Not a typical Monday Night: De-Escalation Training with Sistering
CanadaTorontoToronto Sep 17, 2019 Mariana Belham
Speaker and Program Director Priyanka Sheth holds the presentation slideshow, that includes tips and small group exercises. (Photo by Mariana Belham)
Instead of staying home watching TV, Monday, September 17, around 20 people gathered for a De-Escalation Training session at a Bloorcourt Village coffee shop.
Priyanka Sheth, Program Director at the not-for-profit organization Sistering, gave tips, techniques on how to de-escalate a situation of an encounter with a homeless person, how to properly talk to and treat them. Participants varied in ages and occupations also learned about trauma and ways to cope with it.
Definitely a different way to spend a Monday night, people at The Maker Bean Cafe had the chance to expand the ideas of empathy towards homelessness and better understand how traumas affect that marginalized population, strengthening the community together.
The organizers also distributed many informational sheets and their latest 2018/2019 Annual Report that is yet to be launched to their website, but here’s a preview on the section on homelessness crisis:
The general situation of homelessness in Toronto. (Source: Sistering 2019/2019 Annual Report)
What Sistering has done to make a change. (Source: Sistering 2019/2019 Annual Report)
And if you want to know what you can do in a heated encounter with those individuals in a distress situation, here’s the Beginner Tip Sheet on De-Escalating:
(Source: Sistering.org)
Even though Sistering holds their free training sessions regularly, you do need to register beforehand since the space is fairly limited. You can do that through Eventbrite.
For Sheth, having one person actually applying the knowledge she gives makes the effort to prepare those sessions worth it. ”If I hear one story from somebody who used it and was able to do it effectively, I got my goal,” she says, “I just need one.”
