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Following active participation and input from First Work’s Regional Frontline Meeting participants, we’re excited to share the following training opportunities for members only!

Trauma-Informed Care & Practice

Trauma-Informed Care & Practice Part 2

Presenter: Theresa Hirschberg | Founder of Sights on Solutions
Date: Wednesday, June 7 | 10am-3pm

Join Mental Health and Trauma Informed expert Theresa Hirschberg for part two of Trauma Informed Care and Practices. She brings over 30 years of experience in the sector and is a person of lived experience. In this training we will explore practical applications of the 6 CDC principles and, the 4 Rs of trauma informed care. We will provide attendees with an introduction to the framework of trauma informed care from various stakeholder lenses and learn how to both identify and support triggers for ourselves and your clients.

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Increase your knowledge of implementing best practices from a trauma framework with clients
  2. Trigger/activation identification and management; Introduction to supporting clients who are dealing with triggers in their daily lives that could affect entering the workforce, re-entry, or retention of employment in the mainstream workforce.
  3. Increase your skills in being able to work effectively with clients who you may experience as challenging
  4. Learn how to implement standards of practice using self-reflection and perspective taking
  5. “Planting seeds” how we can begin the discussion and implementation of this modality within our workplace and with our colleagues

  6. “Many times, when we help, we do not really serve. . .. Serving is also different from fixing. One of the pioneers of the Human Potential Movement, Abraham Maslow, said, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.' Seeing yourself as a fixer may cause you to see brokenness everywhere, to sit in judgment of life itself. When we fix others, we may not see their hidden wholeness or trust the integrity of the life in them. Fixers trust their own expertise. When we serve, we see the unborn wholeness in others; we collaborate with it and strengthen it. Others may then be able to see their wholeness for themselves for the first time.”
    ― Rachel Remen

Registration is open for First Work members via the member’s update or on the Member’s portal.

Trauma-Informed Care & Practice Part 3

Presenter: Theresa Hirschberg | Founder of Sights on Solutions
Date: Wednesday June 14 | 10am-3pm

Join Mental Health and Trauma Informed expert Theresa Hirschberg for part 3 of Trauma Informed Care and Practices. She brings over 30 years of experience in the sector and is a person of lived experience.

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Self-reflection on addressing power dynamics based on lived experience
  2. Deepen participants understanding of applying the trauma lens in practice with clients who have experienced trauma
  3. Introduction to emotional regulation and distress management strategies; 2 of the 4 competencies in Dialectical behavioral skills teaching
  4. Introduction to signs and symptoms of vicarious and secondary trauma

Registration is open for First Work members via the member’s update or on the Member’s portal.

Practical Applications of Motivational Interviewing

Practical Applications of Motivational Interviewing Part 1

Presenter: Dale Kuehl | Advanced Practice Clinical Leader
Date: Thursday, July 13 | 10am-3pm

Do you struggle to understand a client’s motivation or lack thereof? Have you found yourself more invested in the goal than the client? Do you want to understand the concepts of ambivalence, readiness and strategies to avoid the Righting Reflex? Motivational Interviewing is a client-centered, evidence-based counselling approach to working with clients ambivalent about making a change. Since its development in the 1990s, it has been successfully applied in education, employment, healthcare, social service settings.

By the end of the session participants will be able to:

  1. Define motivational interviewing
  2. Understand key concepts: ambivalence, readiness, change talk, sustain talk
  3. Building motivation to change and goal setting
  4. Apply the tools and strategies through roleplays, case studies, small & large group discussions

Registration is open for First Work members via the member’s update or on the Member’s portal.

Practical Applications of Motivational Interviewing Part 2

Presenter: Dale Kuehl | Advanced Practice Clinical Leader
Date: Wednesday August 9 | 10am-3pm

Motivational Interviewing is a client-centered, evidence-based counselling approach to working with clients ambivalent about making a change. This highly interactive and engaging session, Motivational Interviewing Part 2 builds on the concepts, techniques and strategies covered in part 1 of this training with new case studies and more opportunity for reflective practice and application. Participants will also dive deeper into eliciting change talk and minimizing sustain talk.

By the end of the session participants will be able to:

  1. Define key concepts and terms of motivational interviewing
  2. Skillfully elicit change talk with the readiness ruler, decisional balance, explore goals and values of the client
  3. Reflect on strategies to use when there is ambivalence, discord & sustain talk
  4. Apply the tools and strategies through roleplays, case studies small & large group discussions

Registration is open for First Work members via the member’s update or on the Member’s portal.

Best Practices in Using the Common Assessment Tool (CAt)

Best Practices in Using the Common Assessment Tool (CAt)

Presenter: Karen Wilson| Executive Director of Employment Planning & Counselling
Date: Tuesday June 27 | 1pm-4pm

This course was created to create familiarity with the Common Assessment tool (CAt) as an early step in our work with new clients while incorporating client-centred philosophies while administering. The day will include discussion of theories and best practices, interspersed with interactive, small group activities for brainstorming and practice. This allows for not just learning from the facilitator, but from the experience and perspectives of all who participate.

Registration is open for First Work members via the member’s update or on the Member’s portal.