Learn with Niki

In this course, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how bias lives in the bodies of students who are subjected to discrimination, as well as in the education or helping professionals who are triggered to act on bias towards them. A polyvagal informed approach to this critical topic offers a unique lens through which participants will understand how bias impacts them and the students they serve. This course is not currently running, contact PVI to inquire about the next start date.
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Dr. Niki Elliott
EMBODIED EQUITY
Included in this course
A Polyvagal Approach to Education

Explore the neuroscience of how the nervous system responds to real or perceived threat and how this impacts the process of teaching and learning.

Explore the Body's Response to Racial Trauma & Stress

Introduce appeasement as a defense mechanism and how racial trauma impacts the nervous system. Practice somatic techniques that help reduce the impact of racial stress on the body

Establish Environmental and Cultural Cues of Felt-Safety

Understand how culturally relevant elements of environmental design, sensory stimulation, group rituals, and connections create physical and psychological safety for marginalized students.

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Course Timing

We are currently scheduling the next cohort of this course. Please contact us for details.

This course costs $799. Learners may opt to pay the full fee at registration, or to pay in three monthly installments. Learners will have access to the course for 365 days from the date of the first live session.

Course Description

Research clearly demonstrates the devastating impact of bias and discrimination in all areas of the helping professions: education, health care, law enforcement, and social services. Now more than ever, we need effective approaches to unpacking and disrupting implicit bias if we are to achieve the elimination of health and education disparities in our country.


Beyond pressing issues of racial inequity, people also experience daily bias and microaggressions due to their gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, family income, and/or disability. While bias and discrimination clearly impact learning, health, and legal outcomes, it has been difficult for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) trainings for educators and others in the helping professions to turn the tide on these statistics.


Many DEI trainings continue to fail or receive significant backlash from the dominant culture for a few reasons: (1) most people lack the intrapersonal awareness to recognize and diffuse their emotions and unconscious, body-based triggers that cause them to react in survival mode when their identity or privilege has been challenged or threatened; (2) most people do not spend time in community interacting with people they have been trained to fear or perceive as an “other.” 


A level of sustained social engagement is required to disconfirm existing stereotypes and allow mindful space for the development of social empathy, compassion, and right action; and (3) following DEI trainings, people need guidance to observe and track their behaviors, giving them an objective measurement of their transformation. 


They need to be taught how to proactively establish felt-safety and positive social engagement with those they serve, especially those who have historically been subjected to marginalization and identity-threat in public spaces.


We invite you to view a past introductory session about this course, here.


Extra Details
Earning CE's

For educators, this 25 hour course is eligible for 2 CEUs (exchanged at 12.5h = 1 CEU) through the University of San Diego for a $158 fee.

*In order to earn your CEs for this course, live attendance is required. Attendance means being present in real time on the Zoom meeting with your video turned on. A maximum of one absence is permitted as long as you view the recording of the class that you missed.


Continuing Education Info

  • This course is presented in a hybrid format
  • This course is for educators, healthcare providers, clinicians, coaches, helping professionals
  • Learners will have access to the course for 365 days from the date of the first live session.

Course Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, participants will:

  1. Understand how experiences of implicit bias, microaggressions, overt racism, and social marginalization impact the brain and nervous system and can be registered in the body as a form of trauma for people of all ages
  2. Explore the zones of regulation and how the brain’s capacity to learn, heal, and self-regulate is connected to the ventral vagal state of safety and social engagement. Discuss the implications for academic success and behavior regulation for students who are exposed to identity-threat consistently
  3. Complete reflective exercises to explore where unconscious bias lives in one’s own body and how it shows up as nervous system triggers (fight, flight, freeze, appease)
  4. Practice mind-body regulation strategies that help educators and helping professionals establish and maintain a ventral vagal state of social engagement, felt-safety, and co-regulation with students, especially when triggered by them
  5. Demonstrate an understanding of how to proactively create healing environments that cultivate a sense of felt-safety and belonging for optimized social engagement, behavior regulation, healing and/or academic achievement for all

Instructor(s)

Niki Elliott, Ph.D.

Dr. Niki Elliott is a clinical professor and director of the Center for Embodied Equity and Neurodiversity at the University of San Diego SOLES. A leading voice in neurodiversity and trauma-informed education, she has trained thousands of teachers, school counselors, and helping professionals worldwide to better support students with learning differences, mental health diagnoses, trauma histories, and behavioral challenges. Her work integrates educational neuroscience, polyvagal theory, mind-body practices and embodied equity to build emotionally safe, neuroinclusive learning environments. Dr. Elliott also serves on the Board of Directors and teaches as a course partner for the Polyvagal Institute, and she is the author of the book "Heart-Centered Connection: 7 Essential Skills for Helping Neurodiverse and Marginalized Children Thrive."