Counselling Children and Families with Complex Needs:
Nurturing Resilience Across Cultures
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Michael Ungar, PhD |
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| Date: | Monday, May 7, and Tuesday, May 8, 2012 2-day workshop |
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| Time: | 9:00 am to 4:30 pm | ||
| Location: | Koffler House/Multi-Faith Centre, University of Toronto 569 Spadina Avenue, Toronto (Click here for directions.) |
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| Fee: | $335 (+ HST) up to Apr. 12 $355 (+ HST) after Apr. 12 (Please see Fees page for multiple-registration discounts.) |
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Despite decades of research on resilience, parents and professionals still struggle with their role in supporting positive development in children and teens growing up in adversity. Part of the difficulty is that resilience is often seen solely as a result of the individual’s will and effort.
Dr. Michael Ungar has extensively researched resilience in youth and families living in adverse conditions across six continents. He has applied that learning to clinical practice in community and institutional settings. This workshop will explore how therapists, counsellors, and educators can help youth and families. You will learn seven factors that protect people from adversity, and ways to help clients identify and access what they need for positive growth. This social ecological model of intervention is based on clinical practice with youth of all ages and families with complex needs who use multiple services (mental health, child welfare, corrections, special education, and addictions). It is designed to address both individual and contextual factors that threaten well-being.
Using interactive exercises, clinical transcripts, and video recordings of work with children, youth, and families, Dr. Ungar will help you integrate educational, mental health, and child welfare approaches to improve the likelihood that your clients’ resilience will flourish.
You will learn —
- About a three-part model of intervention to promote resilience and positive development
- The principles and five phases of intervention
- How to identify “problem” behaviours that actually enhance resilience and well-being when more socially acceptable solutions are not available
- The principles of an engaging ecological model of intervention suitable for work in multiple service settings
- How to address resistance when working with diverse, hard-to-reach individuals and families
- How to avoid burnout and promote a strengths-based perspective while working within a system and with colleagues
Michael Ungar, PhD, (AAMFT Clinical Supervisor; Registered Social Worker), is both a social worker and a marriage and family therapist with over 25 years’ experience working directly with youth and families in child welfare, mental health, educational, and correctional settings. As a professor in the School of Social Work and the Director of the Resilience Research Centre at Dalhousie University, he currently leads a 5-million-dollar program of research on resilience involving researchers from more than a dozen countries on six continents. Author of 11 books, including Too Safe for Their Own Good, Strengths-based Counseling with At-risk Youth, and his first novel, The Social Worker, Michael is internationally recognized for the workshops he offers on the role of resilience in the treatment and study of at-risk youth and families.