Workshop Summary

Learning Objectives

Workshop Schedule


Workshop Summary
One-to-Two-Day for Professionals
(The two-day version provides greater detail on clinical techniques and more time for case discussions)

Manageable amounts of risk and responsibility provide children and youth both a 'risk-taker’s advantage' and genuine opportunities to think 'We' in me-thinking times. Both experiences can nurture a child’s resilience when confronted with multiple life challenges. In this workshop, Dr. Ungar will show how overprotective parenting and few expectations for responsible behaviour can thwart children’s healthy psychosocial development, contributing to both internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Michael will explore these family patterns, explaining them as culturally and contextually embedded aspects of family functioning. To help change these patterns, a three-part model of intervention will be demonstrated that integrates principles of a social ecological theory that integrates systemic, solution-focused and constructionist principles of practice. Intervention encourages parents to first reflect on their own early experiences of risk and responsibility and the life lessons learned. Secondly, the model helps families challenge patterns of overprotection that disadvantage children, while identifying safe substitutes that provide children and youth developmentally appropriate experiences for growth, including opportunities to contribute to the welfare of others. In the third phase of intervention, families are helped to facilitate opportunities for young people to experience definitional ceremonies that allow them to achieve the 4C’s of positive development, to become competent, caring contributors to their families and communities. This model is based on Dr. Ungar’s clinical experience with street youth and youth in child welfare, educational and correctional settings, and builds on findings from his research on resilience in more than a dozen countries. Clinical illustrations and interactive discussions of families which are experiencing intergenerational conflict will be used to demonstrate the techniques of intervention.

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Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to identify patterns of overprotection and emotional control and the consequences both have to children and youth’s healthy psychosocial development.

2. Participants will have the tools necessary to apply to their practice a three-part social ecological model of intervention.

3. Participants will be able to identify the connections between resilience, risk-taking and responsibility-seeking behaviors across different cultures and contexts.

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Workshop Schedule

DAY 1

 
 













DAY 2

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