Training Programs for Residential Care/Foster Care

These workshops are available by request.

If your organization or group is interested in any these workshops please contact: Sandra Marshall – Coordinator, Training and Development, training@ckmconsultation.com

 

How to Stay Positive While Working With Difficult Clients

Length: 1 full day

We are challenged to help children and families with many serious issues and problems. Our clients’ styles of coping and their resultant behaviour will stir up powerful feelings in the staff who try to help them. Their behaviour can elicit anger in us, leave us frightened, or overwhelm us. These feelings, when not acknowledged and processed, can result in inappropriate or ineffective treatment responses.

By attending this workshop you will learn to:

Who should attend:

Staff who are working with difficult children and families who are searching for ways to stay positive and maintain a beneficial therapeutic relationship with clients that they find challenging.

Connecting with Relationship Resistant Children/Youth

Length: 1 day

The things we say and do with children and youth determine the kind of relationship we have with them. Children who feel unloved and unattached are often rageful and rebellious. They become locked in defiant opposition with adults. These are the children who become “adult-wary”. In this workshop, participants will learn: why these children are relationship-resistant; how to develop therapeutic relationships; the importance of the role of the foster parent in the child’s life; common mistakes made in parenting these children; and tips on helping foster parents develop capacity to provide better care.

Who should attend:

This workshop is designed for Clinicians, Social Workers, and Child & Youth Workers working with children/youth in the community.

Maximizing the Therapeutic Potential of Residential Workers and Foster Parents: Caring for the Traumatized Child/Youth

Length: 1 day

The goal of this training is to increase understanding of children/youth in out-of-home placements and develop strategies for successful intervention.

The impact of abuse, neglect, and other traumatic experiences on children and youth can have a detrimental effect on their emotional, behavioural, physical, spiritual, intellectual, sexual, cognitive, and developmental well-being. An abused and/or traumatized child’s capacity to form attachments with caregivers (foster parents, adoptive parents, and residential counsellors) can also be compromised.

In this session, participants will learn how abused and traumatized children understand the world around them, how they interact with others, and how their issues manifest themselves in their behaviour. Other ongoing challenges faced by these children such as anxiety, trauma triggers, mental health issues, and relationship struggles will be discussed.

In this workshop participants will learn:

Who should attend:

This workshop is designed for Residential Staff, Foster Parents, and Clinicians who are working with children in out-of-home placements.

Milieu Treatment – “Back to the Basics”

Length: 1 day

This workshop will focus on the challenges and difficulties of a milieu environment. In an effort to improve the quality of life of the children, youth and staff in a milieu setting for emotionally disturbed children, we need to focus on the essential elements, process and climate of the therapeutic milieu. The Milieu program should be attuned to the individual, and his or her capacities and choices. Key elements in the therapeutic milieu: self-esteem, relationship building, realistic expectations, and planned daily activities will be explored.

Participants will also have an opportunity to examine novel ways of reinforcing behaviours and understanding how to best communicate with each child and each other within the milieu environment.

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is designed for Residential Staff, Foster Parents, and Clinicians who are working with children in out-of-home placements.

Resiliency: The Hope of Overcoming Adversity

Length: 2 hour presentation

Pain, grief, hurt, loss, betrayal, trauma – these are some of the challenges that are part of the tapestry of our lives. How is it that some survive their painful experiences and others are crushed? How can we use these experiences as opportunities to learn about ourselves and connect with others? In this service we will explore the qualities we can nurture in ourselves and in others to transform pain into something useful, to live life with resiliency.

Who should attend:

Anyone wishing to learn more about how people who are faced with sometimes almost insurmountable obstacles are able to overcome and thrive.

Running Successful Mutual Aid Groups for Adolescents and Adults

Length: 1 full day

Group work can be a very effective tool to assist clients with a wide variety of problems and issues. Harnessing the power of mutual aid and a shared experience can have many potential benefits compared with other forms of therapeutic intervention.

This workshop will address:

Who Should Attend:

This workshop has been designed to assist workers who want to run groups for adolescents and adults.

Silent Victims: Children and Youth Who Witness Violence in Their Homes

Length: 1 day

They are the innocent bystanders….the hidden victims…and the silent witnesses. These are the individuals that struggle in school, fear leaving their home, have sleep disturbances, worry about their safety and their family’s safety, have increased somatic complaints, intrusive thoughts and memories, and increased anxieties. Children and youth who witness violence in their homes are often as traumatized as those who are directly affected by violence.

This workshop will focus on the impact of violence and fear on the development of the child. It will look at how violence can alter the development of the child’s brain, resulting in changes in social, emotional, behavioural, and cognitive functioning. The goal of this workshop is to help participants gain a better understanding of the complexities of the impact of children witnessing family violence.

Participants will have an opportunity to discuss the challenges, difficulties and struggles working with these children/youth. Important and effective prevention, intervention, and treatment approaches will be reviewed.

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is designed for Clinicians, Social Workers, and Child & Youth Workers working with children/youth in the community.

Separation and Saying Goodbye!

Length: 1 day

How we deal with youth who are leaving their home, leaving residential care and/or foster care has a powerful effect on pre- and post-placement adjustment. Many foster parents and/or residential counsellors come into the lives of young people with the goal of helping them to leave us. Ideally, separation begins at intake! The purpose of this workshop is to understand the issues of separation in relation to the youth and the foster parent/residential counsellor; understanding youth’s relationship (loyalty) with their parent, and how the foster parent/residential counsellor can support them; what they need in order to re-build their lives; and how to best understand the decisions others adults (judges) in their lives have made.

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is designed for Residential Staff, Foster Parents, and Clinicians who are working with children in out-of-home placements.

Sexual Development Birth through Puberty: “What is Normative?”

Understanding inappropriate sexual behaviour presentations is impossible without having a clear understanding of normative sexual behaviour. This workshop will review normative sexual development - birth through puberty. Developmental expectations for each phase of sexual development will be clearly outlined.

Sexualized Behaviour Problems in Prepubescent Children – When is Clinical Intervention Necessary?

This workshop will address the confusing issues surrounding sexualized behaviour presentation by the pre-school and school aged child. Discussion will include the influence of culture and media on “acceptable” behaviour. Criteria will be outlined to assist in determining the necessity of clinical intervention. The role of parents, educators, health care personnel and mental health practitioners in identifying problems will be defined.

Understanding and Managing Behaviours of Children/Youth in Out-of-home Placements

Length: 1 day

Children and youth in placements are often diagnosed with learning difficulties, mental health problems, and trauma. Children who feel unloved and unattached are often rageful and rebellious, often becoming locked in defiant opposition with adults. Working and living with ‘adult-wary’ children and youth can be an exhausting endeavor, requiring constant vigilance and practice to establish and maintain positive therapeutic relationships.

This training will address the key issues involved in caring for these challenging children/youth. The training is both theoretical and practical; focusing on strengthening the residential worker/foster parents’ important role in managing children/youth’s behaviour. The training will provide participants with an understanding of effective strategies.

This workshop will address:

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is designed for Residential Staff, Foster Parents, and Clinicians who are working with children in out-of-home placements.