Bespoke Courses
Bespoke Courses
Parenting focused family therapy
This course consists of three public lectures and a workshop:
Public Lectures
The lecture topics offer an introduction to the three-day workshop entitled "An introduction to key ideas in family therapy for Chinese psychotherapists" and will be given by Caroline Freud Penney, author of The Parenting Toolkit : Simple Steps To Happy And Confident Children
Lecture 1
Attachment based therapies – John Byng-Hall, Susan Johnson
This theory looks at the predisposing historical, contextual and constitutional predisposing factors that maintain problematic interaction patterns.
Lecture 2
Narrative Family Therapy – Michael White – David Epston
This focuses on the belief systems and narratives that sustain unhelpful interactive patterns
Lecture 3
Structural Family Therapy – Salvador Minuchin
This looks at the role of repetitive patterns of family interaction in the maintenance of problem behaviour
Three-day workshop
This course will introduce the theory and skills that family therapists bring to their therapeutic work with families.
Most families experience serious difficulties sometimes. Family members can seem stuck in repeating hurtful patterns or behaviour. Family Therapy enables family members to express and explore difficult thoughts and emotions safely and to understand each other's experiences and views, appreciate each other's needs, build on family strengths and make useful changes in their relationships and their lives. Sometimes it does not take much to help a family free up their strengths: sometimes the difficulties are more complex and the families may need longer to find solutions that work for them. Family therapy can help child and adolescent behaviour problems, couple relationship difficulties, illness and disability in the family, separation and divorce and step family life, fostering, adoption and kinship care. This course will introduce 3 different models of parenting focused family therapy based on attachment histories and family scripts, narrative ideas and belief systems that underlie behaviour and finally structural ideas that look at repetitive behaviour patterns. The course will be interactive and experimental as well as didactic and so will include some pair work – small group work and some role play and discussion
Day one
Using Attachment based family therapy ideas when working with parents. In this session I will be covering the importance of assessment and looking at genograms and family scripts that have an unhelpful impact on the family. It will include learning the technique of child led play so the child can be truly witnessed and validated, acknowledging and accepting feelings and the skills involved in listening, such as active listening, reflective listening, empathy and validation. These skills will then be able to be passed on to the parents. The session will also look at the importance of addressing attachment ruptures so they can be processed and healed.
Day two
Narrative ideas that underpin parenting. In this session I will be exploring the needs that underlie children’s behaviour and explore the concept of the different constructs that can influence a child’s behaviour. I will explain the importance of the family life cycle and the goals for each stage. The ideas of exceptions in the behaviour of the child will be studied and how these can be used to create a more positive story about the child and family. We will look at the importance of problem ownership in the family and how some problems can be externalized in order to look at them without shame or blame and how some problems can be reframed. Child rearing styles and their impact will be explored.
Day 3
Structural family therapy ideas when working with parents. In this session we will be looking at the importance of building positive relationships between parents and their children and how the parental couple are responsible for holding the executive functioning of the family. When the parents are not in control or when boundaries or alliances have been formed that do not support the parental couple being in charge the children behaviour can become problematic. We will also look at how problems between the parents can be triangulated through the children so that the child then behaves badly. We will also look at the functionality of the problem that the child shows. The session will also include the importance of establishing routines, household rules discipline. I will teach the skills of how to help parents use commands , consequences, star charts, rewards and time out in order to help children feel contained and safe .
Parenting styles and their impact on children’s emotional health
This course was originally designed for school counsellors employed by Valley Trust. It can be tailored to suit your organisation.
Effective parenting, characterised by consistent, supportive and responsive childrearing practices, is critical to achieving positive developmental outcomes for children. Links between parenting styles and the causation, maintenance, and amelioration of mental health difficulties in young people ,and disruptive behaviour in particular, have also been well established. The one day course for valley trust counsellors will give participants the skills to share some of these tools with the parents, carers and teachers of children with mental health issues that could make an enormous difference to the trajectory of these children and young people. It is based on The Parenting Toolkit: simple steps to happy and confident children by Caroline Penney 2018 which was adapted from “Being a Parent” an evidence based, manualised parenting programme (Penney et al, 2015) with input from specialist parenting trainers, paediatric occupational therapists, family therapists, child psychotherapists and psychologists to ensure that we can utilize the most recent research in managing children with severe behaviour problems. It is based on attachment, social learning, relational, and cognitive-behavioural theories and methods and examines parenting roles and beliefs, family stress, the role of child and parent feelings, culture in parenting, listening, play and interaction skills, positive behaviour strategies, problem solving, boundaries and discipline. It includes research from neuroscience on how the brain is effected by the stress response on how to manage children with complex behaviour issues and difficulty with regulating emotions. The course will be interactive, experiential and there will be time for discussion and questions coming from your own practice.
An Introduction to theory and Technique in Therapeutic Work with Children, Adolescents, Parents and Families
This course can be tailored to suit your organisation.
3 days training in Therapeutic Work with Children by Deirdre Dowling, Consultant Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychotherapist.
Author of An Independent Practitioners Introduction to Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy: Playing with Ideas
An Introduction to key ideas in Parenting based Family Therapy
This course can be tailored to suit your organisation.
3 days training in Parent-based Family Therapy by Caroline Penney. Author of The Parenting Toolkit: simple steps to happy and confident children
