Theoretical Frameworks
Overview ARC Organizational Initiative:
The ARC Framework increases awareness, understanding, and clinical skills for providing Trauma Informed Care across all levels of the organization. Our agency has partnered with Dr. Rachel Liebman and the staff of The Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute in Boston, MA to implement the Attachment, Self –Regulation, and Competency (ARC) framework. This ARC framework provides the foundation for implementation of a common language and structure for therapeutic interventions to successfully impact the wellbeing of clients, colleagues, and customers we serve.
Fundamentals through Mindful Schools, 2016
One of the pioneers of mindfulness is Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn introduced mindfulness into medicine in 1979 and has become an important influence in medicine, psychology, corporate environments, the military, and now, education.
Mindfulness is considered a state, a trait or a practice. All individuals have a moment of mindfulness (state) but also each have a general 'set-point' of mindfulness (trait). The intentional formal practice of mindfulness uses different postures and activities to practice: seated mindfulness, mindful walking, and mindful eating, for example. The formal practice of mindfulness leads to more moments of mindfulness and ultimately elevated trait-level mindfulness. Higher trait-level mindfulness means that we're more mindful even when we're not trying to be mindful. That's critically important - part of what we're learning to do is create a healthy habit of mindfulness.
Mindfulness is a particular way of paying attention. It is the faculty of purposefully bringing awareness to one's experience. Kabat-Zinn defined mindfulness as "the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.” Mindfulness practices can be applied to any experience: sensations in the body, emotional experience, thoughts, sights or sounds. The quality of the attention is MORE IMPORTANT than the object of attention.
This mindful awareness has specific qualities that make it different from just being attentive. These characteristics are: Intentionality to be attentive, Openness to be present and honest with what is happening in the moment, and Observing what is happening rather than trying to control experience. Mindfulness is about well-being, our own and of those around us. It's a way of understanding the causes of the happiness and the causes of stress and dissatisfaction. As we learn to pay attention to experience, we begin to find ways of living that really work.
Safe Crisis Management
Safe Crisis Management (SCM), developed by JKM Training, Inc., is a professional, comprehensive, and safe approach to prepare, support, and positively intervene with behavior. Safe Crisis Management provides a continuum of interventions that are based on the principle of the least restrictive approach to manage behavior that is harmful to self and others. SCM is designed to reduce emergency intervention situations. The SCM curriculum is consistent with all legal and professional standards and regulations for behavior support and intervention.
JKM Training, Inc., 2016