Wellness Archives - The District Alliance for Safe Housing

Kids Yoga

Read about our new Kids Yoga program from the perspective of the facilitators!

One of the challenges of teaching the children’s yoga class at DASH is finding that delicate balance between restoring autonomy to the children and instilling in them discipline so that they can learn and benefit from yoga. Yoga is a powerful and transformative practice that ultimately is a journey inward, a journey to go back home to yourself. It is encouraging to see how many yoga poses the children retain, and every Monday when we come in, they request certain poses.

One popular request is tree pose, a balancing pose. Balancing poses cultivate humility, stability, and patience. Part of learning how to balance is teeter-tottering, falling, and picking yourself again, without getting frustrated or discouraged. With practice come the focus and the strong, steady grace needed to stand on one foot, both physically and figuratively. Some children who struggle with tree pose and waver back and forth before finding their balance get very animated and exclaim, “I did it! I balanced!” when that moment does come.

While some children are more eager and engaged than others are during yoga class, they are all respectful of the space. Once, a child spilled water on the floor and on a few of the yoga mats. Three children, including the child who spilled his cup, immediately ran to get paper towels to clean up the mess. It was touching to see how willing they were to take care of the space. The next step for us teachers is encouraging them to respect each other’s boundaries, both literally by staying on their own yoga mats, and figuratively by treating each other with more kindness and integrity.

On some Mondays, the children are overflowing with energy and guiding them through a seated meditation has helped center them. The first time we tried a seated meditation, I was surprised by how well it was received. I didn’t think that anyone would want to or be able to sit still in silence for an extended period of time. However, one child who was perhaps the most restless during that particular class wanted to stay in meditation for longer! She later shared with me that she really enjoyed meditating, and that it made her feel so peaceful and calm. Ultimately, all we can do is offer our presence to the children of DASH and plant seeds that inspire introspection, stillness, and clarity.

The DASH Wellness Program

Langan Denhard is our Health and Wellness Intern at the Cornerstone site. She is a senior at the University of Maryland studying Community Health.

After about a year working with DASH, my time with this organization is wrapping up as I prepare for life beyond graduation. Before I say good-bye (for now) to the staff and residents I’ve grown to love, I’m taking a moment to reflect on our wellness programming—where we are now, and how DASH can continue to grow.

At DASH, we provide services to fulfill the 7 dimensions of wellness that contribute to physical, emotional, and spiritual well being.

Social wellness: the ability to connect with and relate to other people.

Many survivors of domestic violence may lack close relationships and support systems. Abusers often use emotional manipulation to isolate their victims and the effects of that can last beyond the abuse.

We promote social wellness by building a safe, secure community within our program. Cooking with Afusat, the monthly cooking class led by one of our advocates, is among our most popular programs. Afusat also leads monthly birthday parties for all residents to attend. Our regular family movie nights are highly attended and allow the children and mothers to relax.

We also host a variety of groups that promote more intimacy and trust between our residents, allowing them to discuss shared trauma and personal experiences. As part of my internship, I developed “Free to be Me,” a four-part course on healthy relationships and safer sex. The course is currently being successfully implemented by two volunteers.

Occupational wellness: preparing and making use of personal gifts, talents, and skills to achieve a feeling of enrichment and purpose.

Our residents blew us away at our Winter Talent Show, showcasing their abilities to sing, act, dance, and play instruments. Other residents use their artistic talents to make our building beautiful. Our hallways are decorated with masterpieces made by our child residents during our weekly Art Group.

Alondria, our Economic Empowerment Advocate, helps our residents prepare for, find, and maintain employment. On May 8^th, our residents will have the chance to showcase their skills for our first ever Networking Night.

Physical wellness: maintaining a healthy body and seeking medical attention when needed.

Our physical wellness program keeps growing! On Saturdays, we have our Double Fitness Feature: Weightlifting with David followed by an hour-long Zumba dance party. On Sundays, women and teen residents can participate in Yoga. Kid Yoga is held on Monday evenings.

Free to be Me and Let’s Talk are recurring programs that promote sexual health. We also hold one-time workshops on topics such as HIV, breast health, and contraceptive choices.

