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Creative Child Therapy Workshops

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24.01.2022 There are so many wonderful picture books that can be incorporated into therapy. Many children enjoy books and the experience of being read to can often feel nurturing. Books also have a normalising value: their existence implies that other children have experienced similar difficulties and helps the child to feel less alone in their experience. What follows are some tips for using books well in therapy. You can check out our new blog post on using picture books here - https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/using-picture-book/

23.01.2022 Some of my amazing clients have been contributing to a book on home schooling. It's been lovely to see them think about what works for them and have this honoured. Having the chance to learn from others and feel less alone has also been valuable. Narrative interventions like this can be so powerful. Lots of therapeutic activities use a narrative approach. If you are interested in learning more you can find our free resources, blog, and workshop information at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au

23.01.2022 Were continuing to add to our website to share our playful and purposeful ideas for therapy with children and families. Our resources include - Fun ideas for using board games... Creative ways to use a ball in therapy Child and family assessment template Check them out at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au. While you're there check out our online courses and workshops.

23.01.2022 Exciting Announcement!! We are thrilled to share the news that we have a new book coming out later this year! Its with the team at Jessica Kingsley Publishers in London now. They found us a terrific illustrator for our templates and the proofs are looking great!

22.01.2022 Just sharing an idea for working therapeutically with children over telehealth during covid-19. For more tips about this, check out our blog at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/six-top-tips-for-t/

22.01.2022 Early-bird rate ending next week for Melbourne and Sydney workshops! We are excited to offer two different workshops, both are suitable for new or experienced therapists - Creative Ways to Help Children Manage Emotions Playful, Practical and Purposeful Approaches to Childhood Anxiety... Join us for one or both! Details at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/workshops/

22.01.2022 Our thoughts are with our Melbourne colleagues with the recent return to lockdown. In my family, the only one who is happy about everyone being home again is Lucy our cavoodle! She loves the constant company, and Ive enjoyed being able to involve her in my telehealth therapy sessions. My child clients have enjoyed meeting Lucy and introducing their pets to me. Pets can be such a lovely source of comfort and companionship for children, and when things are tough, a pat and a cuddle can be so regulating and calming. We hope that you are all finding sources of comfort and calm moments during these difficult times.

21.01.2022 Wow, 400 therapists have joined our online course! We have been so pleased with all the lovely feedback we’ve received, like these comments from one of our participants. You’ll find information about the course at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/online-cpd-for-chi/

21.01.2022 Meet the team at Creative Child Therapy Workshops #1! Today we'd like to introduce Dr Fiona Zandt, Co-Founder, Author and Workshop Facilitator. Fiona is a clinical child psychologist with over 19 years experience working with children and families. She has worked in a broad range of settings and currently works in private practice in addition to coordinating the Specialist Autism Team at the Royal Childrens Hospital. Fiona loves coming up with new ways to use play and art to engage children and families in therapy. In her downtime Fiona enjoys hanging out with her three children, playing at the beach, bike riding, cooking and reading.

20.01.2022 Meet the team at Creative Child Therapy Workshops #3! Today we'd like to introduce Natasha Cunningham, Administration. Natasha has been with the team for nearly five years. Behind the scenes she assists with supporting our participants booking into our workshops and online course, answering their enquiries and assisting with all the different administration needs that come with running Creative Child Therapy Workshops. Natasha has a Diploma in Accounting and many years exp...erience in various administration roles. In her spare time, Natasha has two beautiful girls, enjoys doing diamond paintings and has an interest in cars. For further information about Creative Child Therapy Workshops please visit https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/

20.01.2022 Board games can be really useful in therapy and making them is a great way of really personalising them. We've included lots of ideas about making therapeutic board games on our website, which you can sign up to download. Check it out here - https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au//fun-ideas-for-us/ If you are looking for some simple templates you can use, including the one pictured, there are some terrific ones here - https://notebookingfairy.com//all-/game-board-template.pdf. You can download these as a pdf and share them on your screen so that you can use them in Telehealth sessions too.

