NM FIESTA Project Training: Disarming Fear

The NM FIESTA Project managed by All Faiths Children’s Advocacy Center focuses on creating a support system for all resource, kinship, and adoptive families in New Mexico through networking events, training, and connection to resources. All services are free of charge. For more information about the NM FIESTA Project please contact Katie Bustamante, NM FIESTA Project Statewide Supervisor, at kbustamante@allfaiths.org or 505-918-0221.

Learning Target: “You can take an important step toward eliminating tantrums and misbehaviors – and enabling learning and positive family relationships – by providing an atmosphere where children feel and experience safety for themselves. We like to describe this strategy as providing “felt safety.” This means that adults arrange the environment and adjust their behavior so children can feel in a profound and basic way that they are truly safe in their home and with us. Until a child experiences safety for his or herself, trust can’t develop, and healing and learning won’t progress. We offer “felt safety” so healing may begin” (Purvis, 2007).