Description:

OPD Points: 10

Do you help families with complex mental health issues where relational processes fuel the maintenance of problems?Have you ever encountered parents/carers who express “We Don’t Need Your Help, But Will You Please Fix Our Child?”When families access mental health support they are seeking expert advice during periods of heightened emotions and concerning behaviours. Many complex factors contribute to symptom development including genetics and their broader family and social environment. However, parents can contribute to sustainable improvements in their child’s mental health and wellbeing by adjusting how they interact with their child. Yet even when young people, parent/carers and other family members are agreeing to attend sessions, it is often difficult to shift the focus from discussing how to “fix” the problems of one child versus expanding the parent/carers view to consider their possible part in the child’s symptoms without risking them dropping out of therapy. On one side of the dilemma, the parents may feel relieved that a professional is willing to join them in their efforts to fix their child. On the flip side, the attention to the child’s difficulties may lay a heavy burden on the child for taking on the responsibility for change. It may also leave uncovered the underlying relational process that fuels the maintenance of problems; so that symptom relief is either short lived or the problem focus shifts to another member of the family or system/context (ie school).The Parent Hope Project is a research-based manualised parent/systems clinical intervention program – to improve treatment outcomes for children & young people with complex mental health presentations. The manual includes a 6 session, individualised coaching program for parents who have a child who is struggling with mental health and/or social/behavioural issues. An optional introduction and review session can be included. The program is designed to provide parents with fresh awareness and guiding principles to optimise the way they support their child’s wellbeing. It is not a parent education program where the clinician/coach instructs the parent about how to manage their child. Instead it aims to facilitate parent awareness and develop internal agency – to discover their own solutions. It is not directed at fixing the child, nor is it mental health psycho-education. Rather it focuses on the parent awareness of their interactions with their child and on the parent changing what is in their control. The clinician/coach shares ideas and principles rather than prescribing what the parent should do. Parents are supported to manage their feelings and reactions towards their struggling child and to consider their role in encouraging their children’s potential for healthy development. A repeated idea in this program is that when parents shift their energies away from trying to fix or change their child and invest in what is in their control as parents, new hopeful pathways open up. The manualised program is the outcome of research and subsequent use with many parents in Australian Child and Adolescent Mental Health  (CAMHS) settings. The research focused on how a parents’ involvement in their child/adolescent’s treatment influenced their perception of how they can be helpful in their child’s recovery? The strongly emergent theme was the relationship between parents’ hope and agency/self-efficacy. Parents who remained more passive in expecting expert helpers to fix their child, experienced reduced hope months after finishing the program. When parents positively changed their interaction with their child, they felt a more sustained hopefulness. Parents actively involved in changing themselves as part of their child’s treatment, experience increased hope and effectiveness in contributing to their child’s recovery.

Key Learning Objectives / Outcomes:

Workshop Outline:Introducing Parent Coach TrainingResearch and the Development of the Parent Hope ProjectParents developing agency Vs dependency on expertsFamily Systems Understanding of Symptom Development in ChildrenThe manuals and a family systems treatment approachRecruiting parentsStage 1(sessions 1 -3) Stepping Back: Observations and awarenessSession 1 – Promoting dependence or independence?Session 2 – Where is your energy directed?Session 3 – Considering parents levels of reaction/self-regulationStage 2 (sessions 4 – 6) Stepping UpSession 4 – What is in my control? What is my “I” position?Session 5 – Stepping up in connection Session 6 – Big-picture change requires patienceExtra sessionsThe introductory session and optional surveysExtension questions 

Presenter / Provider:

Compass Seminars and Dr Jenny Brown

Presenter Qualifications:

Dr Jenny Brown has been working in the field of child and family mental health and family therapy since the 1980’s. She has been a trainer and supervisor in the field in Australia and internationally for over 20 years. Her formal family systems training began in the 1980’s in Australia and overseas (Tavistock in London, Family Institute and Salvador Minuchin in New York). Jenny is Emeritus Executive Director of the Family Systems Institute Sydney, which she co-founded in 2004. She currently directs the Family Systems Practice and the Parent Hope Project (manualized interventions in child mental health). She is a clinical member and supervisor for the Australian Association of Family Therapy and, in 2018, received the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy award for distinguished contribution to family therapy in Australia. In 2022 she received the annual research award from Bowen Centre for the Study of the Family in Washington DC based on her PhD research (Social Science UNSW) exploring parents’ experience of their child’s mental health treatment

Contact:

Car Parking:
Disabled Parking:
Yes
Meals Included:
Yes

Start / End Date

Course Duration:

Course Hours:

14 hours

Cost:

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