Why this course?

Because behaviour that results from stress needs us to work with the child's Nervous system not against it

  • Starting Thursday 18th October 2024. 7.30-9.30pm on Zoom. All sessions recorded and put into group, not a requirement to come to sessions but will help you with you understanding. A course about stress shouldn't make you stressed!

  • There is more and more research out there that says that we need to start working with Self-Regulation and the nervous system

  • That often the clues are hidden in plain sight

  • I take you through a 5-stage journey to understand the process. Learn where to look and then how to build your maintence plan

  • This course works from different angles . Each week you will get video content explain the concept

  • Every fortnight you will get a 2 hour Zoom session where you can get the help to understand the process and get started

  • Just look at the feedback of other teachers who have already taken the course

  • 50% off a zoom coaching session if booked while completing this course. You can bring up to 5 collegues to this session

  • If you need a payment plan or to be invoiced just message [email protected]

  • fortnighly zooms, fortnighly video session. course finishes Thursday 13th December 2024.

Video

But don't just listen to me. Here are people that have taken the course

I HAD MANY AHA MOMENTS! NINA

Hidden in Plain Sight has been an extraordinarily valuable course for myself. The background information gives clear guidance on how to look through a different lens in order to support children in a way that is peaceful, loving and understanding. I wish this was taught during the degree. My favourite part of this course, however, was when Donna would unpack scenarios, which then gave even more clarity as to why we may be feeling challenged by children in our care. I had many aha moments as Donna spoke and feel that this is where she has terrific knowledge and skill and is a great strength of hers. I look forward to weaving with you again next year Donna.

Another beautiful Heart teacher

This course has been transformative - Ashleigh

It has been an incredible privilege to journey this journey. This course has been transformative I have done Circle of Security with Donna twice, each time adding more depth to my lens and understanding. During my second time doing circle (recently), Donna mentioned the new pilot she was creating, and I could not have jumped into it any faster. It came at the perfect time for me, and hearing about it, I knew I NEEDED this. This course weaved beautifully with Circle of Security and added a whole new perspective and understanding that has been so valuable to me as a kaiako and a person who is always caught in stress cycles before not having the tools to pull myself into a regulated state. I feel many kaiako can relate to this, our industry is full of stressors and many of us aren't fully aware of how unregulated we may be until we are caught so deep within it. This course took me through logical steps of self-reg and how it effortlessly weaved with Circle of Security, I have become more aware of stress in myself, my colleagues, and the children I work with. I would recommend this course to anyone, especially kaiako. A huge part of our job is co-regulating with children and how can we do that when we are unregulated ourselves (often unaware we are unregulated). In addition, if you are working with children or teachers who are perceived as 'challenging' then 100% this is for you!! Ngā mihi nui to all the amazing wāhine who held space through this course, shared your experiences and truths. And Donna, thank you, thank you, thank you!! You are such a light, I am always so grateful for the time and knowledge I get to share with you I feel every time I come away from ako with you, my light shines brighter. Your ability to hold others with such compassion and understanding is a gift Arohanui x

This teacher has seen me put all the jigsaw pieces together

Donna your knowledge blows my mind; keep growing and sharing so we can all bring a better way of BEing together

Donna you have spoken so often about self reg, so to have the opportunity to be part of your journey has been amazing. It has definitely shown me how to come back into a state of calm when I'm feeling stressed and to see others (adults and children) through a different lens as I recognize different stressors. I feel like I ride a wave at times, sometimes I'm sailing the calm sea and other times I'm riding a big storm, so to have more understanding from another angle of how to deal with it is great. To listen to you sharing and unpacking our different scenarios was a part that I really enjoyed. I also love that it is just another way of looking. Pikler, Circle of Security, and now Self-Reg are all the same just share it differently. Donna your knowledge blows my mind; keep growing and sharing so we can all bring a better way of BEing together

Starting Tuesday 30th July 2024 7.30-9.30 first zoom call

PRESS HERE to sign up

I'm Donna founder of Peaceful Beginnings

Peaceful Beginnings is my baby created with love

I'll be honest: When I became a teacher, I felt lost, there was so much theory out there and some of it I just dodn't feel comfortable with. I started this journey supporting parents about 8 years ago (read more on my website) because I wanted to create the courses that I needed. This is me from 3 years ago when I managed an early childhood centre in Pukekohe. I had a studio there where I used to support and mentor our parents and teachers. I realised this was my passion.

I'm a little bit older and greyer BUT still just as passionate about supporting parents and teachers

My courses are unique because of my unique education background

Before my own children, I was an intellectual disabilities nurse from the UK. I specialised in working with the most severe challenges working out what people needed in their lives. With the birth of my own children, I became hugely interested in child development. I never thought this would be where my new career would develop as an ECE teacher and then a parent educator. But my thirst for knowledge and supporting people has only grown. I'm at the stage where I'm looking at how I can make Peaceful Beginnings a not-for-profit organisation, as I believe money shouldn't stop people from accessing my classes or courses. So watch this space

I could not have done everything I have achieved without this man's unconditional support

He gave me the support to leave my managers role to ripple out how to support children, parents and teachers through relationships, compassion and unconditional love

Sam, my husband, knows how important this work is to me. He supported me in giving up my manager's role last year to follow my passion and was often seen on an early Tuesday morning helping me carry in all my equipment and helping me set up play environments. There is no way I could be here with these courses without him. My rock, my anchor and the most amazing dad to our teenage children. We have been together 22 years and our parenting route has had its HIGHS and its LOW LOWS....... I have walked the journey that I will be accompanying you on. As a parent, teacher and human BEing. Everyone needs the hands they can circle back too (check out my Circle of Security course to understand this).

