Workshop 1 - Online counselling for young people: a risky business?

Dr Terry Hanley

Working online with young people can be a great way of accessing individuals who would not ordinarily access counselling services. Additionally, online work has the potential to actively engage with service users in a safe and comfortable environment of their choosing. Many practitioners have concerns about the quality of the therapeutic provision that can be offered online and the safety of the individuals accessing such services. This workshop will therefore focus upon the risks that those working on the cyber-frontier are facing. It will introduce the key research and historical developments in this area before reflecting upon the motivations for services developing online. Finally, attendees will be invited to take part in a debate regarding the practice of online youth counselling - is the risk too much? You decide!

Workshop 2 - An experiential workshop: Self care

Dr Belinda Harris

Recent research (eg Harris, 2009) highlights the complexities and demands of working therapeutically with children, families and educators in schools and multi-agency team settings. Such conditions require practitioners to have a repertoire of self-support and self-care strategies beyond the supervisory relationship to help them manage the stresses and risks to their own health and wellbeing (Evans & Payne, 2008). This workshop offers participants structured opportunities to experience a range of re-energising self-care strategies, and a reflective space in which to begin developing their own self-care plan. The activities will include some physical movement. Comfortable, informal dress recommended. The workshop is open to all.

Workshop 3 - ‘What should I tell, when and to whom?'

Dr Virginia Ryan

The aim of this workshop is to help participants examine confidentiality issues in both therapeutic work with children and young people and filial therapy (a combination of play therapy and family therapy) This workshop will be from a non-directive play therapy perspective. Case illustrations of confidentiality issues, including dilemmas for practitioners, will be offered, and participants will have opportunities to apply the contents of the workshop to their own practice.

This workshop is suitable for all professionals working individually with children and young people and for professionals wishing to have further information on non-directive play therapy and filial therapy practice over a wide age group.

Seminar 4 - Risk dynamics and the teenage brain

Professor Howard Sercombe

This session introduces participants to recent research in cognitive neuroscience with respect to teenagers: especially concerning the structure of the teenage brain. We will explore to what extent young people's risk taking is determined by brain structure and function versus their environment or social context, and the interplay between these factors. A key question will be the role of risk taking in young people's development, and whether many young people should be taking a lot more risks than they currently do.

Workshop 5 - Working on the edge: Outdoor adventure therapy for young people

Dr Kaye Richards and Dr Jenny Peel

Engaging young people in outdoor and adventure experiences offers unique therapeutic opportunities for both psychological and physical risk taking. This workshop will examine the general therapeutic principles and practical ways of working therapeutically outdoors and using adventure experiences to create psychological benefits for young people. This will enable participants to reflect on the growthful and therapeutic impact of outdoor and adventure experiences and to consider key ethical considerations of working in this setting.

Seminar 6 - ‘Licking honey from the razor's edge'

Di Gammage

The razor's edge is a perilous place for a therapist or counsellor with any client, demanding utmost attunement and presence. It is the place where we cannot afford to fall asleep. Yet to lick honey from the razor's edge suggests endowment of a gift almost unimaginable. The phrase originates from the an 8th century text, ‘A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life' by Buddhist poet and visionary Shantideva (a Bodhisattva is an individual committed to helping relieve the suffering of all beings). I understand the razor's edge to symbolise that place where therapist and client meet beyond their conditioned selves, on a being-to-being level. It is Winnicott's ‘potential space' magnified (1971). It is the place of transformation, the border zone, where something new, and thus far unknown, may emerge. It is the place where we step consciously into our fear, and where we realise that fearlessness is possible.

In this seminar we will explore the risks for both client and therapist/counsellor in not meeting at the razor's edge. We will also pay attention to what we need as healing practitioners - the Bodhisattvas of today - that resource us in meeting our clients in this place.

Workshop 7a - Supervision: lifting the lid on a facilitative relationship

Hans Clausen - Supervisor and Wendy Donaldson - Counsellor

This workshop will take a fresh and transparent look at the supervisory relationship be it straightforward or complex. Rather than demonstrating expertise in supervision or presenting a model of best practice, the workshop will collectively explore how supervision works, how we go about it, what happens at conscious and unconscious levels, and what helps and what hinders. The leaders will use an honest account of their supervisory relationship and experience of working together, as a catalyst for discussion. It is hoped the workshop will provide a forum for investigation, risk taking, sharing and collective learning.
Wendy and Hans have two year's experience of working together in a supervision relationship, supporting Wendy's therapeutic work with young people.

Seminar 8a - Holding the balance: The law and ethics when working with risk

Susan McGinnis

One of the fundamental challenges of working therapeutically with children and young people is balancing professional and ethical responsibilities such as confidentiality and autonomy with contractual and legal obligations as well as individual values. This is never more acute than when working with clients at risk and tension is high. This session aims to give participants a clear understanding of the law to underpin the process of making ethical decisions that have the rights and welfare of children at their heart. There will be factual input followed by experiential work on ethical problem solving.