About Your Speaker

Mr. Vik is a well sought after local trainer with over 16 years experience in training and teaching professionals from the healthcare, social service, enforcement and various academic fields. He has also been in the counselling field for 19 years, spending 3 years in the social service industry and 16 years in the addictions and healthcare field. He has an academic background in both counselling and psychology, teaching at the Singapore University of Social Sciences for over 12 years. He is currently doing a workgroup project with the Ministry of Health looking at using Motivational Interviewing and Change Talk to work with individuals who have diabetes or pre-diabetes and teaching healthcare educators to better engage and motivate patients within hospitals and polyclinics. He is an executive committee member with the Association of Professionals Specialising in Addictions Counselling, a board member for the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association and a council member for the National Council Against Drug Abuse. 

A Course Brief

The social media age is here to stay. Families and young people are the target as we move from communal and group based patterns of social interaction to digital and privatised modes. This change is colossal. The arena of close, personal and intimate bonds with dad, mum, siblings and close friends is replaced with the internet and cyberspace. When play is relaxed by ultra privacy, something snaps in human relationships - the sacred is replaced by the secular. That’s the dilemma in a nutshell. The social problems we see - phising, sexual grooming, cyberthreats, cyberbuying and more. How do we deal with guiding the young and rescuing them from lostness in a therapeutic way is pivotal.

Topic Outline

• Understanding Young People
• Why Social Media is So Potent
• Problematic Internet Use
• Dangers of the Net
• Cyberrelational issues and Cyber Sex
• Virtual Online Relationships
• Gaming
• Guiding the Young Through the Maze
• Preserving Ties That Matter

Course Brief

Being a leader can be a challenging task when standing in the forefront to lead amidst criticisms. These struggles can cause self-doubt about your abilities and your sense of direction. This 2-day workshop based on material from Parker J Palmer and his Circle of Trust approach, will give you the skills you need to face and fortify your position as an effective counsellor.

Through this program you will experience:
1. A space for honest dialogue and non-judgmental listening.
2. Practice ways of relating that build the trust that is foundational to effective counselling using the Circle of Trust Approach.
3. Opportunities to pause and reconnect to what energises you.
4. Ways to become more intentional in your work by gaining clarity about current questions and next steps.
5. Courage to act on what matters most to you in ways that feel true.

Day One
• Introducing The Courage Way
• Exploring Principles and Practices of the Circles of Trust approach
• The Inner Work of a Counsellor
• Courage Takes Trust 
• Skills for a Courageous Counsellor

Day Two
• The Courage to Hold Tension in Life-Giving Ways
• Standing and Acting In The Tragic Gap
• Clearness Committees: The Courage to Listen
• The Courage to Care for Self
• Taking The Courage Way Forward

About Your Trainer

Greg Sunter, M.Ed., M.A. is a facilitator prepared by the Center for Courage & Renewal. He lives in Brisbane, Australia, where he runs Whole Hearted Enterprises. Greg facilitates retreat and formation experiences grounded in the Circle of Trust approach. His business motto, Living and Working with Authenticity describes both his personal mission and what he offers to others. Greg’s career background is in Education. He also has extensive experience in spirituality formation and spiritual retreats. Find out more about him and his work at WholeHearted.com.au

If you are a part-time or full-time student currently studying counselling or psychology online or mainstream, you can receive 50% off of the regular price of $1200 ($600 Net)!

What Is Narrative Therapy?

Based on the work of Michael White and David Epston, Narrative Therapy involves ways of understanding the stories of people’s lives and the ways of re-authoring their stories collaboratively between the therapist and the people whose lives are being discussed.

Key Session Concepts

• Externalization of the Problem: Where Person is Not the Problem, the Problem is the Problem • Re-authoring Identity • Working with Maps of Narrative Practices:  Landscape of Action & Landscape of Identity • Re-membering: Developing the Idea that Identity is Shaped by Social Connections and the ‘Club of Life’ • Use of Case Studies and Other Practical Examples • Outsider Witnesses • Definitional Ceremonies • Personal Agency • Gender Issues • Addressing Trauma with Narrative Therapy • Absent and Implicit: Enquiring Into Stories of Self Beyond the Problem Saturated Story

If you are a part-time or full-time student currently studying counselling or psychology online or mainstream, you can receive 50% off of the regular price of $900 ($450 Net)!

Your Speakers

Ms. Ong Pei Ni has been practising social work for the past fifteen years and is currently a Principal Social Worker in a community-based social service agency. She has prior experience in managing a team of social workers and counsellors. In her current position, she provides individual and group clinical supervision for staff and conducts regular training and clinical competency building programmes. She has vast experience over the last 15 years working with multi-stressed families and individuals with trauma. She had obtained a Master of Social Work (child welfare certification) with the University of Michigan Ann-Arbor, USA. For the past three years, Pei Ni had begun to incorporate and implement trauma-informed ideas and practices in her clinical practice and supervision.  

Mr. Moh'd Fareez is the Senior Assistant Director for a Family Service Centre in Singapore and a Graduate of the Masters in Narrative Therapy and Community Work in collaboration with the Dulwich Centre and the University of Melbourne. Fareez is the Narrative Therapist (NT) guru and will lead the course section on NT and trauma specifically on how trauma can affect identity and story, and how to work narratively in getting back within the recovery process.

Course Overview

This 2-day essential workshop is designed to provide helping professionals an understanding of the definition of "trauma" in our local Singapore context and how trauma can impact life and health throughout the lifespan. We will discuss the elements of trauma informed care and how this approach will be useful in our practice with seemingly "challenging" and "resistant' clients we see in our community or various counselling spaces. We will also be discussing how we integrate leading and latest treatment methods such as Mindfulness, Somatic and Narrative modalities into a pragmatic approach of practice namely "Release, Regulate and Restore". In addition, participants will focus on using practical strategies  in small group practice case discussions.  

Learning Outcomes

Participants will be able to: 
• Understand complex and developmental trauma and their effects on life and health
• Discuss and reframe the impacts of trauma such as distressing symptoms and behaviours of children and adults as adaptations to trauma
• Learn a practical approach of practice called "Release, Regulate and Restore" to enhance regulation and stabilization for persons with trauma
• Learn how to equip clients with regulation techniques to manage trauma symptoms
• Understand concepts and procedures for enhancing the therapeutic relationship and "co-regulation" as methods for stabilization
• Learn a framework on how to integrate leading trauma informed treatment modalities into participants' existing approaches and practices

Who Should Attend This Course

New or existing social workers, counsellors, staff working in the child, youth and family or mental health sectors especially community based social service agencies (SSA), para-counsellors, and other social service practitioners in a range of sectors (i.e. schools, residential homes).

If you are a part-time or full-time student currently studying counselling or psychology online or mainstream, you can register at a special price of $400! (Regular price: $650).

A Course Brief - More Details Coming Soon!