compass youth project - the youth room
What is Sensory?
Rolling down a hill, swimming, climbing a tree, sifting sand and petting a dog or a cat are all sensory activities. Each of us have preferences for certain sensory activities. We use them to get excited, have fun, relax or otherwise change our mood. Why is there this interaction between our senses, the world, and our inner life? We believe after years of research that each of us are attracted to different types of sensory input. It may be based in part on our experiences and in part some of it may be biologically driven - as families often share similar tastes in sensory experience. We do know that while there is plenty of overlap each person is individually tuned in to certain sensory channels. Some people are more into textures, others are more affected by what we see or hear. Other sensory modalities involve kinesthetic sensation (spinning, jumping, rolling or climbing), wet, hot, cold, or gooey, smooth, deep pressure, knobbly, simple or complex shapes, etc.
At The Compass Rose Health and Wellness Centre we are attentive to this method of modifying our mood, assessing each person for the impact of sensory input in their life and using that as part of our service to you. People of all ages benefit from this added perspective - learning tools to manage their life, their relationships and their family members emotional ups and downs. Sensory is the added dimension that makes wellness more achievable for the average person as well as those of us with added challenges.
What is The Compass Youth Project - The Youth Room?
The Youth Room - A uniquely designed counselling space combining a diverse range of stimuli with invitations to explore, engage and further develop your senses. This room includes specialized lighting, unique colour combinations, musical items/sounds, soft sensory items and aromas all contained within a safe and fun environment that invites each person to explore and connect to their senses during talk therapy by using a host of sensory modalities at your disposal.
Benefits Of Sensory?
WHAT IS THE VALUE OF SENSORY PLAY?
There are numerous benefits associated with exposure to The Youth Room here at The Compass Rose.
1 - Stimulates the senses - By inviting individuals to explore and connect with their senses, it allows for a heightened ability to communicate with the world around them.
2 - Enhances body movement, improves balance and spatial orientation - The Youth Room can assist individuals in further developing their visual processing abilities, including both fine and gross motor skills, helping improve quality of life in daily activities.
3 - Advances learning and enhances play - The sensory stimulation introduced during time in The Youth Room can assist your therapist to engage you in activity and conversation that employs different areas of the brain, intrinsically helping you absorb and retain more knowledge, material and instruction and enhancing the level of educational need that you typically require.
4- Promotes emotional wellbeing - exposure to The Youth Room here at The Compass Rose Health and Wellness Centre can provide clients with the right tools to cope with many developmental and/or physical impairments. As well as enhancing relaxation and motivation, The Youth Room encourages higher levels of overall happiness (through sensory play) and general wellbeing and can increase body awareness in individuals with continued and ongoing sensory exposure.
5 - Tackles behavioural problems - Sensory environments can help individuals improve focus and become engaged as they become highly absorbed in the sensory experience, providing moments of calm - a stillness surrounded by comfort as the normally distressed and/or overactive individuals receive opportunities to relax while helping inactive individuals to feel better connected and engaged in the moment.
6 - Provides an effective and safe therapeutic environment - By developing an individualized, tailor-made sensory environment, you are encouraged to explore and interact in The Youth Room with comfort and ease, without feeling forced to adapt to your surroundings, your surroundings envelope you with a sense of warmth and relaxation - a wellness experience unique to the services available to you and your family here at The Compass Rose Health and Wellness Centre.
7- Improves client - therapist communication - The sensory approach can inspire and strengthen better communication, improving the clients social interaction and language skills and encouraging improved standards of care for the therapeutic relationship.
8 - A client-centred approach to treatment - Instead of being judged by characteristics of their condition, clients at The Compass Rose can expect to receive client-centred care - a noticeable focus on the person, rather than a set of “problems/issues/symptoms” to fix. Exposure to The Sensory Room enables clients to better understand and interpret their unique systems for learning, overcoming challenges, communicating and in some cases, can also support improved sensory processing over time and continued development.
9 - A therapy modality with low-risk and no known side effects to date - Sensory rooms have numerous benefits and have been recognized as helping to reduce dependence on medications, particularly in reference to dementia sufferers with increased levels of anxiety, restlessness and nervousness.
