Events Calendar

2 CPD hours

SWID is an AASW practice group for social workers working in the field of disability services, both in government and non-government organisations. Its main purpose is to facilitate support, networking, lobbying and professional development. Any social worker in the field of disability, from any organisation is welcome to join.

The theme for this meeting will be Moving forward in 2019 and will provide an opportunity to meet the new management team.

Register here by 5 February.

A gold coin donation is requested, to go towards morning tea for the next meeting

Supervision is an essential safeguard for clients, a support for counsellors, and a process through which practitioners can develop their skill and competence. This course can be distinguished from other courses as it offers comprehensive training with opportunities for hand on experience, there is an emphasis on practical knowledge and skills with the content grounded in evidence-based search an years of practice which brings together psychological and management theories within a experiential model

This 2 day Intensive “Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Training” is designed to assist practitioners gain knowledge of how to work with DBT as individual therapists/health care workers and also as skills group trainers/facilitators. Training can be tailored to specific region’s needs and information on how to set up a DBT program including Therapists Consult groups is also detailed. DBT for Adolescents and Children is also detailed in the training.

*Discount for AASW members*

*FPS relevant activity*

7 CPD hours

The AASW (NSW Branch) is facilitating a one-day interactive professional development workshop that gives participants an opportunity to explore strengths-based approaches to pathways of recovery and ensure client-directed recovery processes. The workshop explores various skills to scaffold and co-create client’s ‘insider’ knowledge pertaining to their mental health.

Register here

A 3-day workshop focused on how you can use compassion based approaches in the treatment of mental health issues. This workshop will enable participants to bring an evolutionary framework to the conceptualisation of mental health problems and their alleviation. This will be Dr Paul Gilbert's last time presenting this workshop in Australia. Don't miss out.

The EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Certification is a 3 day engaging and deeply interactive course. Over the 3 days you will learn how to use EFT for yourself, with individual clients and in groups. There is also a short pre training to complete online. The wide range of benefits of EFT as a therapeutic tool is being increasingly recognised, largely due to numerous research studies conducted to assess the benefits of the modality. You will learn to use EFT to reduce stress, anxiety, trauma, PTSD, cravings, pain, phobias and more…

The EFT Certification is suitable for participants from all levels of the Social work profession – from student to advanced practitioner.

*AASW member discount**

1.5 CPD hours

Please join us for the first in a series of Ethics events at the AASW NSW Branch.

These will provide an opportunity for social workers to discuss, debate, reflect and think about professional ethics and what it means for social work practice.

The topic for this session will be professional boundaries and dual relationships.

Register here by 17 February. Video conferencing available for those outside the Sydney area.

The AASW is pleased to be able to offer this continuing professional development program for social work, mental health and welfare professionals around the theme of Building Resilience & Preventing Radicalisation to Violent Extremism - An Awareness Raising Workshop.

This workshop will be offered free to all attendees with priority given to AASW members.

This 3-day face to face course is an opportunity not only to be trained in the RISE UP model of supervision, but for personal growth and personalised feedback, which culminates in a formal assessment phase. It has a pre-reading component of up to 40 hours. Your presenter has extensive experience in private practice and supervision, affording you insight into cases and supervision issues

Refugee trauma work often attracts staff that have strong beliefs in ideals such as the goodness of people, the ability to create a better world, the conviction that justice will prevail, and in their own power to make a difference. These beliefs may become eroded in this field of work and the worker, particularly clinicians, may become overwhelmed with a sense of disappointment, failure and hopelessness. This half day workshop will explore the complex dynamics and the impacts of working with people traumatised by refugee experiences, and how the worker can practically recognise and self-manage their stress, feelings of countertransference, vicarious trauma and burnout. Participants will leave the workshop feeling empowered to take care of themselves in their professional and personal lives.

1.5 CPD hours

Any interested social worker or student is invited to attend a meeting to discuss the formation of an Environmental Social Work Practice Group.