So what makes me unique?

As I meet each new parent or teacher I listen to their needs. Over the last 8 years I have developed my theories through my observations of children, parents and teachers. You just have to read my feed back to know that I've been able to capture something unique that people are searching for. I'll try and show you my journey to where I am now.

  • I'm going to be very vulnerable here. 8 years ago, my nervous system was a wreck. I was constantly in my sympathetic nervous system and I didn't like how I felt or acted. I remember crying out on my front steps to the universe "PLEASE !!! PLEASE help me with my anger. (what I didn't realise was i was asking the wrong question; my anger was gifting me a message of unmet needs that I needed to listen too.)About 2 weeks later I was introduced to Kimberley Crisp and shortly after I was on Pennie Brownlee's Dance with me in the Heart. And my life began to change. I will be forever grateful for those two ladies

  • At that time, I was working at an amazing centre where everyone was stressed. Children and adults, and this was the start of my observations into the culture of team work and hygenic practice. Something Kimberley Crisp really helped me to get my ideas as I bounced my observations off her and Liane. It wasn't the people, they were amazing it was the STRESSED environment that made it unhygenic. I suppose we all hold some toxicity when we are stressed and unhealed from childhood wounds.

  • I lapped up everything that Pennie and Kimberley were teaching from their love of the Pikler approach. I became one of Pennie's Parent/infant and Parent/Toddler facilitators. And this was the first time I left teaching to work with parents. I thought I had more to offer here.

  • When I had lapped up everything I could from these amazing ladies I started my Pikler journey. In one year I travelled to Sydney, LA in USA and Budapest. I had never heard such a respectful way of BEing with children. Completing their week long basic courses: Respectful Care, Freedom of movement and freedom to play. Each time I came back from a course I felt a layer of skin had been taking off my eyes that had previously clouded my vision. The children and parents that I was supporting were still the same but what I saw had far more depth. These courses were mindblowing for what I was learning and how I could support my parents.

  • It was during these early years of facilitating parent/ toddler classes that I started to see something change in my Play Room that I couldn't place my finger on. I could see that the toddler years was having an impact on my parents that I was accompanying. Parents that had been confident in conscious parenting were now looking for more authoritarian techniques rather than the partnership relationship I was teaching. I could feel there was something that I was missing and so I went in search of something that would support parents to still be in relationship with their child. And I found CIRCLE OF SECURITY and it has been a game changer for me and something that I would guide all parents and teachers to complete.

  • I then returned to teaching now as a leader and manager. And my observations continued to look at how did staff teams work. What happened when everyone was regulated and what changed as stress arose in the environment. It was the greatest teaching ground to learn about people and their interactions with each other and then with children. My theories kept expanding and I am so grateful to Kimberley Crisp of all the hours she listened to me as I was formularizing my ideas. So much was grounded in Pikler but then so much was outside this realm as I started to understand more and more about attachment theory, brain and nervous system development and Self-Regulation. And I can assure you it is all there hidden in plain sight in teamwork too

  • Then COVID hit and the world changed and I took my classes with the Pikler Institute online. (and if I'm honest its probably how I am still able to do them because this time saved me so much money). In these years I learnt Observation, Peace within me (The Pikler Institutes social competence course) and Dialogue with the Infant and toddler, where I found out what you do in the first year of life the child brings into the social and play environments when they are older.

  • The world opened up and back I went to Budpest and realised how much I had missed being in this environment with many other highly researched based practitioners from around the world. This was my final elective course about supporting caregivers and the first time I could observe the techniques I had spent years learning about. I started to see that what I had been observing in staff teams was hidden into the foundations of what I was learning this year.

  • 2023 back home to New Zealand and once again I could see that my studies weren't quite reaching the needs of some parents. I was back working as a manager in ECE. I could feel there was something that wasn't quite working for some parents with CIRCLE OF SECURITY. And that's when I starting to see the links with the nervous system and Self-Reg. I created my own unique courses and started to see huge changes for parents that had struggled before. Still in 2023 I was contacted by a parent I had worked with. She wanted me to look into InterPlay by Donna Berry as she thought it would be a missing puzzle piece of what I was doing. And she was right. I am currently still studying to become a Senior InterPlay facilitator but want to create a space for supporting trauma through play.

  • Gosh 2023 was a busy year. With now relationship knowledge, brain development knowledge, attachment theory and nervous system and Self-Reg knowledge. I wrote my first parent infant programme and added to my Self-regulation prgramme being guided by what I was learning from the adults working with me. And you get to experience it here on this new updated of an already popular course.