To be clear, the benefits of using Sensory at The Compass Rose are endless and its therapeutic effectiveness is immeasurable - a wellness experience you have to see to believe.
Call or book today and discover how The Youth Room can be used to facilitate growth and development of the mind, body and spirit.
Start your wellness journey today here at The Compass Rose Health and Wellness Centre.
Sensory rooms provide a relaxed atmosphere for individuals to nurture and develop their sight, sound, touch and hearing and encourages and fosters independence and autonomy.
THE YOUTH ROOM
Child and Youth Counselling
The Compass Youth Project - The Youth Room here at The Compass Rose, features a uniquely designed and precisely engineered environment. It provides children, teens and adults with opportunities to engage their senses and experience sensory exploration through play by discovering various forms of stimulation.
The Value Of Sensory Play
Sensory play is any form of play involving the five senses - building with lego, manipulating play-dough, splashing in puddles, creating “mud pies” with friends, smelling freshly cut grass on a warm summers eve. These are all iconic examples from our childhood of us identifying, interacting and connecting with the world around us by experiencing play through our senses.
During childhood, we learn how to interpret the world through our senses by engaging many parts of the brain through sensory exploration. This experiential learning encourages development of both fine and gross motor skills, enhances imaginative processes and assists in social, cognitive and language development. The “experimenting” that takes place during sensory play teaches children how to get along with others, make predictions and grow ideas, problem-solve and understand scientific concepts through experimentation and growth of communicative skills.
The most convincing debate encouraging the integration of sensory into play is the abundance of evidence validating the enrichment and enhancement of emotional literacy - the natural ability to express and understand feelings. Emotional literacy involves developing self - awareness and the recognition of one’s own feelings. More significantly, it also involves understanding how to manage these thoughts and feelings, such as the ability to remain calm when angered or restore confidence in oneself when faced with doubt. Furthermore, emotional literacy involves having sensitivity to the feelings of others and being able to recognize and adapt accordingly, while also at the same time, learn the ability to effectively manage and express your own emotions appropriately. Through play, we learn to interpret body language, tone and other elements of communication, establishing our foundation for relationship building and launching our journey into emotional intelligence.
Start your journey to wellness today by calling The Compass Rose and experience the countless benefits achieved through the introduction of sensory by various services disciplines. -Counselling, Sensory/Play Therapy, Massage, etc.
Benefits of using Sensory in counselling
Read below to discover more about the impact of sensory in counselling. When we experience challenges stemming from sensory processing issues, it can impact our social, emotional and academic functioning.
Counselling Using Sensory
As children, we experience the world through our senses - the feel of soft fabric against your skin, the smell of cookies baking in the oven, the sound of chimes blowing in the breeze, the muscle control required to throw or catch a ball.
We typically learn and develop these core skills of understanding, processing and reacting to information given from our senses during childhood and adolescence which formulates the way in which we respond to the world, well into adulthood.
Most of us have occasional challenges processing sensory but may not recognize the origin or its impact on how we relate and interpret information received.
Particularly in respect to trauma, the body responds to sensory input with biological reactions that can impact sensory processing and the manner in which memories are encrypted and stored. Trauma experience can create heightened sensory awareness to environmental stimuli, which might otherwise have gone unnoticed and can become powerfully imprinted upon us inappropriately as associations of the traumatic event.This is particularily evident as the heightened arousal response becomes intrusive in one’s life.
While most of us have these occasional difficulties processing sensory information, individuals struggling with coping with the impact of sensory symptoms are typically the result of environmental circumstances, prenatal and/or birth complications and/or possible restrictions in early life - a combination of both genetic and environmental factors, as discovered by clinical research. These symptoms become complicated by the introduction of traumatic events at critical developmental stages, ultimately affecting sensory modulation in childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. Sensory modulation is your ability to receive, regulate and organize how the brain responds to sensory input as well as strongly influences arousal levels and allows you to stay regulated. This regulation helps you participate in learning, social engagement and human occupation.