Engaging Parents: Establishing a Working Alliance with Parents/Carers of Children and Young People at Risk

This course has no current classes. Please the waiting list.

Engaging parents/carers while working with children and adolescents has been shown as invaluable in creating and supporting the change process. This course will help participants develop skills in positive engagement of parents from the outset. Participants will learn ways to recruit parents and the existing expertise they hold, thereby gaining a vital ally in participants' work. This course will equip participants with best practice skills and strategies, leading them to feel more confident in engaging families, meeting challenges and preventing burnout by using their energy more effectively, as well as give them an opportunity to reflect on their own clinical approach and ways to enrich their practice. With these skills, participants will be able to support sustainability of change and resilience within the family unit by enhancing the family’s own capacity. The course is specifically built on the framework of parents as the experts who can connect with their own wisdom and grow as adults, becoming grounded in their parenting role and responsibility, consequently providing the most protective factor for the child’s growth and development.

Learning Outcomes:

  • You will develop specific skills required to positively engage with families
  • You will feel more confident in delivering essential psychoeducation to parents/carers
  • You will learn ways to engage parents/carers in discussions about responsibility to create change
  • You will be able to set clear boundaries in your interaction with families
  • You will take away strategies that will support parents/carers to connect to their own personal wisdom, power, and responsibility
  • You will develop a personal approach based on clinical wisdom and best practice principles to effectively engage parents/carers

Who should attend?

Psychologists, counsellors, case workers, youth workers, parent educators – all professionals working in the fields of family services, kinship care, OOHC, child protection and related services