Participant's Materials 
Session 1
Responding to Stress 
Summary for Classroom Teams

Objectives

This session will enable you to:

· Recognize the sources of stress that can affect adults.
· Understand physiological, physical, and psychological responses to stress.
· Handle stress in healthy rather than unhealthy ways.
· Describe how families are affected by multistressed environments.
· Plan ways to work as a team to assist children and families.

Materials

Agenda

I. Presentation of the Content and Format of the Sessions (10 minutes)

II. Discussion Topics and Activities

A. Your Own Experiences With Stress (1 hour)

First, the group will discuss stress: the kinds you experience, how you cope, what you do to minimize sources of stress, and what happens when it gets out of control. It is important to recognize your own responses to stress and to learn how to handle it effectively because your job (working with children and families) can be very demanding. Think about the question: What is stress? The definition in the reading may get you started.

What are some sources of stress in your life outside of work?

Your trainer will write down the sources of stress suggested by you and the other participants on the left side of a flip chart. Think about whether you perceived the stress as a challenge or a threat. You will use the right side of the flip chart later in this session.

What are some sources of stress that take place at work?

Your trainer will write down the work-related sources of stress suggested by you and the other participants on the left side of a clean sheet of flip chart paper. Think about whether you perceived the stress as a challenge or a threat. You will use the right side of the flip chart later in this session.

What are some of the ways that adults respond to stress?

Most of the ways adults respond to stress are normal and generally are temporary. They do not render people helpless to cope with their stress, nor do they make them unable to cope with the rest of their lives. They are presented in the reading to help you recognize how you may respond to the stress in your own life.

What are some things you do to handle stress?

As you review healthy and unhealthy ways to handle stress, be aware that many people respond to stress in "unhealthy" ways. Try to use the "healthy" techniques because they are generally more effective and really do relieve tension.

What are some things you can you do when stress becomes overwhelming?

The group will review the lists of sources of stress on and off the job recorded on a flip chart earlier in this session. For each source of stress, you and the other participants can suggest healthy ways to handle the stress. These will be listed in the right column on the flip chart.

B. Living in Multistresses Environments (45 minutes)

As you participate in this discussion, think about the following:

Most of the sessions in this staff development program will contribute to answering the question: How can classroom teams respond? To begin addressing this important question, you will participate in a learning activity with your classroom team. Handout 1-2: Accepting Families includes the materials you will need to conduct several role plays.

After the role plays, your trainer will lead a discussion on how to accept all children and families. You will consider questions such as the following:

III. Closing (5 minutes)  

Reading 1: Responding to Stress 

Stress can be defined as:

A characteristic of the environment or the social situa tion of the individual that poses a threat to the individual and requires that the individual use personal, physiological, physical, or psychological resources to meet the real or perceived threat.

Or, more simply:

Any change that you must adjust to.

Stress occurs when we perceive a threat, regardless of whether the threat is real or imaginary. For example, imagine yourself stuck in traffic one morning on your way to work. When you first get stuck you don't know if the traffic jam will quickly clear or if you will be stuck for an hour. Thus, the threat you perceive (being late to work) may be real or imaginary. Because you don't know how the traffic jam will turn out, you may respond by panicking. If the traffic does clear, you must still recover from the effects of feeling stressed.

Stress can be very helpful to us in responding to every day life situations and to emergency situations. In the above example, the stress you feel in the traffic jam may cause you to change your morning routine so you can leave earlier and avoid future traffic jams. It might cause you to try a different route around the traffic jam. We all experience a certain level of stress. To be completely free of stress is to be dead.

Change in a person's life can be perceived as a threat or a challenge. Both situations, threat and challenge, involve stress, but stress does not always have to be bad. When you perceive a situation as threatening, it is difficult to use your problem solving skills. However, when you perceive a situation as challenging, often you can use those problem solving skills to cope with the situation.

The sources of stress in your personal life may differ from those of your colleagues. What is stressful for one person may not be for another. In addition, not all stress is negative. Many joyous occasions such as the birth of a child, a wedding, or a graduation also can cause stress. Sometimes, feelings of stress can give people the extra energy they need to tackle a difficult job, handie a dangerous situation, or respond in an emergency.

Some sources of stress have relatively short-term effects:

· being caught in traffic on the way to work;
· finding something to wear to church;
· having a disagreement with a spouse or child;
· getting ready for a party;
· running out of an ingredient needed to cook dinner; or
· getting caught in a rain storm.

Other sources of stress have more long-term effects:

· living on a strict budget;
· getting divorced;
· being the parent of a child with a disability;
· getting married;
· being evicted;
· making funeral arrangements for a close friend or relative;
· returning to college;
· losing ajob; or
· caring for a family member during a long-term illness.

Stress on the job is a normal part of daily life for many people. Work-related stress might be due to a variety of situations such as:

· disagreeing with a colleague or supervisor;
· running out of materials in the middle of an activity;
· handling a child who is having a tantrum;
· caring for children who have many problems in their lives; or
· working with a parent whose problems are over-whelming.

Not everyone is affected by the same sources of stress, nor do we react to stress in the same ways. Stress can bring on reactions such as the following:

When these responses continue over a long period of time, the individual probably is not coping with the stress. For example, if a person has mood swings for a few days while handling a difficult situation, there is no cause for alarm. If, however, the mood swings continue for weeks or months, the individual may need more help in coping with stress.

It's almost impossible to eliminate all of the sources of stress in our lives. Instead, we need to leam how to cope in healthy ways so the stress does not lead to "burn-out." Some examples of unhealthy and healthy ways to handle stress follow:
 

Most people handle stress using a variety of healthy and unhealthy strategies. If you try to use more of the "healthy" strategies, you will find that they generally are more effective and really do relieve tension.
 
There are times when adults face situations that are over whelming. These overwhelming situations may bring on a type or amount of stress that is beyond what has been discussed thus far. These adults are having difficulty coping with stress. As long as they internalize feelings rather than act upon them, their tension levels rise. Prolonged, unmanaged stress can result in physical illnesses, mental health problems, or breakdowns in interpersonal relationships.

The stress that some Head Start staff experience is very real and tends to be frustrating. Using healthy techniques to manage stress can help you "get back on track" and prevent "burn-out." Managing your own stress is especially impor tant if you work with children and families living in multistressed environments.
 
A multistressed environment is one in which children and families are affected over a long period of time by one or more sources of significant stress such as domestic or community violence, homelessness, substance abuse, or lack of basic necessities. The stresses are not caused by single events such as divorce or death of a parent. Rather, they are routine, un-relenting, and woven into daily life. They are a result of societal conditions and pressures that are beyond the control of individual families.

The coping strategies discussed earlier in this session will not provide much relief from these unrelenting sources of stress. Families may be able to develop strategies for resolving the stress in their lives; however, there are many situations over which they have no control.

The following are examples of sources of long-term, significant stress that might be experienced by Head Start families. There may be other sources that are specific to your community.

Families tend to have similar concerns, needs, and behaviors, reguardless of what is causing the high levels of stress in their lives. Some families have the skills and strength needed to cope with their stress in positive ways. However, some families are overwhelmed by their stressful environment. They may experience effects such as the following:
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