of goes with the flint and steels. After lots of patient encouragement and different techniques, our forest schoolers made their mini fires at the fire pit and high fived their grown ups!
Just a reminder that our social media platforms are a safe space. We value and appreciate the energy and bravery it takes for our staff to share with you their identity, whether that’s around neurodivergence, gender identity, sexuality, disability, race or any other protected characteristic.
We will not tolerate hatred or abuse in any form, and that includes mindless online trolling which might feel ‘jokey’ but is actually really dangerous and toxic.
We’ll continue to ally with those who’s identities are marginalised and if you want to ask any questions or make comments about that, please contact me directly at sophiew@stomping-grounds.org
We will not stand for hatred of those that work with us and those that we work for.
And I know that 99.9% of you on here 100% have our back on this. But there’s always 1, right 🙄
We will not tolerate hatred or abuse in any form, and that includes mindless online trolling which might feel ‘jokey’ but is actually really dangerous and toxic.
We’ll continue to ally with those who’s identities are marginalised and if you want to ask any questions or make comments about that, please contact me directly at sophiew@stomping-grounds.org
We will not stand for hatred of those that work with us and those that we work for.
And I know that 99.9% of you on here 100% have our back on this. But there’s always 1, right 🙄