Register here by 26 February. Video conferencing available for those outside Sydney

The Society’s Diploma in Clinical Hypnosis content, structure, format and inbuilt exercises and assessment will provide social workers with the theoretical knowledge and practical skills that will enable them to effectively utilise clinical hypnosis in their specific professional setting. The Diploma course is unique in that it consists of online study modules undertaken in the home or office, but which are built into a framework of collegial face-to-face training days to promote actual skills acquisition.

*FPS relevant activity*

The Social Work In Brain Injury Practice Group will be meeting on Tuesday 5 March.

Register here by 3 March.

This new workshop will discuss the sea change occurring in clinical treatment; how we conceptualise mental health problems and their solutions. There are significant relationships between immune system function, stress, insecure attachment, anxiety, depression, poor nutrition, bad quality sleep, physical inactivity, and neurophysiological dysregulation, so it will discuss an integrated approach to the clinical assessment and treatment of trauma, anxiety and depression, using practical examples and case studies.

The AASW is pleased to be able to offer this continuing professional development program for social work, mental health and welfare professionals around the theme of Building Resilience & Preventing Radicalisation to Violent Extremism - An Awareness Raising Workshop.

This workshop will be offered free to all attendees with priority given to AASW members.

In this thorough and engaging workshop, Sheri Van Dijk breaks new ground by adapting DBT for people living with problems in managing emotions related to diagnoses and problems other than, but also including, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Emotion Dysregulation is typically a component of mood and anxiety disorders, addictions, eating disorders, and BPD and other personality disorders; and can also appear in individuals without a specific diagnosis, but who are struggling with difficulties such as anger management problems, low self esteem or shame, and complicated grief. This workshop will provide clinicians with real life day to day tools you will be able to teach to clients struggling with mental health issues and other emotional and relational problems. You will be able to help your clients find order and peace in their lives again, and to make changes that are long lasting.

*FPS relevant activity*

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2013–2017) identified Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities as a sub-group of Australia's population that we know very little about. To help heed the call on building knowledge and capacity in the services sector, a cultural competency education program has been developed. It is primarily designed for service providers in sexual assault and domestic violence organisations (e.g. counsellors, social workers, and psychologists), however general practitioners (GPs), psychiatrists, and relevant program trainers, researchers, and policy-makers are also welcome to attend.

The AASW is pleased to be able to offer this continuing professional development program for social work, mental health and welfare professionals around the theme of Building Resilience & Preventing Radicalisation to Violent Extremism - An Awareness Raising Workshop.

This workshop will be offered free to all attendees with priority given to AASW members.

Relaxation is evidence based, non-pharmacological, non-invasive, efficacious and cost effective. These practical seminars demonstrate simple techniques reduce pain, sleep disorders, anxiety, depression, inflammatory conditions and PTSD.

* FPS Relevant Activity *

PNI studies interactions between thoughts, emotions and health. Learn effects of relaxation on neural, hormonal and immunological pathways and its' role in reducing pain, fatigue, anxiety, inflammation, depression, PTSD and chronic disease.

Relaxation is evidence based, non-pharmacological, non-invasive, efficacious and cost effective. These practical seminars demonstrate simple techniques reduce pain, sleep disorders, anxiety, depression, inflammatory conditions and PTSD.

* FPS Relevant Activity *

PNI studies interactions between thoughts, emotions and health. Learn effects of relaxation on neural, hormonal and immunological pathways and its' role in reducing pain, fatigue, anxiety, inflammation, depression, PTSD and chronic disease.

This enjoyable and information packed seminar will provide participants with new abilities to help clients BPD deal with issues relating to self half, multiple suicide attempts, frequently hurt feelings, intense unpredictable mood swings, shame, trauma, toxic relationships and other problems that impair their ability to function in society.

* FPS Relevant Activity *

Clients with complex needs are often labelled as "challenging" or as "having challenging behaviour." They may challenge your way of working but there are many strategies you can use in order to enhance your practice and achieve best client outcomes. Attend this seminar and learn how you can develop and further modify CBT, DBT and Schema Therapy techniques you currently use to better support clients with complex needs.

*FPS Relevant Activity*

While many of us try to maintain a good therapeutic relationship, this can be difficult. Trauma clients struggle to trust the therapist; many minimise their own traumatic experiences, or become help-rejecting. Others rush into the work, seeking a “quick fix,” despite a long history of interpersonal trauma.

