About Your Speaker

Mr. Vik is a well sought after local trainer with over 16 years experience in training and teaching Motivational Interviewing for participants from the healthcare, social service, enforcement and the 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 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. He is currently doing a workgroup project with the Ministry of Health looking at using Motivational Interviewing to work with individuals who have diabetes or pre-diabetes and teaching healthcare educators to better engage patients within hospitals and polyclinics.

Course Brief

This workshop aims to provide motivational interviewing (MI) training to achieve the following objectives:
• Understand the History of MI and it’s intended use
• Address key principles and basic techniques for Social Care Professionals without prior training in basic MI
• Enable the application of MI techniques in working with their specific clients/patients
• Health Care and Social Care Professionals having confidence in using MI on a regular and consistent basis
• Understanding how MI overlaps with other therapeutic methods
• Appreciate how MI principles and techniques can be incorporated into participants daily work
The workshop will consist of basic MI training focusing on topics like:
• An introduction to Motivational Interviewing and incorporating in daily work
• An overview of the basic techniques and strategies commonly utilized within the premise of MI, the spirit of MI as a style and a way of being
• An overview of the principles of MI and ways to elicit change talk
• Exploring how MI started and which group it targets (Pre-contemplators and & Contemplators)
• Challenges in bringing about behavioural changes via the trans-theoretical model (often perceived as a prelude to motivational interviewing and created by Prochaska & Diclementi)

YOUR SPEAKER

Dr. Stephanie Diez-Morel is an assistant professor of graduate social work at Pennsylvania Western University. Dr. Diez-Morel is the co-lead for the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM Gaming Disorder Taskforce where she leads an interdisciplinary group of international experts in Gaming Disorder on proposing up to date criteria for the diagnosis of Gaming Disorder. She is an international trainer and speaker and has presented clinical courses to 10,000 trained helping professionals. Dr. Diez-Morel has authored numerous scientific presentations and journal articles, as well as appeared in international media on a variety of radio, podcasts, and news outlets to discuss the topic of addictions, gaming disorder and other addictions. In 2013, Dr. Diez-Morel founded Reboot & Recover, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing education, prevention, treatment, and research on gaming disorder and other technology-based addictions.

Diez-Morel earned her Ph.D. from Florida International University where she was awarded a student scholar in Health Disparities Research Fellowship offered through the Center for Research on US Latino HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse (CRUSADA) funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a C-SALUD Student Scholar in Health Disparities Research Fellow, Dr. Diez-Morel’s research contributed to the reduction and prevention of health disparities affecting youth and families in the United States. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Dr. Diez-Morel has worked for decades within nonprofit community organizations and in community hospitals providing direct clinical services to children, families, and adults experiencing addiction. In addition, she has provided clinical trainings, education and consultation to address addictions among various communities including medical professionals, counselors, healthcare workers, educators, caregivers, and school aged children.

COURSE BRIEF

Internet Gaming Disorder, excessive social media use and the convergence of gambling in online gaming is a real problem with adolescence and youth in Singapore, impacting them at an alarming rate. Some kids with ADHD and developmental issues like autism and other moderate to severe psychiatric problems are at risk of losing control of their online use. Even kids as young as 4 have easy access to the internet. Some parents or guardians have not used much focus to regulate their child’s internet use when it comes to gaming, social media and other non-academic activities. While the internet has revolutionised the world and has given many benefits to humanity, it also comes with its dangerous downside when not appropriately regulated. 

YOUR SPEAKER

Mr. Mohammed Fareez is the Senior Assistant Director of a Family Service Centre in Singapore and Graduate of the Masters in Narrative Therapy and Community Work program in collaboration between Dulwich Centre and The University of Melbourne, Australia.

COURSE BRIEF

Based on the work of Michael White and David Epston, Narrative Therapy involves understanding the stories of people’s lives and re-authoring their stories collaboratively between the therapist and the people whose lives are being discussed. Are you looking for hopeful, effective and respectful ways of working with those who have mental health problems? Have you wondered what Narrative Therapy might look like in a mental health setting or when working with those with mental health problems? Then this workshop will offer clarity and inspiration for you.

About Your Speaker

Carolyn has worked for all of her professional life with children and young people. She is currently a coeducational school counsellor, practicing and implementing Narrative Therapy ideas and concepts with students and staff who seek her sensitive guidance. Her work is informed by a Narrative philosophy based on the teachings of Michael White and David Epston, developed in the early 1990’s at the Dulwich Centre in Adelaide where she also resides. As an international speaker, she shares her passion for giving more space to young people and their views and opinions in a supportive and nurturing way, reflecting her deep commitment to child focused practice. Carolyn has consulted with young people and their families regarding: anti-bullying strategies, the effects of gender-specific violence, family violence, perfectionism and its tyranny, eating problems, drug and alcohol addiction, grief and loss and associated life transitions and change.

Course Brief

Level 2 Narrative Therapy (Part 2) course takes your existing knowledge of NT to a deeper level, providing a holistic framework reviewing theory, using transcripts, video and live stop-start interviews to give practical help. Topics to be covered include: extending externalizing conversations; extending re-authoring conversations from problem to preferred stories; delving deeper into the absent but implicit concept; responding to trauma; scaffolding conversations; stop-start interviews; and the use of outsider witness practices. Here are some highlights:

Externalizing Conversations: clients often come to therapy with assumptions that their problems are linked to their personalities or their identity. Through externalizing conversations and personifying the problem, clients begin to recognize that problems are separate from them, freeing them to see new options for living.

Re-Authoring Conversations: these conversations help individuals notice the “quiet” unnoticed stories of personal strength that are able to support a new perspective and identity separate from their old problem-saturated narratives. These preferred stories may be seen as unique outcomes or exceptions.

Absent but Implicit: there are always past experiences that are not spoken, yet shape the story being “foregrounded.” The absent but implicit indicates that each problem story holds an inverse and deducible story waiting to be nurtured. An example: a client shares unhappiness associated with lonliness implying an implicit desire for real connection and belonging.
There will also be practical helps in Carolyn’s sessions that will help the clinician scaffold conversations assisting individuals to move from the known and familiar towards what is possible to know and what is valued. Finally, there will be examples given using video, role play and the outsider witness technique, helping individuals to nurture a personal preferred story, and move towards a richer sense of a healthy identity within their community.