Common Questions
1. What is The Women’s Initiative’s main purpose?
Our mission is to empower women to transform challenging life situations into opportunities for growth and renewed well being. We create collaborative opportunities for women to explore health promoting behaviors, self-care practices, and lifestyle choices. Workshops, groups, and counseling are provided as a means to promote new skills.
Given that chronic stress is a major contributing factor to illness, anxiety, and depression, we will be promoting self-care skills that buffer the body and mind from the wear and tear of the stress response. We will also teach skills that promote emotional balance and positive interpersonal relationships. The following are examples of self-care skills:
The Relaxation Response
Breath Work
Imagery
Therapeutic Movement
Journal Writing
Expressive Art
Nutrition
Cognitive Restructuring
Problem Solving
Communication Skills
Value-Based Living
(a brief description of these skills are listed below)
These skills are attractive for several reasons. They are easy to learn, free, and accessible to anyone interested in learning them. Many are rooted in ancient wisdom traditions and are now validated by science. There is no stigma attached to practicing them and no expert is required in order to receive their benefits. This is important in a community where many people cannot afford adequate medical or mental health services. Self-care skills can be a powerful prevention tool as well as a means to help people achieve better health, more satisfying relationships, and more rewarding work lives. By learning to use these skills in a collaborative group environment, people also receive the well-documented health benefits associated with social support.
2. Why focus on stress management?
Because “stress” is something everyone has experienced and talked about, it is a familiar, acceptable concept to use in a therapeutic context. It is an effective gateway for addressing a wide range of associated physical, behavioral and mental health problems. By learning about stress physiology and its triggers, people develop a level of self-awareness helpful in making good life choices.
No other agency in Charlottesville is working solely to address the issue of chronic stress in the lives of women.
3. What services will you offer?
We will offer a range of services to reach a broad audience. Traveling workshops on the topic of chronic stress and self-care will be offered to community centers, work places, faith communities, schools, shelters, prisons, and clinics. An ongoing group called “Crafts for Relaxation” will be available weekly at The Women's Initiative. The crafts group will be a forum for educating about stress reduction.
We will provide two hours a week for scheduled Wellness Consultations at The Charlottesville Free Clinic. Our services will give patients an opportunity to explore stress reduction as it relates to physical health and emotional health.
Sliding-scale counseling will be available at The Women’s Initiative office on East High Street. A stress-management workshop and an ongoing bi-monthly stress management support group will also be offered at The Women’s Initiative office.
We plan to expand our services over time to include a school-based resiliency program for elementary age children and retreats for people experiencing specific stressful situations such as illness or loss.
4. How does The Women’s Initiative complement existing services in our community?
Charlottesville is fortunate to have a range of advocacy and mental health services for women. However, the need for services exceeds available resources. We aim to collaborate with existing agencies to offer accessible, effective programs.
We will be a resource for any agency wanting to educate their staff or consumers about stress reduction. We will actively seek opportunities to bring our expertise into existing organizations. We can do this as guest speakers or trainers.
5. How are members of the community going to access your services?
The Women’s Initiative is centrally located in the city of Charlottesville and is accessible by public transportation. As previously mentioned, our services will also be available at other locations.
6. How will your programs be funded? What fees will there be for services?
Some of our programs will be grant funded. Others will be reimbursed on a sliding scale basis. Our development team will work to cultivate the interest and support of community members. We also plan to have periodic fundraising events.
7. What precedents exist for this kind of work?
Our programs will be drawing on research in cognitive behavioral psychology, mind/body medicine, health psychology, and positive psychology. We are particularly interested in approaches to mental health and physical health that emphasize teachable life skills and the power of social support and community building.
8. How will you get referrals?
Because self-care skills are powerful tools in the management and treatment of most medical and mental health conditions, our services are a natural complement to those provided by area hospitals, clinics, and mental health services. We welcome partnerships with any organization seeking to promote the health and well being of women and their families. Our talks and workshops will be available to any interested agency or organization.
A brochure including a description of our services will be distributed to community agencies, retail establishments, medical centers, and faith communities.