Through the lens of attachment theory, using a relational, integrative approach, Dr Muller follows the ups and downs of the therapy relationship with trauma survivors. How do we tell when we’ve unknowingly compromised safety in the relationship? What happens to the relationship when clients or therapists rush into the process, and how can this be addressed? And how can subtle conflicts in the relationship become useful in treatment? Dr Muller points to the different choices therapists make in navigating the relationship. In trauma therapy, those choices have a strong impact on outcome.

Recovering from trauma is a complicated process. When people reveal too much, too soon, they may feel worse. The pacing of therapy is critical. Here too, the key is in the therapist-client relationship. Dr Muller walks you through the relational approaches that help pace the process of opening up –so that people find the experience helpful, not harmful.

Throughout the workshop, theory is complemented by case examples, practical exercises, and segments from Dr Muller's own treatment sessions. This workshop focuses on clinical skills that are directly applicable in your work as therapists. You will learn specific skills to ensure ethical practice with all clients.

This two-day workshop presents a highly practical and interactive workshop (case-based) for treating PTSD patients; the content is applicable to both adult and adolescent populations.

* FPS Relevant Activity *

This 3-day face to face course is an opportunity not only to be trained in the RISE UP model of supervision, but for personal growth and personalised feedback, which culminates in a formal assessment phase. It has a pre-reading component of up to 40 hours. Your presenter has extensive experience in private practice and supervision, affording you insight into cases and supervision issues

Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) is a chronic disorder characterised by excessive worry, accompanied by somatic symptoms such as restlessness, sleep disturbance, muscle tension and fatigue. It is one of the most common comorbid disorders, particularly with major depression and other anxiety disorders. GAD is also frequently associated with chronic pain conditions, medically unexplained symptoms and sleep disorders. Estimates of lifetime prevalence range between 4.0% and 7.0%. Because of its frequently chronic course, GAD has the potential to create greater disruption in peoples' lives than other anxiety disorders. Historically, it has been less responsive to psychological treatment than other anxiety disorders, and until around 2000, studies reviewing treatment outcomes based on standard CBT interventions found limited improvements.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

Schema Therapy has been designed to treat disturbed people, including those with chronic mood disorders and personality disorders. There is now considerable evidence of effectiveness with randomised control trials.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

Attachment consists of diverse lifespan phenomena. Studies have now expanded including all age cohorts: younger and older children, adolescents, adults and older adults. Both understanding and responding to attachment needs of each group requires knowledge of important differences and similarities, continuities and discontinuities. This seminar provides a unique overview of practical interventions applicable across the full attachment lifespan. For each age group, one evidence-based approach will be engaged whereby specific skills and activities are explored with a focus on applicability for practice. Although fewer practitioners work with every lifespan age group, awareness of the full spectrum remains valuable for understanding clients, their families and their relations.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

Doing Death and Dying Well (Deathwalker Training) is a 3 day strength based training providing pallative care awareness to professionals working with people who are dying, their loved ones and carers. The training provides legal and practical knowledge around death and dying. It is experiantial and educational in it's delivery, building resilience and developing skills that enable you to accompany the dying person, their loved ones, carers and bereaved on their journey during what can be a challenging time.

This interactive and stimulating 2 day course will assist professionals to explore conflict and impart the essential principles and process of mediation. The structured 5-step mediation model and specific conflict resolution skills will be presented and practiced. The course can be utilised in many different areas of conflict e.g. client work, workplace disputes and interpersonal conflict.

* Discount to AASW members *

This course will provide the necessary understanding, skills and confidence to manage the difficult discussions effectively. The difficult conversation in the workplace will be necessary for the manager with employees, between colleagues and with clients or students. It is also applicable for challenging interpersonal conversations. This course will explore the difficult conversation utilising the Harvard Negotiation Project model.

* AASW Member Discount *

Doing Death and Dying Well (Deathwalker Training) is a 3 day strength based training providing pallative care awareness to professionals working with people who are dying, their loved ones and carers. The training provides legal and practical knowledge around death and dying. It is experiential and educational in it's delivery, building resilience and developing skills that enable you to accompany the dying person, their loved ones, carers and bereaved on their journey during what can be a challenging time.

