Leading Others Through Mindful Self-Compassion
First Presenter's Institution
Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council
First Presenter's Brief Biography
Vira Salzburn is the Program Director for Safety and Resilience programs at Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council. She earned a Master of Science degree in Management, Organizational Behavior & Leadership from Troy University and a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree in Humanities from Auburn University at Montgomery. Vira is a Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® with Project Management Institute and completed the Society for Human Resource Management Learning System program through Georgia Southern University. Vira is a Mindful Self-Compassion Trained Teacher, Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training Master Trainer, SafeTALK Trainer, Certified Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Instructor. She completed her teacher training in Mental Health First Aid and Community Resiliency Model (CRM)®. Vira is a certified Group Fitness Trainer and Group Yoga Instructor with Athletics and Fitness Association of America. She is also trained in the Search Inside Yourself program of Google Leadership Institute and Trauma Informed Coaching. Vira is the developer of the community-based upstream suicide prevention approach that uses evidence-based Mindful-Self Compassion programming for building resilience and enhancing emotional wellbeing. She is a public speaker on suicide prevention, resilience, mindfulness, and self-compassion and has presented at multiple local, state, and national conferences and symposia. As a Ukrainian-American and a world traveler, Vira recognizes the importance of overcoming cultural barriers and connecting with others for making a meaningful difference on personal, organizational, and community levels. After moving to the U.S. in 2007, Vira had the privilege of volunteering as an interpreter and liaison between Ukrainian orphaned children and American adoptive families, which greatly impacted her perception of compassion and servanthood and helped her better understand the true meaning behind the idea of “changing the world one life at a time”.
Second Presenter's Institution
Gateway Community Service Board
Second Presenter’s Email Address
Jessica.Matthewson@gatewaybhs.org
Second Presenter's Brief Biography
Jess Matthewson is the Youth to Adult Program Manager for Gateway Community Service Board and represents Gateway as a Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) Trained Teacher. Jess holds a Masters in Criminal Justice from Boston University, is a Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Professional, and received her Bachelor’s in Psychology from Daniel Webster College. As the Youth to Adult Program Manager, Jess is able to work with youth and families throughout Chatham and Effingham Counties to assist in accessing mental health resources and supports as well as creating and implementing programming to address gaps and barriers for these individuals. Jess is passionate about addressing the needs of our community by addressing and preventing trauma for its most vulnerable population, our youth. Through MSC, Jess is able to introduce techniques and tools for youth and youth serving adults that are trauma responsive and healing in a manner many have not been able to try before. It is her hope that through this work we may heal the children we serve, heal the child within us all, and prevent future traumas for generations of children to come.
Document Type
Event
Primary Strand
Mindfulness and Wellbeing
Relevance to Primary Strand
This workshop will introduce participants to the evidence-based mindfulness and self-compassion practices. It will explore how cultivating the skills of mindfulness and self-compassion can help enhance wellbeing and resilience for leaders, educators, caregivers, and the community at large. Participants will gain knowledge and explore practical tools for bringing more self-compassion into their personal and professional lives.
Brief Program Description
This presentation will describe the fundamental concepts and benefits of the mindfulness and self-compassion practice, explain the development and expansion strategies of the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program, and highlight the role of collaborations among community partners, including universities, schools, behavioral health providers, and nonprofit organizations. Session participants will learn how to integrate self-compassion into daily life and ways to support themselves, their organizations, and communities through a compassion-centered approach.
Summary
School leaders, educators, counselors, advisors -- all the wonderful professionals who are supporting the wellbeing of students in their organizations and communities -- are quite practiced at being compassionate and giving to others, and know how to provide comfort and encouragement to the people who need them. But how many of them offer that same level of compassion and care to themselves?
Western ideas of servant leadership rarely seem to include a very important “s” word – self-compassion. Practicing self-compassion, however, can transform not only how education professionals handle stress and respond to challenging situations, but may also provide the motivation needed to take action and make positive changes in their lives.
A significant body of research suggests that using self-compassion as an inner resource for motivation, managing difficult emotions, including toxic stress and burnout, and handling challenging situations and relationships is beneficial and sustainable for one’s mental and physical wellbeing. We need to have self-compassion in order to recharge our own batteries and have the emotional energy needed to serve others.
