LGBTQ youth are most vulnerable to the school to prison pipeline, which is a very severe ACE (Snapp et al, 2015.) To combat this problem, I wrote a clinical manual for educators and mental health clinicians. The book addresses the need for sensitive engagement with, and advocacy of, LGBTQ+ youth. LGBTQ+ Youth: A Guided Workbook to Support Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity was released in June 2018, endorsed by Jenny Finney Boylan, and #1 NEW RELEASE on Amazon in Teen and Young Adult...

Friends, Check out this new tool to use with youth of all ages! LGBTQ+ Youth: A Guided Workbook to support Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity is the most comprehensive, practical and user-friendly workbook written specifically for clinicians and educators to engage and support lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual and questioning youth. *Deal with the challenges of coming out *Understand sexual identity, gender norms and fluidity *Safety plan and address negative attitudes at school and in...

Join me - Dr. Lee-Anne Gray - to learn some of the ways I help teens cultivate self-compassion! Based on Self-Compassion for Teens: 129 Activities and Practices to Cultivate Kindness - and sponsored by PESI: May 17, 2017 in St. Cloud, MN May 18, 2017 in Roseville, MN May 19, 2017 in Bloomington, MN Earn CEU's while accessing your own inner source of kindness so you can help others too! Topics covered: self-compassion, compassion, and empathy adhd anxiety depression anger procrastination...

Ever struggle to get the conversation going with teens? Wondering how to introduce mindful awareness and self-compassion to adolescents? Self-Compassion and Mindful Awareness for Teens - is a card deck based on Self-Compassion for Teens: 129 Activities & Practices to Cultivate Kindness. It's a handy-dandy set of quick reminders of some of the activities in the book. Topics covered include: Self-compassion compassion ADHD LGBT+ Body Image Anxiety Depression Check it out and let me know...

A few years ago, I was prompted to write a short e-book, The Happy Family , on the strategies we use in our home to promote more happiness. It all began with a formal family gratitude practice in January 2013, and morphed into 10 different strategies that create more harmony and respect in families. With mindful awareness practices infusing our home life, 10 strategies seemed to emerge simultaneously from the literature I was surveying in neuroscience, positive psychology, Buddhist...

Teen angst has morphed into epidemic levels of suffering! How might we help our youth transform their pain into potential and go from trauma to growth? The wisdom traditions suggest that we may be most effective in promoting growth and change when we start with ourselves. When you come to this seminar, you'll experience self-compassion practices first hand. You may find that you can be transformed with self-compassion and how to share it with the teens you love and care for. Please join me,...

Amy Saltzman, author of a Still Quiet Place, and her team are bringing another great conference on mindfulness education for youth to San Diego. The Bridging Hearts and Minds Conference will take place Feb 10-12, 2017, and I will be there presenting on how to cultivate Self-Compassion with Teens. Some other wonderful teachers are coming too, like: Susan Kaiser Greenland, author of The Mindful Child and most recently, Mindful Games. Lorraine Hobbs and Karen Bluth are researchers who will also...

When I think of spreading awareness of trauma informed care, I sometimes feel powerless, helpless, and overwhelmed at the magnitude of the task. Then, I remember that "design thinking" is a multi-disciplinary approach to human centered problems, centered in empathy. It uses empathy as the lens into people needs, so that solutions to problems are authentic and effective. Here's post on Design Thinking in K12 education . And here's one about Andres Marquez-Lara, a man who uses "design...

In 2011, I began studying the negative effects of educational practices. There is a lot of research on the negative developmental implications of standardized curricula, and yet we perpetuate it year after year. There is evidence that students are experiencing burnout before graduating high school. And there are many stories about students succeeding in high school, entering college, and not completing their degrees. At every stage of education, there are case studies of injury and trauma. I...

With teens today facing unprecedented levels of toxic stress, self-compassion is one way to nurture inner wisdom, promote self-kindness, and self-heal. Christopher Germer, author of the Mindful Path to Self-Compassion says my forthcoming book, Self-Compassion for Teens: 129 Activities & Practices to Cultivate Kindness, which will be published on Nov. 7, is "just the ticket for parents, teachers, and counselors who know the burdens of modern teens and want to help." Tara Brach, author of...

Dear Friends and ACE's Members, Please join me to learn how to promote self-compassion in the teens you care for! In advance of the release of my much anticipated book, Self-Compassion for Teens , I am offering the following in-person seminars through PESI Continuing Education. Course Description: Are you frustrated with the epidemic of teens suffering from stress, anxiety, depression, ADHD and trauma? Wish you had some non-medical approaches teens can use to build inner strength while...