CARE TEAMS | Skilled Carer

Skilled Carer puts Families and participants first at the forefront.

The aim of this page is to add free, accessible value and resources to families and the community to help support our loved ones.

Social Emotional Learning

Social and emotional learning involves students having opportunities to learn and practice social skills such as:

cooperation
managing conflict
making friends
coping
being resilient
recognising and managing their own feelings.

SEL programs set out to explicitly promote these skills in children and young people.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) identifies five broad headings under which SEL falls:

Self-awareness: Identifying and recognising emotions; recognising personal interests and strengths; maintaining a well-grounded sense of self-confidence.
Self-management: Regulating emotions to handle stress, control impulses, and motivating oneself to persevere in overcoming obstacles, setting and monitoring progress toward the achievement of personal and academic goals; expressing emotions appropriately.
Social awareness: Being able to take the perspective of and empathise with others; recognising and appreciating individual and group similarities and differences.
Relationship skills: Establishing and maintaining healthy and rewarding relationships based on cooperation and resistance to inappropriate social pressure, preventing, managing, and constructively resolving interpersonal conflict; seeking help when needed.
Responsible decision-making: Making decisions based on a consideration of all relevant factors, including applicable ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms; the likely consequences of taking alternative courses of action; evaluation and reflection.

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The Zones of Regulation

Why Zones?

There are many programs that have had success in SEL. The Zones of Regulation curriculum is designed to help students learn to identify their feelings and emotional reactions and learn sensory and perspective-taking strategies to encourage better self-regulation across different situations. A simple color-coded, four-zones format encourages learning. For kinds and adults alike who have an ID the program is a simple and effective way to engage with them;

- Daily

- When they are on the verge of losing control and implement strategies

The program provides real world examples, strategies and role playing opportunities for the individual to understand their own emotions and to recognise those of other's.

Our program aims to educate the student and the carer/family on how to implement this way of communicating each day. It has proved to have tremendous results in Australian schools, special needs and mainstream settings and gives everyone a greater understanding of their emotions and giving their child or family member the best opportunity to thrive and be successful in a life.

The way we praise children and people can have tremendous effects on their resilience and their response to various challenges throughout their lives.

How to Praise Children | Understood - For learning and thinking differences

https://www.understood.org/en/friends-feelings/empowering-your-child/celebrating-successes/ways-praise-can-empower-kids-learning-differences

Resilience

Free Resources

Anger Management Activities

Anger is protective. When vulnerable emotions exist below the surface, anger is a strong, defensive way to keep those things hidden. It’s our brain’s instinctual way of protecting us from feeling hurt by a friend, embarrassed when we make a mistake, or guilty when we’ve wronged someone particularly with our pre-existing traumas.

For boys especially, anger is an emotion that masks what we are really feeling.

Uncovering those emotions and delving into them takes courage and putting ourselves into a vulnerable position which is particularly difficult for those of us with limited success in education system and a low stack of poker chips.

Anger is a normal, necessary emotion. We all feel angry at times. For kids who feel angry often or who have strong reactions to their anger though, it’s important to help them explore their emotions and practice calming techniques. No one wants to feel out of control. Use these playful anger management activities to help your child feel more in control of their emotions and behaviours.

Helping Kids Understand The Connection Between Their Emotions and Their Bodies

Helping kids make the connection between their emotions and their bodies can be difficult. It is important for kids to be able to understand their physiological cues and understand their bodies responses to triggers that make them feel intense emotions in order to help them calm down more quickly and to feel more confident.

Using this body map, have your child color in where in their body they feel changes or body reactions when they feel an intense emotion. Do their hands get sweaty? Does their heart beat more quickly? Do they have butterflies in their stomach? Use this tool as a way to start having conversations about your child’s mind body connection!

Coping Skills

Coping skills cards can be used in several different ways depending on your child’s needs:

1. Experimentation: Discovering what coping skills work best for your body takes trial and error. Coping skills cards can be a helpful tool for kids to experiment and learn which coping skills work best for them. Have your child pick a coping skill they want to try out that day. Reflect on how it feels for them in their body and mind. Some kids will even time themselves to see what skills help them to calm down quickest!

2. Examples: Sometimes coming up with helpful coping skills can be difficult. Whether your child benefits from active skills or more quiet activities, coping skills cards can help your child think of some alternatives to the more traditional skills like deep breathing.

3. Reminders: Finding skills that work for your child when they are feeling dysregulated is just one piece of the puzzle. Remembering to use them when they need to can be a challenge at times. Many kids use coping skill cards as a visual reminder of the skills that work for them. Whether it is a few cards in their desk at school or a collage of their favorites on the wall of their room, your child can use coping skill cards as a reminder that they can use the skills they have practiced!