ECHO Parent Education Training

Here goes nothin'! AND EVERYTHING!

Those of you who know me, even remotely, understand how dedicated I am to helping parents and families achieve confidence and empowerment with the help of practical tools, social support, and accurate resources and information. It is this passion and commitment that has propelled me to finally apply to a 100-hour program I have had my heart set on for years: the ECHO Center's Trauma-Informed Nonviolent Child Raising (TINCR) Training and Certification course (formerly Parent Educator Certification Program - PECP).

This is ECHO's Mission, Vision & Philosophy":

"Echo Parenting & Education envisions a world of nonviolence in which adults respect children by ensuring their right to emotional and physical safety.

The mission of Echo Parenting & Education is to support and facilitate child raising rooted in connection and empathy. We teach parents, teachers and others who strongly influence children’s lives an approach that integrates current research in human development with the practice of nonviolence.

The practice of nonviolent child-raising emphasizes the value of empathy, connecting language and the understanding of a child’s emotional, physical and brain development. A caregiver’s knowledge and practice of these fundamentals, as well as the conscious intention of sustaining an invaluable connection with the child, transforms the adult-child relationship. By learning to observe children through a lens of compassion, by modeling empathy and mutual respect, adults can break the cycle of violence and help children grow to be individuals who are able to contribute effectively to the quality of their communities."

Here is a brief description of the program:

"This course is designed to provide in-depth training in the nonviolent approach to child raising as well as an introduction to the emerging and rapidly evolving field of developmental trauma."

In other words, this will be a crucial part of my post-undergraduate education, and will be directly useful to me in my work with families, particularly with parents and children who have undergone some form of trauma in their lives. I wish to eliminate the stigma associated with trauma, to highlight the beauty and significance of growing from our wounds, and to help parents learn to love themselves unconditionally, so that their children witness what that looks like, receive it, and adopt a deep unconditional self-love for themselves, and naturally, a sense of empathy and compassion for others.

The cost of the first part of the training is $2,530.
The cast of the second part is $750.

Scholarships are offered but limited! I would like to raise $3,000 to cover not only part of the total cost of the training, but also contribute to the gas that will be spent in commuting to Echo Center for these classes over the next six months. I am currently paying off student loans and would like to avoid having to borrow more money, if I can help it.

I humbly request any possible donation amount!

For those who wish to continue reading, here is part of my application for this program:

"...When we birth our children, we also birth the opportunity to shed ego and make room for the lessons in awareness that our children teach us by simply existing, pushing both our buttons and our capacities for unconditional love. They are our teachers, our zen masters, our greatest retreat into knowing our Selves.

It is this understanding that has me feeling profoundly that I want to take what I know to be true and simply serve. My passion for helping parents to discover their own transformative potential is my calling and I wholly trust the voice that tells me so.

Messing up is part of the voyage, an important part, and so I am not here to judge parents but on the contrary, I feel a deep compassion for parents who outwardly exhibit their own needs not being met, even if it takes the shape of abuse. Those are the parents and caregivers who need the longest lifeline. I often take my daughter to events where there are other parents and their children. Many of these times, I notice parents “losing it” with their children, pulling them, threatening them, verbally cutting them down. These parents are stressed, so much so that the stress has seeped out in public for the world to see. How much of this is the normal stress of parenting and how much is perceived or in response to circumstances outside of parenting is unknown. However, I believe we are all trying to do the right thing with our children, teach them how to be independent and responsible, hopefully nonviolent loving people and give them the foundations for it. Parental actions do not always demonstrate this because they may be based in fear rather than love, in incidental ignorance rather than information, in head space rather than heart space. Parents need to re-learn to love themselves, to take care of their own needs, put on their oxygen mask first before they attempt to put on their children’s. This is the message I am ready to learn to package, wrap, and gift to those who are open to receiving it."

In gratitude,

Leslie xo