9. How will you measure your success?
We will regularly ask for feedback from program participants and referral sources to learn more how we might best improve and expand our services. We will use evaluation forms and comment boxes to allow for anonymous responses.
We have invested in an assessment tool called the OQ Measure to allow us to monitor the effectiveness of counseling interventions.
10. What are your qualifications?
Our President, Bebe Heiner, is a licensed professional counselor with ten years of experience providing psychotherapy to individuals, couples, and families. She is the former Director of Counseling Services at FOCUS Women’s Resource Center, where she also developed and facilitated the Single Mothers’ Support Group and the Assertiveness Skills Training Workshop. She is interested in working collaboratively with women to facilitate change as they increase their awareness of how their thoughts, feelings and behavior patterns affect their health and well being.
Our Program Director, Carolyn Schuyler, is a licensed clinical social worker with ten years experience providing psychotherapy, psychoeducation, and group work to children and families. Carolyn graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Psychology. She received a Masters degree from the University of Michigan - School of Social Work and a post master's fellowship certificate from the Yale Child Study Center. For the last five years, Carolyn designed social and emotional learning programs for schools in the Washington, DC area. She regularly provided consultation to school administrators, training for faculty members, and programs for students.
In 2006 Carolyn developed a program for girls called “Strong Voices” to support girls in learning and practicing self-care and self-expressive skills. Carolyn hopes that through her skills and experience, she can work to bridge the gap between academic centers where exciting research on effective interventions exists and our local community where the information can improve lives. She strongly believes in the power of resiliency education, social support, and community building to enact positive change in people’s lives.
Brief Description of Self Care Skills
The Relaxation Response:
Thirty years ago Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School first provided the scientific data to support the health benefits of meditation. He identified the core elements of the meditation process and their physiological impact and named them the relaxation response. A range of activities such as saying the rosary or engaging in a yoga practice have the potential to elicit the relaxation response in the body.
Breath Work:
By learning to bring awareness to the breath and to breathe in ways that promote better oxygen exchange and relaxation, it is possible to experience a range of health benefits. Working with the breath is a simple but powerful tool to promote mental clarity and improved energy.
Imagery:
Images are thoughts with sensory components. Our bodies do not discriminate between the images in our minds and what is happening in reality. For example, an imagined threat will elicit the same stress response as an actual threat. By learning to explore and work with mental images, we can positively influence both the mind and body.
Therapeutic movement:
A wide range of movement activities are well established in the literature for their mental health benefits and physical health benefits. Included in this category are the practice of meditative movements (yoga, chi gong, tai chi) as well as expressive dance, mindful walking, and other forms of exercise. By exploring movement and its relation to emotions, thoughts, and physical well being, people can find new ways of using the body to influence their quality of life.
Journal Writing:
Expressing emotion through writing has proven health benefits. Creative journal writing is one means to facilitate healthy self-expression and insight.
Expressive Art:
Drawing and other artistic activities promote healthy engagement with emotions and allow aspects of the self that are typically out of our awareness to be expressed. This is important as research has proven that the suppression of emotion has negative health consequences.
Nutrition:
Food is our first medicine. To maximize the healing benefits of food, we first need to develop a level of self-awareness as to how eating and food choice relate to our emotional life. We can then begin to consciously choose food to support our health and happiness.
Problem Solving:
Learning to clarify feelings and needs and to identify available options for addressing them promotes stress hardiness. Problems become opportunities for new learning and growth.
Communication:
Much of our troubled communication is based in emotional reactivity and a failure to connect with our own true feelings and the true feelings and needs of others. Raising self awareness and empathy is a first step toward communicating intentionally.
Cognitive Restructuring:
Our thought patterns shape our experience of the world. By learning to witness thoughts and to work with them in ways that cultivate positive emotional states, it is possible to reduce emotional distress and promote health in the body.
Value-Based Living:
By cultivating our strengths, living according to our values and beliefs, and consistently evaluating what is important to us, we can enhance life satisfaction and health. The positive psychology movement has promoted many evidence-based self-care practices to enhance life meaning, purpose, and optimism.
