Week 5 and 6

These past 2 weeks I have been focusing on a research project that was assigned to me in the beginning of the semester, as we presented them to the head of VOICES, Mary Fetchet and this week we presented to the head of programming. My research project was about mindfulness and how this practice relates to VOICES and helping those who have experienced/been impacted by a mass act of terrorism/violence. My project was very broad and not very specific last week, as I was waiting for feedback from Mary in order to narrow down my research and find specific people who would possibly come and present during a webinar or in person for VOICES. I found one mindfulness expert, named David Creswell, who focused on how to train your mind to become more resilient through practicing mindfulness through daily practices and neuroimaging . Mary was very interested in him and before presenting to the head of programming I collected all of the information I could find about is work and him and created a spreadsheet that explained exactly what he did. The head programming will be reaching out to David to see if he would be willing to present to the members of the VOICES community. Mary also told me to research another mindfulness expert Jon Kabat Zinn, who focused on the more meditative side of mindfulness and leads people through Buddhist teachings to become more mindful in their everyday activities. This project was extremely interesting to me as it brought in aspects of mental health that I have never learned about or discussed in any of my classes before. It was interested to research mental health through this perspective and learn about how much it helps those who have experienced extreme trauma in their life. After I further researched these two experts, I presented my findings to the head of programming at VOICES in order to see if they are individuals she would think would be a good fit to present for the VOICES community.We ultimately decided that they would be very informative on presenting for us, specifically if we could get them to present together, and I will be further working with the head of programming to contact these two people in order for them to come and present to us in the future, as they thought their work related heavily to the work that VOICES performs.