pillars of intervention

The Core Pillars of Intervention

There are three inter-related core needs or pillars of intervention as referred to by Bath & Seita (2018) for successful intervention with children affected by adversity. These pillars include: safety, connection, coping ability. A felt sense of safety in the physical, emotional, relational, and cultural realms is established when educators and practitioners remain in a place of curiosity with children. This also supports connection and alignment to promote healing and build resilience, buffering or protecting against future experiences. Connection-building through meaningful interactions establishes a caring and healing environment where learning how to cope adaptively with stress can occur. Empathy and a nonjudgmental approach is necessary for children to feel supported in being honest and open in exploring how what has happened is impacting the way that person experiences themselves, others and the world around them.

Unfortunately, each of us only has limited opportunities to establish safety and connection throughout children's days or weeks. So how can we make the most of the time we do have? I spoke about this topic in an episode of Resilient Educators. Watch the excerpt below.

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