Seasonally, we receive an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables from a nearby farmer’s market. When paired with our popular cooking class, residents gain the skills to prepare healthy meals for themselves and their children.

Emotional wellness: includes the ability to cope with challenges, to accept self and past mistakes, and to develop stress management techniques.

Because of our low-barrier access to services model, we serve clients dealing with varying levels of trauma, and thus varying levels of emotional wellness. This dimension is particularly intertwined with the others, but many of our programs are specifically focused toward the emotional wellbeing of our residents.

Acupuncture is regularly provided for our residents as pain and stress management. Our grief counseling groups, provided as needed, help residents work together to move past trauma. Monthly Let’s Talk groups provided through Metro TeenAIDS allow residents a chance to discuss shared stressors like parenting, body image, and relationships.

Environmental wellness: this refers to the ability to make a positive impact on the area surrounding us.

Though residents stay for a maximum of 2 years, it’s important for our residents to feel a sense of ownership over the building and surrounding community. Our wellness coordinator, Annabeth, leads gardening activities to beautify the area surrounding Cornerstone.

Revolution: DASH, our community service-learning group for kids and teens, spent an afternoon picking up trash around our neighborhood.

Intellectual wellness: engaging in creative activities to increase knowledge and skills.

Our groups allow our residents to learn from each other; we try to incorporate a discussion component as much as possible into our programming. Madeleine, another UMD intern, leads a weekly journaling group on Fridays. Our recurring parenting class promotes new ideas in effective black parenting. By popular request, we are now in the beginning stages of introducing a book club.

Do you have something to add to our Wellness Program? Contact Annabeth Roeschley, our Wellness Coordinator, and/or Mari Vangen-Adams, our Volunteer Coordinator.

Exploring the DASH Model – Voluntary Services

Langan Denhard is our Health and Wellness Intern at the Cornerstone site.
She is a senior at the University of Maryland studying Community Health.

Abusive relationships are characterized by an imbalance of power and control. The existence of transitional housing programs like DASH allows survivors and their children to leave a controlling and disempowering situation and move toward financial and emotional independence.

Most transitional housing programs are not like DASH. Though well-intentioned, many other organizations rely on a model that can be controlling. They may require residents to attend mandatory services every week in order to stay in the program—even if the services don’t meet their identified needs. Some organizations may also refuse housing to survivors who struggle with mental health and substance use issues—problems that research has proven to be directly correlated with experiencing intimate partner violence.

Though the DASH framework comes with unique challenges, it’s pretty simple to explain: safe housing is a right, not a privilege. As a domestic violence program, we won’t turn anyone away because of the challenges they face linked to or exacerbated by homelessness or domestic violence. So everyone comes into our program with their own experiences, and we just don’t have the power to tell them what they need to do.

This gives us the freedom to offer varied services and groups based on the residents’ own requests and self-identified needs. We advertise each event by putting flyers and sign-up sheets around the building and sometimes directly reminding residents about the opportunity if we feel like they would benefit. If some groups aren’t as widely attended, that may reflect to us what some of the residents feel like they need. If even just one of the residents finds the program useful, that is reason enough to continue offering it. Above all, we see our residents as people with their own growing sense of agency whose decisions deserve respect and understanding.

The residents who choose to attend our programs (which include but are not limited to: acupuncture, weight lifting, grief groups, and resume workshops) report finding them effective and helpful. One of our residents said she felt like DASH was a place of healing and, “the purpose of coming here is to center everything around ourselves,” and move forward. She regularly attends and enjoys our parenting classes. We are currently evaluating and changing our services based on what feedback we get from residents.

Another resident, who had previously been in a program that provided mandatory services, said she appreciated that at DASH, “if you’re not feeling well you don’t have to go, and if you’re busy you don’t need to attend [the groups].” Her favorite DASH group is “Let’s Talk!” where the residents can get together and talk about life and the unique challenges they face.

Our model seems more like common sense than innovation—not only is it based on respect, it’s proven to work. A study of different transitional housing models by the National Network to End Domestic Violence showed that women receiving services felt that voluntary programs were more effective. Women reported the most satisfaction when the advocacy staff provided options, support, and most of all—the ability to make their own decisions.

Sources:

National Network to End Domestic Violence Study

CDC: IPV consequences

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