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Child Focused Practice:
A Collaborative Systemic Approach

This course of two three or four days is aimed at those professionals in the care and health services interested in extending their practice repertoire with children young people and those involved in their care.

The course will aim to:

• Offer a framework for collaborative, systemic and narrative approaches to practice with children, their carers and families.
• Provide a range off skills, techniques, and methods to broaden the practitioner’s repertoire including: the use of play, symbol, metaphor, pretence and music as important channels of communication with children of different ages.
• Provide examples in the use of specific techniques for playfully serious ways of hearing the child's perspective including: mini sculpting, time travel talk, the child as consultant to the therapist, therapist as playful mind reader, therapist as internalised family member, reflecting teams as theatre, storytelling and the use of anecdotes in the pursuit of fresh understandings,“speaking the unspeakable” by using the written word and other forms of letter writing with children.
• Help practitioners to explore their professional and personal "biases” and areas for widening their repertoires of practice with children and young people.

The use of videotaped examples, case anecdotes and skills practice sessions will illustrate possibilities for developing practice. The presenters will endeavour to encourage discussion of the main challenges and questions brought to the course by participants in order to ensure we remain focused and directly relevant to participant`s work settings and clientele.