This workshop will introduce participants to the evidence-based mindfulness and self-compassion practices. It will explore how cultivating the skills of mindfulness and self-compassion can help enhance wellbeing and resilience for leaders, educators, caregivers, and the community at large. Participants will gain knowledge and explore practical tools for bringing more self-compassion into their personal and professional lives.
The workshop will also provide programmatic considerations for developing a school-based mind-body programming and highlight the role of community partnerships in successful implementation of a community-wide program.
Evidence
There are over 2,000 scientific articles and a large body of research revealing the benefits of practicing mindfulness and self-compassion, including for education professionals, individuals in leadership and caregiving roles.
- For example, one study found that people who practice self-compassion experience fewer negative emotions and stay emotionally balanced in difficult situations—both of which help prevent teacher burnout.
Costas N. Tsouloupas, Russell L. Carson, Russell Matthews, Matthew J. Grawitch & Larissa K. Barber (2010) Exploring the association between teachers’ perceived student misbehaviour and emotional exhaustion: the importance of teacher efficacy beliefs and emotion regulation, Educational Psychology, 30:2, 173-189, DOI: 10.1080/01443410903494460 - Another article describes how generating self-compassion can help buffer the potentially deleterious influence of ongoing stress, providing an avenue for promoting adjustment to the specific stressors associated with the teaching profession.
Tandler N, Kirkcaldy B, Petersen LE, Athanasou J. Is there a role for mindfulness and self-compassion in reducing stress in the teaching profession? Minerva Psichiatr 2019;60:51-9. DOI: 10.23736/S0391-1772.19.01998-8) Key words: Mindfulness - Teaching - Empathy - Psychological stress - Self-compassion - Professional burnout - One more study examined how learning mindfulness and self-compassion skills changed one teacher’s self-efficacy and impacted the classroom environment. Using mindfulness and self-compassion to address feelings of shame creates opportunities to manage emotions with objectivity and clarity. Results indicated an increase in self-efficacy, particularly in classroom management and ability to modify lessons to fit the needs of individual students.
Akpan P. & Saunders P. (2017) FROM SHAME TO MINDFULNESS AND SELF-COMPASSION: A TEACHER’S JOURNEY TO GREATER SELF-EFFICACY, JISTE, Vol. 21, No. 2
The library of research on self-compassion may be accessed here: https://self-compassion.org/the-research/
Learning Objective 1
Gain an understanding of Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) and its components
Learning Objective 2
Explore the role of community partnerships in MSC program design and implementation
Learning Objective 3
Identify the benefits and practical applications of the MSC practice for school leaders and educators
Learning Objective 4
Experience and practice mindfulness and self-compassion techniques
Recommended Citation
Salzburn, Vira and Matthewson, Jessica, "Leading Others Through Mindful Self-Compassion" (2022). Southeast Conference on School Climate. 27.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/secsc/2022/2022/27
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Leading Others Through Mindful Self-Compassion
School leaders, educators, counselors, advisors -- all the wonderful professionals who are supporting the wellbeing of students in their organizations and communities -- are quite practiced at being compassionate and giving to others, and know how to provide comfort and encouragement to the people who need them. But how many of them offer that same level of compassion and care to themselves?
Western ideas of servant leadership rarely seem to include a very important “s” word – self-compassion. Practicing self-compassion, however, can transform not only how education professionals handle stress and respond to challenging situations, but may also provide the motivation needed to take action and make positive changes in their lives.
A significant body of research suggests that using self-compassion as an inner resource for motivation, managing difficult emotions, including toxic stress and burnout, and handling challenging situations and relationships is beneficial and sustainable for one’s mental and physical wellbeing. We need to have self-compassion in order to recharge our own batteries and have the emotional energy needed to serve others.
This workshop will introduce participants to the evidence-based mindfulness and self-compassion practices. It will explore how cultivating the skills of mindfulness and self-compassion can help enhance wellbeing and resilience for leaders, educators, caregivers, and the community at large. Participants will gain knowledge and explore practical tools for bringing more self-compassion into their personal and professional lives.
The workshop will also provide programmatic considerations for developing a school-based mind-body programming and highlight the role of community partnerships in successful implementation of a community-wide program.
