New Team Member!

We are incredibly excited to share with you the newest addition to our team Besa Karanfili, MA, TLLP, NCSP as our special education and early childhood specialist! Besa is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist and specializes in comprehensive psychological evaluations, play therapy, and advocacy services.

Treatment Approaches:

• Besa believes in the power of art, play, sand tray, books, pretend, and creativity in helping an individual to be able to express themselves. Play therapy allows her clients to explore and process difficult emotions and experiences by facilitating communication, increasing personal strengths, fostering emotional wellness, and enhancing social relationships.
• As a child psychologist, Besa uses a whole-person, holistic, and integrative approach supported by neuroscience and child development research in supporting children; she considers all parts of the child, their family system, and their environment to determine their needs.
• Besa uses neurodiversity affirming, person-centered, and trauma-informed frameworks to provide her clients lasting change.

Besa’s Ideal Clients:

• Children under the age of 9 who struggle with managing their emotions and behaviors
• Children with ADHD and academic challenges
• Parents who need help in supporting their child’s emotional needs
• Children that could benefit from healing and growth in their parent-child or family relationships
• Families that need support to cope with a traumatic event or difficult life stressors

• Comprehensive psychological evaluation for diagnosis of ADHD, learning disabilities, anxiety disorders, and mood disorders
• Play Therapy
• Parent-Child Interaction Therapy
• Attachment Based Therapy
• Special Education Consultation and Advocacy

Free Mental Health TextSupport for Teens and Parents!

We are incredibly excited to share with you some big news: Through a partnership with the Family and Mental Wellness Lab at Wayne State University, we have developed a new resource for parents and teens in our community! Now both parents and teenagers can receive daily mental health tips as direct text messages! We want to show you that you are resilient and not alone!

Teens: text @teentext to 81010

Parents: text @malafam to 81010

They are completely free! You will get tips on how to cope with stressors, manage emotions, improve relationships, and heal trauma. We hope you find them helpful!

Free Support Groups for Plymouth-Canton High School Community

Today was an incredibly difficult day for the Plymouth-Canton High School community, laying it’s stress on top of the stress from the past two weeks, recent months, and two years. We are all human beings, doing our best to support each other and ourselves. We can all endure so much before our internal resources begin to run low. You are not alone in feeling frightened, angry, depressed, and shut down.

In moments of crisis and trauma, it is natural to want to withdraw and isolate. However, healing occurs when we are feeling connected and safe.

We are hosting free virtual support groups tomorrow and Saturday for our students and teachers.

This space will be safe, supportive, and nonjudgmental. It is normal to feel anxious about utilizing such resources. It can appear unpredictable and vulnerable. However, our trained mental health professionals are experts at managing such spaces to ensure that individuals attending will feel comfortable and safe. You can choose to keep your camera turned off, just listen, or leave the group at any point you wish to.

We hope to see you there, however you choose to participate. We see you. We care about you. You are not alone.

Please see below the schedules of our support groups:

Students:
December 10th @ 11 AM – 12 PM, 2 PM – 3 PM, 6 PM – 7 PM
December 11th @ 3 PM

Teachers
December 10th @ 3 PM – 4 PM

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/s/86700718107?pwd=a09OOWNuY2lHdTB5ZVhvM1h3eVRQQT09&fbclid=IwAR13r1OJFAfYSej8Hzzr3i4PG_2oL1B2AsdrJnT1bEYEbBhTqTx4ngvg8Ao#success

Meeting ID: 867 0071 8107
Passcode: 117921

Mala Child & Family Institute is Now Offering in Person & Virtual Yoga!!

At Mala, we understand the importance of mind-body connection, and we believe in holistic methods of care. Yoga is an evidence based method to bring healing to the mind and body, improve emotion regulation, reduce impulse control, stabilize the nervous system, improve focus and attention, and enhance quality and quantity of sleep. We are so excited to have Tracy join our group, offering private individual and group yoga, both virtually and in-person. Tracy began practicing yoga in 2016 and was immediately drawn to the peace and balance it brought to her mind and body. She is drawn to yoga accessible for all – restorative, yin, mudra, chair, breath work, and meditation. Incorporating classic yoga education with a gentle, inviting approach to students of any level, she shares the beauty of yoga found in the breath of every individual, and guides students to a balance of mind and body in both yoga movement and yoga rest.

