Last week the manual was officially presented see to protect. Keys to understanding violence against children, girls and adolescents and to develop effective protection measures, that we have elaborated my partner Pepa Horno and I from Spiral Consulting Children for UNICEF Spain. As usual with My publications, sector la manual entry see to protect on that blog and expand on some relevant aspects here.

The manual has three elements that are significant to share here.

First, broadly systematizes the fundamental concepts to understand violence. Many people going through therapy need to understand what has happened to them and how, and although normally the accompaniment process is enough, sometimes they ask me for a reference to continue expanding. It's manual, although it is technical and is aimed at professionals who work with children, and adolescents, can also serve people with sufficient therapeutic work.

On the other hand, and expanding on that line, the manual is also useful for psychotherapists who want to update their knowledge and skills. With the activities that are proposed throughout each of the chapters we can expand our sensitivity and our ability to accompany processes that have to do with violence and trauma and with their healing.. The practical part is designed to cultivate awareness of our interventions.

By last, it is essential to remember the importance of the bodily dimension both in violence and its consequences (especially in trauma and dissociation) as in recovery. The entire manual has body aspects, and especially works on the feeling of well-being that it tries to build in the spaces that are Safe and Protective Environments.

The manual see to protect can be downloaded free of charge from the UNICEF Spain website.

I hope that is of interest, and I will love to know how you receive it.

F. Javier Romeo

[November Archives. November Archives.]
Focusing November Archives, November Archives. November Archives, November Archives. November Archives, November Archives, November Archives, November Archives.

November Archives “Is this violence? Naming violence as a form of political advocacy?” (November Archives “Is this violence? Naming violence as advocacy”) at the Third Conference on the Felt Sense (Third Felt Sense Conference), organized by the International Focusing Institute online this year 2021 with the focus on “An embodied release: the felt sense and Social Justice” (English “Embodied Liberation: the Felt Sense & Social Justice”). In my workshop I plan to make a cross between the Child Protection work that I develop from my consultancy, Spiral Consulting Children, and the inner dimension of Focusing. At the same time, I hope to offer elements of inner awareness that will be useful to anyone committed to Social Justice, not only with Child Protection.

Date: viernes, 3 December 2021, of 11:00 a 13:00 new york time (17:00-19:00 Madrid time, see other time slots here).

Place: online.

Language: English.

More information and registration: página web de Third Felt Sense Conference (2021).

[Original entry 24 November 2021, actualizada a 3 December 2021, date of the event].

Focusing has always had at its core the improvement of society, not just of individuals. Gendlin wrote extensively about the social and political dimension of Focusing, as the felt sense provides a better understanding of our inner life –and of external circumstances. Starting from deep personal work, Focusing invites us to step into interpersonal relationships and social structures with strength, flexibility and awareness and to start the changes we want to see in the world.

I am therefore very honoured to present my workshop “Is this violence? Naming violence as advocacy” at the Third Felt Sense Conference, organised by The International Focusing Institute online this year 2021 with the focus in “Embodied Liberation: the Felt Sense & Social Justice”. In my workshop I am planning to cross the work in Child Protection that I develop from my consultancy firm, Spiral Consulting Children, with the inner dimension of Focusing. However, I hope to offer inner awareness for every person that is committed with Social Justice, not just in Child Protection.

Date: Friday, December 3rd 2021, 11:00-13:00 New York time (17:00-19:00 Madrid time, check your time here).

Place: online.

Language: English.

More information and registration: website of the Third Felt Sense Conference (2021).

[Original post of November 24th 2021, updated December 3rd 2021, day of the event].

as usual, In this blog I share elements that cross my work in Spiral Consulting Children with other personal and professional interests. In this case I have the satisfaction of sharing the guide Voices for change. Methodological guide for consulting children, girls and adolescents in residential care, what we make Pepa Horno and I stop UNICEF Spain.

It was a satisfaction to receive the commission to systematize this methodology in writing in an affordable way.. Part of our work when accompanying public and private entities of protection systems here in Spain and in other countries in their improvement processes consists of having the eyes of their protagonists: children, girls and adolescents living in protection centers. And they are specialists in their own lives, and often the institutions forget to ask them, unfortunately.

That is why it is a great joy that UNICEF Spain, within its work in promoting child and youth participation, has invited us to present a simple methodology to consult these children, and adolescents. We talk more about it in the blog of Spiral Consulting for Children.

Inside it is a technical and practical guide, For me, the aspect of the interpersonal communication: how can we adults talk, how we can create the right space and how we can listen to children, and adolescents. The words we use can open communication or close it, That is why the formulas that we present are very clear.: respect, inclusion and protagonism of the children themselves, and adolescents.

And we have also insisted on flexibility and adaptation to all children, and adolescents, providing guidelines to accommodate the intervention to functional diversity, cultural diversity (especially the unaccompanied migrant boys and girls) and those with mental health issues and trauma. Their voices, as we say in the title, well heard, can make a change for the better in their lives.

I hope you like it and that you find it interesting.

F. Javier Romeo

Online life has helped us create new virtual communities.

More than a year ago I received the invitation to be part of a reflection group on children in the protection system in Spain, coordinated by Alberto Rodriguez and Javier Múgica and in which we participate Antonio Ferrandis, mi partner of CI Spirals Pepa Horno, Marta Llauradó and my almost double namesake F. Javier Romeu Soriano. After these months of online meetings and multiple emails and drafts, last week we jointly published the founding document, Renewing from within. Seven challenges and proposals to improve the child protection system in Spain. The text speaks for itself, and can be downloaded from web page of “Renewing from within”.

Here I want to talk about something a little different: of the process itself. And I'll sum it up in three words: community, growth and awareness.

Community is what we have been creating. It has a part of chance, having met for child protection issues in different spaces. But it also has a part of intention. Make room for online meetings. Write each one their part of the document and revise the texts of the rest. share views, concerns and possible responses. Little by little we have been deepening our relationships, developing a common language that incorporates our different personalities and sensitivities. And we believe that part of the improvements in the protection system go precisely through creating community in many other spaces, with the kids, girls and adolescents and their families, within professional teams and intervention networks.

Further, we have advanced with a perspective of growth. Each person in our group has been collaborating and accompanying processes of the protection system for many years. That's why we can talk about the shortcomings, of the weak points that harm children, girls and adolescents and the families whom it is intended to protect. But we also remember the progress, the changes, sometimes very small, that make some aspects improve. That is why the document wants to collect both the challenges that we see in Spain and some proposals that we know, by personal or professional experience, that have worked before. And this process also makes us who reflect in a group grow.

Why, in the end, It is about developing the consciousness. when we have a “conscious gaze”, as my good friend says and partner at CI Spirals Pepa Horno, we see reality in a deeper way. We identify what happens in children, girls and adolescents and their families, but also in the professional teams and in the systems that would have to provide them with protection and support. And we also recognize what happens inside us, to channel intuitions and sensations towards concrete proposals that improve the lives of many people. We can't do this alone, we need a safe environment, community, help us move forward, to ask ourselves new questions and discover new answers.

From here I send my thanks to this magnificent team, and to life for making it possible.

And I invite you to read the document and pay attention to the following steps (we will be publishing monthly blog entries to continue delving into the different proposals). I see you on the website “Renewing from within”.

in celebration,

F. Javier Romeo