Join Dr Debra Alvis for a day of cutting edge contemplative and brain based interventions to address a spectrum of clinical disorders. With the seminar's focus on clinician self care, conclude the day feeling renewed energised and ready to apply these new approaches.

* FPS Relevant Activity *

As there has been a significant increase in demand for mental health services and a requirement for economical ‘less is more treatment approaches’, skills in brief, focused therapies are becoming necessary. With Psychodynamic Therapy noted for its emphasis on the unconscious, transferences, childhood patterns, and defence mechanisms, one might wonder how it could be adapted to be an effective brief therapy.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

This is a rare opportunity to develop understanding and skill in the use of art as visual processing in therapy and particularly in trauma treatment and recovery. When clients find it difficult to talk about an event, situation, relationship, feeling etc. a nonverbal expression can open up expression and make way for therapeutic work. Trauma memory can be a visual reoccurrence or recollection, that is triggered unexpectedly at times and using art becomes a relevant approach regardless of a person’s artistic ability.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

Doing Death and Dying Well (Deathwalker Training) is a 3 day strength based training providing pallative care awareness to professionals working with people who are dying, their loved ones and carers. The training provides legal and practical knowledge around death and dying. It is experiential and educational in it's delivery, building resilience and developing skills that enable you to accompany the dying person, their loved ones, carers and bereaved on their journey during what can be a challenging time.

Working with couples can be very challenging and asks a great deal of the therapist in different ways to working with individuals. This training day is designed to give therapists an opportunity to learn systemic concepts when working with couples and participants will learn practical skills and tools to build confidence in this area of clinical work.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

This course will help participants develop skills in positive engagement of parents/carers from the outset. The course aims to provide participants with an engagement framework that complements all their existing knowledge and skills. It brings together knowledge of trauma, attachment, shame research, attunement, invitations to responsibility framework, parental ethics, and their role in ethical client engagement.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

The concept of attachment difference within Attachment Theory has offered a truly valuable framework to understand many of the serious mental health care risks associated with childhood difficulties. This second 2019 attachment seminar extends this focus to addressing a relatively new set of adult differences identified as ‘attachment disorganisation’, something potentially influenced by ‘early and ongoing’ trauma and associated with adult personality disorders. In addition to clarifying current knowledge of ‘attachment disorganisation’ into adulthood, the seminar will also introduce more integrated approaches to treatment that include attachment and might also provide greater direction to our work.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

This 3-day face to face course is an opportunity not only to be trained in the RISE UP model of supervision, but for personal growth and personalised feedback, which culminates in a formal assessment phase. It has a pre-reading component of up to 40 hours. Your presenter has extensive experience in private practice and supervision, affording you insight into cases and supervision issues

The emphasis of this two-day training program is upon imparting practical, accessible skills to use immediately with survivors of complex trauma (especially child abuse and neglect).

* FPS Relevant Activity *

Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD - A treatment for complex trauma

* FPS Relevant Activity *

Mindful Self-Compassion is an outstanding workshop. The program consist of didactic and experiential training exercises in mindfulness and self-compassion, to improve professional skills and personal lives.

Rapidly expanding research shows that mindfulness and self-compassion are strongly associated with emotional well-being, lower levels of anxiety, pain and depression, better healthy habits such as diet and exercise, more satisfying personal relationships and enhanced self-care.

* FPS Relevant Activity *

Mindful Self-Compassion is an outstanding workshop. The program consist of didactic and experiential training exercises in mindfulness and self-compassion, to improve professional skills and personal lives.

Rapidly expanding research shows that mindfulness and self-compassion are strongly associated with emotional well-being, lower levels of anxiety, pain and depression, better healthy habits such as diet and exercise, more satisfying personal relationships and enhanced self-care.

