An Ecosystems Approach To Wellbeing

Regenerative Educator Training #2: An Ecosystems Approach To Wellbeing

A 1-day training weaving the personal with the systemic to support educators, youth workers and young people to be healthy, happy and engaged.

Tuesday 31st May 2022

Location: School 360, Sugar House Lane, Stratford, E15 2QS

“Nikki’s workshop was invaluable for me to hone the content of my work and evaluate what worked, what didn’t and how I could improve and develop my delivery. It was a productive and safe environment in which to test my ideas.” – Chris, Youth Worker

‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ – This African proverb invites us to enquire into the role the entire community plays in supporting children and young people to thrive. The village must also be well to raise a healthy child! If you agree with us, then this training is for you.

Whether your ‘village’ is a school, a youth centre, alternative youth organisation or family setting, the ecosystem you create around a young person is a huge determinant of their wellbeing.

Join us to explore how to create a nurturing culture that supports the youth and adults in your community to thrive and feel a deeper sense of belonging.

‘Wellbeing can be understood as how people feel and how they function, both on a personal and a social level, and how they evaluate their lives as a whole.”

– New Economics Foundation

This is for you if…

You work with young people (12-25) in a mainstream or alternative education or youth work setting
You want wellbeing to be at the heart of what you do each day
You are a teacher or youth worker on the frontline supporting young people’s wellbeing, but feel unequipped and overwhelmed with the level of need
You wish to support your own wellbeing so you can show up fully in your work with young people
You want to empower young people to be holistically well and thrive
You want to be more confident when a young person comes to you for help
You want to understand the deeper systemic causes behind our collective ill health

What’s on offer?

This 1 day training will be a facilitated enquiry and learning space to explore how to bring wellbeing into the heart of your youth setting. You’ll be supported to find effective ways to look after your own wellbeing, your colleagues and that of the young people in your care.

Having been a wellbeing practitioner in schools over the last 6 years, Nikki has learned that wellbeing works best when we model it ourselves, when we create wellbeing leaders across the whole ecosystem, make it accessible and woven into the existing fabric of the culture.

This day will give you the space to create your own holistic wellbeing toolbox and explore easy ways to weave wellbeing into the everyday culture of your organisation.

You can expect

Self and collective enquiry: How do we create a culture of wellbeing? What does it mean to be well individually/collectively? What does holistic education look like? How does tending to our wellbeing have a positive impact in communities we are part of?
Appreciative Inquiry: A way of looking at organisational change which focuses on identifying and doing more of what is already working, rather than looking for problems and trying to fix them.
Building a holistic wellbeing toolbox: We will explore the tools and techniques we have been using in our work over the past 10 years such as Ways to Wellbeing, Positive Psychology, Talking Circles, and share a bank of resources, recommended organisations and inspiration. Together these will give you many simple ways to weave wellbeing into the everyday culture.

Why attend?

To learn ways to support your own wellbeing
To reflect on and better justify what you are already doing well
To develop a holistic wellbeing strategy with the resources available to you
To meet like minded people, share best practices and learn together
To have space away from your everyday to reflect
To feel more equipped to give young people an opportunity to have agency and regenerative leadership

Testimonials

“Thanks for everything you have taught me about wellbeing and self care, you have really inspired me on my journey. Wellbeing and self care is something that I am now digging deeper into and really want to further, as well as try to work with in my new school. I speak to girls in sixth form and they say how much you have helped them since you have been here to cope with many of their troubles.”
Teacher in a Secondary School

“Thank you Nikki for imparting so much wisdom and for creating such a very warm, inclusive and safe space for us to explore so many important subjects.”
T, previous attendee

“Nikki’s workshop was invaluable for me to hone the content of my work and evaluate what worked, what didn't and how I could improve and develop my delivery. It was a productive and safe environment in which to test my ideas.”
Chris, youth worker

Tuesday 31st May 2022

Pricing

We charge on a sliding scale to maximise equity of access. whilst ensuring we cover our costs. Please be mindful that if you purchase a package at the lowest end of the scale when you can truthfully afford the standard ticket price, you are limiting access to those who truly need a bursary place.

For Schools/Organisations

£160 – High – For independent fee-paying schools and organisations earning £100k+ a year – this price also widens access for those on lower income
£110 – Standard – For non-fee paying schools, organisations earning between £20-100k a year – this price reflects the true cost of delivering our services
£80 – Low – For schools rated ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted and organisations earning under £20k a year

For Individuals

Please read about our sliding scale here to decide which ticket to purchase.

£110 – Standard (pays for your place and covers our costs)
£160 – Abundant (pays for your place and supports another)
£80 – Subsidised – (for those in the middle of our sliding scale)
£50 – Bursary (for those at the lower end of our sliding scale)

*please contact hello@thevisionaries.org.uk if you have any further questions or would like to pay via invoice.

Your Facilitator

Nikki Levitan is the Co-Founder of The Visionaries. Nikki’s passion is youth work, community organising, self-directed learning and most of all creating spaces for young people to feel seen, heard, and empowered. At the heart of what she does, is supporting healthy leadership in others. She has worked for over 20 years with young people in both formal and informal settings. She is trained as a professional integral coach, qualified Trauma & Mental Health informed school practitioner and teen yoga teacher. She’s been a wellbeing practitioner in secondary schools for the last 6 years implementing a whole school approach to wellbeing. Nikki has recently trained as a Level 1 Forest School Leader.

Her dedicated work with young people focuses on teaching life skills, emotional wellbeing, mental health, leadership and positive psychology. Nikki creates safe, non-judgemental spaces, working with people to identify and understand their driving values and their strengths.

David Heinemann – Social Activist, Systems Strategist, Facilitator & Learning Designer: as an accredited psychodynamic facilitator, qualified leadership coach and certified personal trainer David believes in helping (often young) people to help themselves, their communities, their organisations, and our world – preferably in that order. David’s core interest in culture and culture change started as a professional theatre director, but for the past 15 years he felt called to focus on facilitating collective and community intelligence, acting as a learning partner to numerous organisations focused on tackling the systemic challenges and opportunities of our era. Projects have included founding and leading Index on Censorship’s global fellowship for Human Rights Defenders (alongside creating Index’s Youth Advisory Board), launching peer-to-peer educators Enrol Yourself, and supporting the development of NESTA’s Good Help Bad Help project. Other recent partners and clients include Sport England, the Young Foundation, New Citizenship Project, The British Council, Compass and NESTA. In his spare time David runs a grassroots community fitness group as a disabled athlete.