Understanding Toxic Stress
What’s the Programme about?
It discusses the principle of stress as being integral to healthy development.
Learning how to cope with adversity is an important part of healthy child development. When we are threatened, our bodies prepare us to respond by increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormones. When a young child’s stress response systems are activated within an environment of supportive relationships with adults, these physiological effects are regulated and brought back down to baseline. The result is the development of healthy stress responses. However, if the stress response is extreme and long-lasting, and supportive ‘trusted adult’ relationships are unavailable to the child, the result can be damaged, weakened systems and brain development, with lifelong repercussions.
This Programme therefore explores the nature of:
Developmental positive; tolerable (acute), and chronic (toxic) stress.
What factors may result in toxic stress.
What factors may be protective factors against toxic stress.
Psychological; physiological; behavioural and pharmacological consequences of toxic stress.
What’s the format of it?
One x 90 minute session, (2 x 40 minute sessions, with a break).
Interactive in format, allowing for open dialogue and questions around real life experiences and scenarios.
Who would directly benefit from this Programme?
The content of this programme would be of interest and direct benefit to any practitioners working with the effects of acute or chronic stress in the context of childhood adversity or developmental trauma.