* FPS Relevant Activity *

This practical one-day training workshop begins with a brief review of historical approaches to couples therapy and how research has revealed the ineffectiveness in those approaches. Ari will then present some of Gottman’s (leading couples therapy researcher) findings about destructive patterns in couple relationships and their predictive validity as well as those aspects that enhance satisfying and enduring relationships.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

Motivational interviewing is a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication with particular attention to the language of change. It is designed to strengthen personal motivation for, and commitment to, a specific goal by eliciting and exploring the person’s own reasons for change within an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion. Motivational interviewing utilises the principles and practices of person-centred counselling to engage a person in a conversation about change.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

How can we differentiate bipolar disorder from borderline personality disorder (BPD), obsessive-compulsive disorder from obsessive compulsive personality disorder, or a cognitive lack of empathy from the emotional lack of empathy that is part of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)? Although personality disorders are often talked about, their symptoms can be difficult to recognise - particularly by novice therapists who may be baffled by behaviours associated with personality disorders. This seminar will provide an understanding of the ten DSM-5 listed personality disorders, with an emphasis on: learning to identify the symptoms; understanding the lived experience of consumers; and learning to manage some of the difficult behaviours.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

The unpredictability of mood swings and rages associated with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) can be confusing and challenging for family, friends, co-workers and therapists alike. This seminar will provide an in-depth understanding of BPD and NPD.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

Narratively oriented therapists take the position that our lives are shaped by stories. We never see the world as it is, we always see through a narrative ‘lens’, we give value to certain aspects of experience and neglect other aspects, we are constantly interpreting what is happening in, to and around us. It is through the stories we have about ourselves, others and life in general that we make sense of things and navigate our way in the world. And how we see the world clearly shapes how we act in the world.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

This workshop utilises two models of supervision to help supervisors tailor their supervisory approach towards their supervisees. The two models are Hawkins & Shohet’s ‘Seven-Eyed Supervision: A Process Model’ and Heron’s ‘Six Categories of Intervention’. These two models combined allow supervisors to identify the needs of their supervisees as well as apply an appropriate intervention in order to meet the identified need.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

This two-day workshop presents a highly practical and interactive workshop (case-based) for treating PTSD patients; the content is applicable to both adult and adolescent populations.

* FPS Relevant Activity *

Complex trauma is highly damaging but frequently unrecognised and inappropriately treated. While current research in the neurobiology of attachment has major implications for treatment of trauma, the potential of these insights is not widely operationalised in clinical practice and confusion about the differences between ‘complex’ and ‘single incident’ trauma persists.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

Recent developments and research in neuroscience indicate that direct attention to and work with the emotions is necessary for effective therapeutic change. More particularly, ‘affective embodied experiences are central for change to occur’ (Schore 2012).

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

In this two-day workshop, the first day gives theory and practice of group therapy. The term 'group therapy' can be applied to a variety of theoretically and practically different kinds of groups from the psychoanalytic to the CBT.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

The emphasis of this two-day training program is upon imparting practical, accessible skills to use immediately with survivors of complex trauma (especially child abuse and neglect).

* FPS Relevant Activity *

Dr Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb brings her well received 1-week summer Gestalt Therapy residential straight from Italy to Tallows Beach Retreat Centre between the Teatree Lake and the Pacific Ocean!

This seminar aims to enhance counselling practitioner’s knowledge, sensitivity and awareness for working with transgender people. Some of the topics covered will be; awareness of language when referring to transpeople, scales of sex and gender, the current DSM gender dysphoria diagnosis, referral requirements for treatment and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards. Specifically, this training addresses background information, terms & definitions, diagnosis criteria, the prevalence of gender diversity & aspects of assessment.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

The Adolescent Culture workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to engage and be a part of an informative and experiential/interactive session about young people today. This workshop will include discussions, activities and information on adolescent culture, highlighting what young people are experiencing, feeling, participating in and experimenting with. In addition, participants will walk away with a tool belt with skills and strategies to best engage with and motivate young people.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information

This workshop will draw from the work of Paul Gilbert, founder of Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), and Dennis Tirch, founder of The Centre for Compassion Focused Therapy. The healing properties of compassion have been written about for centuries, including the Dali Lama who connects compassion with happiness. CFT is an integrated and multimodal approach that draws from evolutionary, social, developmental and Buddhist psychology, and neuroscience.

* This training may be considered Focused Psychological Strategies. Please refer to the DoH website for further information