The MEHRIT Centre’s Learn Face-to-Face Seminar in Toronto

Over the past 45 years special education has moved from a paradigm of segregation to one of inclusion. Students with exceptionalities are spending more and more time in “regular” classrooms. Inclusive special education comes with challenges for teachers, students and parents; challenges that have made inclusive education controversial at times. This day-long institute will look at inclusive education through the lens of Self-Reg, Dr. Stuart Shanker’s framework and method for understanding stress and managing energy and tension. Dr. Susan Hopkins, executive director of The MEHRIT Centre, will engage participants, using an inquiry-based design, to explore the relationship between stress, is one of the key unaddressed issues in inclusive special education, and how Shanker Self-Reg can help educators to better understand and support students with special needs.

The program will address a number of key issues related to inclusive special education including:
• How stress affects the functioning of children and adults
• Unique stressors related to special education and their impact on students with special needs, their teachers and their parents.
• Shanker Self-Reg®: the five domains of self-regulation and the five steps of The Shanker Method®
• Self-Reg is a process rather than a program, which can be utilized within various existing approaches to special education
• Why it is important to consider stressors when conducting Functional Behaviour Assessments
• The stress of IEPs, from student, parent and educator perspectives
• Adult Stress: why we need to talk about it and how reducing adult stress can improve teaching