Tracy spent a month at Sivananda Vedanta ashram in Neyyar Dam, Trivandrum in South India in 2018; and enjoys expanding her practice through continuing education in-person and on-line, as well as retreat time at Yogaville, Virginia any time she can get there. She is a May 2020 graduate of Uttara Yoga Teacher Training in Roanoke, Virginia, is certified through Yoga Alliance, and has trained specifically in restorative, adaptive, and prenatal yoga instruction. 

Tracy and her husband Jim live in Sturgis, Michigan and have two (nearly) grown children, Mary Elizabeth (23), and James (19), who both reside in southwest Virginia. When her children were younger, Tracy was very involved with Mothers of Pre-Schoolers (MOPS) and found the connection to other parents and families invaluable in her evolution and growth as a mother. She hopes to foster that connection between the women and children that she now teaches. She understands the unique needs of moms in all stages of parenting. 

Tracy can focus on specific movement or health concerns, and/or on the focus of mind, breath, and movement to address depression, anxiety, stress, and life balance. An introductory consultation is provided at no cost. She also welcomes you to a free weekly gentle yoga class open to the entire Mala community. 

Questions about how Tracy can help you to integrate yoga into you and your family’s life are always welcome and encouraged.

We are SO excited to offer our community the Safe & Sound Protocol!

ABOUT SAFE AND SOUND PROTOCOL (SSP)

Based on years of research by Dr. Stephen Porges and his Polyvagal Theory, the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) is a five-hour therapeutic listening intervention designed to supports the client’s emotional regulation and neuroception (i.e. sense of one’s safety), as well as decrease the client’s auditory sensitivity. The music is designed to stimulate the vagus nerve, which is responsible for calming the nervous system. This allows for enhanced social engagement and resilience in children and adults. The purpose of SSP is to create new, positive connections in the brain that allow the client to regulate oneself by “stretching the nervous system, not stressing the nervous system.”

SSP is a great way to help children and adults move through major transitions (such as starting school, starting a new job, going on vacation), engage more purposefully in social interaction, experience emotional regulation, and prepare for participation in other therapeutic interventions. SSP is meant to complement the work a child or adult is already doing (or will be doing) in therapy– it is not meant as a stand along intervention. As SSP works implicitly on the nervous system to enhance one’s neuroception, the work with a therapist will work explicitly to recognize one’s state of regulation and find strategies to get back to a state of regulation more readily. The protocol is also adaptive and changes with the latest research in the field. Visit the Integrated Listening System (iLs) website for more information.

WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM SAFE AND SOUND PROTOCOL

SSP is a music-based intervention that can address dysregulation caused by Sensory Processing Disorders, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, sleep disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorders, misophonia, and other factors that cause an overactive or underactive emotional state. By reducing auditory sensitivities and improving the ability to process human speech, the goal of SSP is to calm the autonomic nervous system so that the child or adult can become more social, engaged, and responsive to their own emotional needs. Other benefits may include improved digestion, improved sleep, and improved vocal tone.

Safe and Sound Protocol has had a global effect on the brain and central nervous system. As a result, it is successfully integrated into a wide variety of therapies and programs. It can include programs that improve cognitive, language and social abilities. As our brain/body connection becomes more organized, we better process the world around us and become more confident, happy and engaged.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Interested participants will commit to listening to five, 60-minute sessions or ten, 30-minute sessions, depending on the discretion of the supervising therapist. The program can be completed remotely (at home) due to COVID-19. The cost of the intervention is $450 for the first month, and $300 for any subsequent months if needed.

MALA CLINICIANS OFFERING SSP

George Khamis, MA, TLLP

To learn more about SSP and get started, please contact us!