About this Event
We’re sorry, this course has been canceled. View our Events Calendar for other CCFW courses, workshops, and drop-ins.
Support your resilience by building skills grounded in neuroscience, cognitive-behavioral coping, mindfulness, yoga, and self-compassion. Be REAL (REsilient Attitudes and Living) is a program developed by the Center for Child and Family Well-Being (CCFW). The program offers participants a space to tune into themselves, explore a variety of well-being tools, and foster a sense of community with others in the process.
The online sessions will include interactive discussions, guided contemplative practices, and small group activities to learn more about:
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- Understanding stress responses, stress tolerance & strategies to manage stress
- Building emotion awareness & emotion regulation skills
- Cultivating self-compassion & a deep sense of common humanity with others
- Strengthening skills to navigate challenging situations & support oneself
Throughout the program, we will practice being gentle with ourselves and strategies to give ourselves space for grace. To support different learning styles, Be REAL provides a variety of resources to support the integration of practices into participants’ days. Each week facilitators will send a newsletter that includes a summary of the session, downloadable handouts and worksheets, links to guided audio practices, and links to brief content videos.
What participants have said about Be REAL
“What I liked most was being led through practices and exercises. It gave me time to practice self-compassion, which is something that has been lacking during the pandemic.”
“[I learned] that mindfulness is not about doing a 20-minute meditation (which is not feasible with my lifestyle at the moment). It’s possible to weave it into my daily routines like walks, brushing teeth, conversations with people.
Research on Be REAL
In partnership with the UW Resilience Lab, CCFW has expanded Be REAL to staff and students on all three UW campuses. Be REAL was initially piloted with university students and has been adapted for staff. In three years, 300 UW staff and 800 students have participated in Be REAL. Research on Be REAL shows that participation has been found to significantly improve well-being with [1, 2]:
Long, R., Halvorson, M., & Lengua, L. J. (2021). A mindfulness-based promotive coping program improves well-being in college undergraduates. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 1-14.
Long, R., Kennedy, M., Spink, K. M., & Lengua, L. J. (2021). Evaluation of the Implementation of a Well-being Promotion Program for College Students. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12.
Class Schedule
6-week course
Thursdays from 6:30-8:30 pm
April 7 – May 12, 2022
Continuing Education Units (CEUs)
Register for a Certificate of Completion and get CEUs. Our CEUs are available for licensed psychologists, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, and social workers in Washington State. We cannot guarantee that these CEUs will be accepted in other states.
Scholarships Available
CCFW aims to promote well-being by making evidence-based mindfulness practices available and accessible to community members, particularly professionals working with children and families. We believe that mindfulness has positive implications for professionals as well as the children and families they interact with. Therefore, we wish to encourage mindfulness training by removing possible financial barriers for professionals working with these specific populations. If these fees are cost-prohibitive for you, we invite you to apply for a scholarship.
About the Presenters
Robyn Long
Robyn Long (she/her) leads CCFW’s partnerships, training, research, and program development for Be REAL, a program that supports the well-being of college students and professionals. She also co-develops interventions for CCFW’s research, including a postpartum stress reduction program for NEW Moms and REAL Pro. Robyn has been facilitating wellness and mindfulness-based programs, including yoga, since 2009 in a variety of community and clinical settings in the US, Canada, India, and the Middle East. Prior to coming to the UW, she managed health and wellness programs and grants at the University of Calgary, Harvard School of Public Health and international nonprofits focused on child development and education.
Robyn holds a BA and MA in International Development & Social Change from Clark University, a certificate in Early Childhood Education and Development, and is in her last year of the UW MSW program. She has completed advanced yoga and meditation teacher training programs under the guidance of Sir TKV Desikachar at the Krishnamacharya Healing Yoga Foundation in India, The New England School of Integrative Yoga Therapeutics, and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Teens. Robyn has specialized training in yoga and mindfulness for children, cancer patients, trauma, and the prenatal and postpartum periods.
Sasha Duttchoudhury
Sasha Duttchoudhury (they/them) graduated from the University of Washington in 2013 with a BA in English. Since then, Sasha has been published in “T.I.P.S. to Study Abroad: Simple Letter for Complex Engagement” (2014) and “Moving Truth(s)” (2015), an anthology project they co-edited. Sasha has also been a South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) Young Leaders Institute Fellow (2014) and a Voices of Our Nation’s Arts (VONA) Fellow (2016). Sasha has presented at a number of conferences, including the “National South Asian Summit” (2015), the “National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance” National Conference (2015), and “Creating Change” (2016). Currently, Sasha is a graduate student at the University of Washington School of Social Work and is focused on Clinical Practice through an internship with MEND Seattle. Additionally, Sasha is the Graduate Student Assistant with the UW Resilience Lab and is on the board of Sankofa Impact. While at the UW, Sasha completed CCFW’s Be REAL Facilitator Training Program.