Managing Challenging Behaviour

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This workshop helps carers and agency staff understand the principals of Positive Behaviour Support and to implement specific strategies, including the systematic gathering of relevant information, conducting a functional behaviour assessment, designing support plans, implementation and ongoing evaluation. Immediate response strategies for the management of serious episodes of the behaviour are also addressed, but there is a belief that the best behaviour support happens when the behaviour is not happening; hence the strong emphasis on proactive strategies.

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PBS is based on decreasing behaviours of concern and improving the person’s quality of life. Positive behaviour support planning tells us the best way to work with an individual who shows behaviours of concern and gives us ways to improve the quality of life for the person and does not just deal with behaviour. This approach places an emphasis on the need for responsiveness to a person’s feelings and needs and has the following defining features:

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• valuing the person, deliberately building a sense of self-worth, and acknowledging all attempts at positive interaction

• creating situations where the person is placed at their best advantage

• acknowledging and trying to interpret what the person is communicating via the behaviour

• analysing the functions of the behaviour

• teaching the person other ways to meet their need or communicate their feelings

• gently supporting and leading the person to a calmer state

• providing encouragement and feedback about personal successes along with aspects of difficult situations the person may have handled well.

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Understanding Trauma

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This training workshop helps carers and agency staff to understand the impact of childhood trauma on development and behaviour. Participants are given a psychological perspective on traumatic responses in children and are provided with advice to help children with their trauma responses which often include behavioural problems, anxiety, depression, social problems and poor concentration. The aim of this workshop is to support carers who have recently had children come in to their care, to understand and manage the behaviours and psychological functioning of children who have experienced trauma in the past. Issues such as attachment and grief and loss are also covered in this workshop.

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Caring for Children diagnosed with ASD

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This training workshop aims to assist carers and agency staff to understand and support children who have been diagnosed with ASD. Children who have ASD experience difficulties in a number of areas including social development, emotional regulation, speech and language deficits, sensory difficulties, behavioural problems and anxiety. Foster carers are often faced with managing challenging behaviours that can be ongoing and pervasive across home and school environments. This workshop aims to assist carers to understand the behaviours they are dealing with and gives practical advice on managing and supporting children with ASD.

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Building Resilience in Children

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This workshop aims to assist carers and agency staff to support children in care to build resilience by coaching children through some of their more challenging moments and reviewing what they may have learned for next time. Agency staff benefit from attending this course by being able to offer support to carers and children in their care, as well as exploring their own resilience strategies in the face of the often difficult work they do.

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The course focuses on encouraging carers to:

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• Have a positive attitude. Carer attitude impacts on a child’s ability to bounce back from some of the difficulties they face by modelling a ‘you can do it’ attitude.

• Look for teachable moments. Many kids’ learning opportunities are disguised as problems. This course aims to help carers make the most of these opportunities so that kids can grow and learn from some of the challenges they face.

• Make kids active participants in the family. Active participation in a family develops the self-help, problem-solving and independence skills of kids that are necessary for resilience.

• Build kids coping skills. There are plenty of strategies carers can pass on to kids to help them cope when life doesn’t go their way, including acceptance, getting away for a while, and normalisation.

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Promoting resilience in children is a not a single event but a continuous process that requires carers to be supportive and empathetic when things don’t go their way. It also requires carers to have an understanding of resilience, so they can have faith in themselves, and their child’s ability to cope.

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Therapeutic Life Story

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This workshop aims to assist agency staff, case managers and carers to understand the importance of Life Story Work for children in care and gives practical, fun ideas to engage carers and children in the process. The workshop also discusses the therapeutic benefit of Life Story Work for Children in care, including helping them make sense of their world, processing grief and loss, understanding and managing their emotions and coping with change.

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Understanding Anxiety in Children and Adolescents

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Anxiety is often an underlying cause of many childhood behavioural issues and when identified and responded to, can mean that children can learn to manage their emotions and fears more easily. This workshop helps carers to identify symptoms of anxiety in children and to respond in ways that will help a child to learn to self-regulate and manage their anxiety. This is an informative, interactive workshop for new and experienced foster carers, with a strong Cognitive Behavioural Framework.

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Vicarious Trauma

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This workshop is for agency staff and carers who are exposed to numerous stories of abuse, neglect and traumatic events. Carers are often also exposed to challenging and disturbing behaviours which are the result of trauma and abuse. This workshop aims to help staff and carers to identify when they may be experiencing vicarious trauma, understand the impact of vicarious trauma on themselves and provides practical, helpful advice to deal with the emotional impact of vicarious trauma.

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Protective Behaviours

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Intouch Psychology Services Protective Behaviours workshop aims to promote resilience in children, young people, and adults, by training carers and parents to teach children to use empowerment strategies, clear communication, and awareness of “safe” behaviours. Ultimately the aim is to reduce violence in the community and prevent child abuse.

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The Protective Behaviours program has been developed as a child abuse prevention program. The workshop not only focuses on abuse prevention but addresses empowerment, communication, self-esteem, resilience, social skills and other life skills. By teaching and promoting these concepts, Protective Behaviours helps to prevent abuse, reduce violence and promote life-enriching rather than life-depleting experiences. It encourages children to assert their right to feel safe, listen to what their body tells them, and follow up by taking action to either solve problems on their own or to seek assistance from other people.

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This is an interactive workshop which will help carers and agency staff to understand the importance of teaching children protective behaviours and how to talk about protective behaviours with children in care.

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