Professional Development in Northland

A mindfulness approach to activating creative energy.

Presenter: Celia Hall

Awakening our senses to the artist within. This is a workshop to discover and explore through art and movement the fountain of creative energy within. Through mindfulness practice we can increase our sensory awareness of energy flows and blockages in the body. Art is energy expressing itself.

“Our real illiteracy is our inability to create” – Frederick Hundertwasser.
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up” – Pablo Picasso 

Positive Psychology: practical applications with children & young people

Presenter: Dr Emma Woodward

There are two complementary strategies for improving the wellbeing of people. One is to relieve what is negative in life; the other is to strengthen what is positive. Mainstream psychology focuses largely on the first strategy; positive psychology emphasizes the second. In less than a decade, positive psychology has caught the attention of the academic community and increasingly is successfully utilised by helping professionals to improve the overall wellbeing of the people they work with.  

Positive psychology approaches balance practice so that they are as concerned with strength as with weakness; as interested in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst; and as concerned with making the lives of people fulfilling as with healing pathology. The value of positive psychology is to complement and extend the problem-focused psychology that has been dominant for many decades. Its focus is on potential, and it aims to discover and promote the factors that allow individuals, families and communities to thrive. In this highly engaging workshop Dr Emma Woodward will introduce positive psychology models and techniques that are of particular relevance to work with children, young people and families. Some of the key areas that will be discussed include: 

• The science behind positive psychology and why it has proven to be so successful
• Why relationships and social connection are vital for well-being at all ages, and how mindset, optimism, and positive emotions and experiences contribute to well-being
• An introduction to positive psychology concepts that build, promote and develop well-being 
• Positive psychology’s links to positive youth development and resilience, emotions research and cognitive and social neuroscience 
• An exploration of practical take-away techniques and tools, that have applicability across a range of age groups and professional settings, which promote wellbeing and resilience.
• Embedding a wellbeing culture, the why, what and how of wellbeing practices.

Dr. Emma Woodward is a Child, Educational and Community Psychologist. She completed her Doctorate in Child, Educational and Community Psychology at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in the UK.  She has always worked in the social care and education sector, predominately with children and young people in care in both community and residential settings. Currently she resides in Auckland and runs a successful strengths-based consultancy using  positive psychology principles to promote wellbeing and resilience within the education sector. 

Introduction to Working with Clients with Sexual Violence Trauma

Presenter: Dr Kim McGregor

Due to the interpersonal betrayal and complex effects associated with child sexual abuse (CSA), working with survivors can be challenging. Making things more difficult, many counselling and other courses do not provide specific training for this issue. These factors often leave counsellors and other professionals lacking confidence when working with survivors of child sexual abuse.This one day workshop will outline the prevalence, dynamics and effects of CSA, useful therapeutic approaches and messages from almost 200 Aotearoa/New Zealand survivors of CSA about what they found helpful and unhelpful in therapy. Most frequent comments from participants of this workshop are about counsellors and other professionals feeling "more confident" in their work and "validated" in their approaches.

Dr Kim McGregor, QSO, has worked as a therapist with survivors of sexual abuse for 30 years. She is the author of: Warriors of Truth a self-help book for adult survivors of child sexual abuse (1994); the up-dated version Surviving and Moving On (2008); the first set of ACC national therapy guidelines Therapy Guidelines: Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (2001). She has published several papers including in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, and Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. She is the co-author of the book Powergames (published in NZ & UK 2001). Her doctoral thesis Therapy It’s a Two-Way Thing (2003) explored what a sample of women survivors of child sexual abuse found helpful and unhelpful in therapy. Her post-doctoral thesis explored the health impacts of child sexual abuse and the types of responses survivors wanted from health care professionals. Kim currently runs her own research and therapy company Tiaki Consultants alongside her partner Russell Smith. She also has a part time role as the Chief Victims Advisor to Government. From 2005-2015 Kim was the Executive Director of Rape Prevention Education Whakatu Mauri, 2005-2013 was a founding and executive member of the Te Ohaakii a Hine - National Network Ending Sexual Violence Together, and the Tauiwi Caucus Chair, 2007-2009 was a member of the New Zealand government’s Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence and was a founding and executive member of Project Restore 2004-2013. Kim has worked alongside Louise Nicholas since 2006 and wrote the Foreword for her book Louise Nicholas My Story.

Managing Risk in Young People: effective assessment and therapeutic strategies for suicidal and self-harm behaviour

Presenter: Dr Kirsten Davis

Suicide is the most common cause of death for young New Zealanders. Every year there are also 2500 hospital admissions for intentional self-harm injuries.  When distressed, suicidal and/or self-harm thoughts or actions are often strategies used in an attempt to regulate emotion. The development of more effective strategies is imperative to support young people to move towards recovery. Suicidal and self-harming behaviours are challenging to work with and many professionals view this work as being complicated and anxiety provoking. This workshop is for professionals who work with young people and will increase understanding, confidence and competence in how to recognise and appropriately respond to suicidal ideation or self-harming behaviour when they encounter it in their work. 

Some of the key content Kirsten will discuss includes:

• How self-harm differs from but also contributes to suicidal risk.
• Engaging and effective assessment strategies for suicidal and self-harm behaviour which assist to conceptualise the function of the behaviour within the wider context.
• How to teach and generalise effective and practical skills to regulate emotion.
• How to develop protocols to guide the management of behaviour in a crisis. How to engage the wider system in supporting the young person.
• How to support the families in developing strategies to more effectively support their young person and increase awareness of contingencies reinforcing suicidal and/or self-harm behaviour.

This practical and interactive workshop will be relevant to all counselling and helping professionals working with young people across the health, education, welfare and NGO sectors. 

Dr Kirsten Davis is an Auckland-based Clinical Psychologist, trainer, consultant and supervisor who specialises in working with children, young people and their families. She has a particular interest in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy and has been involved in the development, implementation and coordination of DBT Programs in both the health and care and protection sectors. Kirsten’s engaging presentation style, combined with her extensive experience of successfully working with distressed young people mean this is a workshop not to be missed for any professional seeking to strengthen their knowledge of ‘best practice’ interventions with young people at risk of self-harm or suicide.