Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathy Flaminio.
Hi Kathy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Now that I am older, I’m looking back on how my life experiences are woven into an amazing tapestry representing an incredible journey, starting when I was very young. With my father who was an archeologist and my mother who was a social worker, the richness of culture and diversity was deeply rooted into the fabric of my being.
I always wanted to be a social worker and live in a city, so I chose Macalester College and graduated with a major in anthropology and human services, and a minor in Spanish. I started my career in mental health at St. Joseph’s Home for Children where I had the privilege of working with children in crisis. I then moved into drug prevention in a bilingual community at Hispanos in Minnesota and went on to receive my master’s degree in social work at the University of Minnesota.
I knew very early on I wanted to work in education and spent the next twenty years as a social worker in the Minneapolis Public Schools. I loved my work in the schools, but always felt like something was missing. In 2005 staff were all under an extraordinary amount of stress, and with the high ratio of students to staff, many students fell through the cracks. It seemed like most staff were in a perpetual state of distress and trauma. During that time, I was also working in the fitness industry teaching mindfulness and yoga, which I experienced as a welcomed opportunity for more balance and a sense of well-being.
So, one day I had an “ah-ha” moment at work, when I realized I was supporting youth, staff, and families from the chin up. Knowing that trauma resides in our nervous systems, I knew I needed to start working with the whole person – mind, body, and heart. This was a pivotal point in my career and my life. The next day, I looked at the students in my group session and said, “We are done talking!” This is when I started integrating simple BREATHE-MOVE-REST practices into my work with youth. Within six weeks I saw changes I hadn’t seen in ten years. Students were able to stay in their classrooms, reported feeling like they could navigate big emotions and stressors, and were generalizing these practices outside of the classroom and into their homes and communities.
I applied for and received a year sabbatical with another colleague to research what was going on with mindfulness, movement, and mental health in educational settings. Then, in 2009 I officially began my business, 1000 Petals LLC. During my sabbatical, I had the privilege of meeting the founders of Yoga Calm® and collaborated with them to bring mindfulness, movement, and social-emotional learning into schools. After my sabbatical, I returned to my previous role in Minneapolis Public Schools, and it was there where my colleague and I began to train educators to use mind-body practices. We also conducted action research on mind-body practices for self-and co-regulation and saw remarkable results. Behavioral referrals reduced, time on task increased, decibel levels in classrooms lowered, and educators’ physical, emotional, and mental health increased! This resulted in staff missing less days of work and feeling like they could better manage their workloads. These mind-body practices were the missing link! In other words, when we work with the nervous system, we allow the body to move into a relaxed-alert state and THIS is where healing and learning can happen more effectively.
In addition to working in schools, 1000 Petals branched into hospitals, juvenile services, childcare settings, and corporate environments and we began developing MoveMindfully® products and programs. So here we are today with a comprehensive suite of services offered by MoveMindfully, embedding the science of mindfulness, movement, and social-emotional learning into simple trauma-responsive practices that can be used throughout the day to create ease, focus, and community connection.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Like most journeys, the road includes detours and roadblocks. For me, navigating the bumps in the roads came from staying open, allowing myself lots of grace, and surrounding myself with a team of individuals who were inspired and equipped to support the mission and vision of rooting trauma-responsive mind-body practices into the fabric of our communities.
I knew I always wanted to be a social worker but being a business owner was never on my radar. I would say my main growth points were embracing not knowing what I didn’t know and continuing to listen and respond to what was really needed to support the mental health of youth and adults.
A challenge that continues is balancing my entrepreneurial and innovative spirit with the complexities of running a business. Thus, investing in coaching and peer support has been a priority for the past several years. As a result, I have learned how to create a strategic plan and be nimble enough to pivot when needed. This has allowed our organization to expand quickly. We are now nationwide and have begun work internationally. We have also spent a lot more time training our staff in trauma-responsive practices, embodied SEL, and embodied equity.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
MoveMindfully® is a training and consulting company that brings the science of mindfulness, movement, and social-emotional learning into simple trauma-responsive practices that are used in educational, therapeutic, corporate, and home environments. We offer training, workshops, products, consultation, residencies, and curriculum that teach simple mind-body practices for self-regulation, focus, and overall well-being. Based on the latest research in neuroscience and best practices for intervening with trauma, anxiety, and depression, our tools for thriving consist of card decks, posters, books, and other products that illustrate MoveMindfully BREATHE-MOVE-REST activities.
What sets us apart is our systems-level approach for working within educational, therapeutic, and corporate settings. We have created a suite of services that allow each setting to integrate this work for individuals, groups, and site-wide implementation. We believe all adults working with youth will benefit from these practices because their nervous systems are the intervention. When they are regulated, it greatly impacts their ability to connect with youth, colleagues, and others. At the most basic level, we all want to be seen, heard, and understood. When my nervous system is regulated, I can be present for others who will feel my presence; and that is where learning and healing can truly happen.
What I am most proud of is our training and products which have been created directly from our 30 years of experience in schools, hospitals and other therapeutic settings. All the photos we feature are of our students, and their friends and families. They are real people showing how simple BREATHE-MOVE-REST practices can be incorporated throughout the day for overall well-being, learning and healing.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
A huge part of the MoveMindfully success comes from a passionate and committed team of individuals who are willing to do the work needed to support our vision and mission. One thing we learned early in our journey is that to bring mind-body practices into the world, we must do our own work. In the past several years, we have worked to address the need for a team that more closely matches the populations we serve. We have created a model where we collaborate with the communities we work with to support champions of this work within their organizations.
We continue to collaborate with organizations and figure out how we can best support the sustainability of this work in their organization. The pandemic has increased our commitment to getting this work out to children, youth, families, and communities as comprehensively as possible. We are so excited to be creating a MoveMindfully BREATHE-MOVE-REST App that will make our card decks more accessible to everyone. So, if your child has experienced MoveMindfully practices at school or in a crisis mental health setting, it can easily be brought home to continue to support not only your child but your whole family.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@move-mindfully.com
- Website: move-mindfully.com
- Instagram: @movemindfullyconnect
- Facebook: @MoveMindfullyConnect
- Twitter: @MoveMindfullyCo
- Youtube: @MoveMindfullyConnect