19.01.2022 So lovely to see our book at #1 again. Really grateful that people find it helpful. Can't wait for our new book to be released. You can check out the cover here - https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/publications/

18.01.2022 You can check out our blog here - https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/six-top-tips-for-t/

18.01.2022 We just heard that our book has sold over 10,000 copies and is a #1 best seller! We are so grateful for how well it has been received and are thrilled to think that our ideas are helping other therapists and the children and families that they work with. Thank you all for your support.

17.01.2022 We are excited to be returning to in-person workshops in early 2021! Registrations are now open for Melbourne and Sydney with two workshops to choose from... Playful, Practical and Purposeful Approaches to Childhood Anxiety: Melbourne - 26th Feb Sydney - 27th March ... Creative Ways to Help Children Manage Emotions: Sydney - 26th March Melbourne - 5th June Book early to reserve your spot and get the early-bird rate! Details at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/workshops/

17.01.2022 We are counting down to our first workshop back on 26th Feb in Melbourne! Join us for a fun day learning lots of new ideas for helping children with anxiety. Details at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/playful-practical-/

16.01.2022 Make believe comix is a great website for creating stories with children over telehealth. They have a number of coronavirus prompts that are useful for helping children explore their current experience. Check it out at https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/coronavirus-comic-diary/

16.01.2022 We are pleased to hear that Kirrilie Smout along with Uni SA are developing a new outcome measure which will be useful for child therapists to track child and parent progress in therapy. Its focus will be on measuring skills in managing problematic emotions and behaviours rather than symptoms. The team are needing lots of parents to complete the questionnaire (therapists who are parents are also welcome to participate) and are generously offering a free copy of Kirrilie's terrific book, When Life Sucks for Kids, to all participants. If you are interested, the direct link is https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q73QDNQ

16.01.2022 Lovely feedback about our course! Details at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/online-cpd-for-chi/

15.01.2022 So excited to have my new brain arrive! My new foam brain that is! I love using this to talk with kids about their emotions and my cheeky dog mistook my last one for a chew toy! I'll definitely be finding a safer place for this one.

14.01.2022 As we move back to face to face work we need to think carefully about how we use toys and activities safely. Balancing this with the need to continue working through play and providing calming sensory experiences for children is however also important. Making playdoh is something I have often done with children and playdoh forms the basis of many therapeutic activities I use. I am however finding that making playdoh is particularly useful at present as children can make th...eir own playdoh, use it in the session and then take it with them. Children usually love doing this and it means Im not concerned about other children using the same material. I find that a tub from my own recycling works well for this activity. Children can use it to mix the playdoh in and can then transport it home in this. If youve never made your own playdoh before theres a great recipe here - https://funlearningforkids.com/easy-play-dough-recipe-with/, the quantity of which tends to work well for the container size I tend to use. See more

13.01.2022 Many children we see really struggle when they are faced with a problem. We often find ourselves working on building their skills in regulating their emotions in these situations and in problem-solving. We want to encourage problem-solving strategies that are flexible and practical for them to use, and are realistic for their developmental level. This often differs from traditional problem-solving approaches. For further information about this, check out Fionas article, Pausing, breathing, using your thinking brain and trying again and again: Helpful strategies for teaching children to problem solve with the free resources on our website - https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au//pausing-breathin/

12.01.2022 One of our important roles as children prepare to return to school is to facilitate good communication between families and teachers. Having some understanding of the child’s challenges and strategies, as well as more generally what the child enjoys and how they learn, can really help teachers to support children. Our Letter to My New Teacher resource is a great way to document some of this important information in a user friendly form. You can access it here - https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au//all-about-me-a-l/

12.01.2022 As school recommences and life promises to return to its usual fast pace its a good time to encourage families to pause and reflect. While isolation has been stressful for families it has also been a time of deeper connection and greater understanding for many. In the absence of school and scheduled activities many families have found themselves playing board games, walking, cooking or watching movies together. For some families isolation has given them the opportunity to... develop new ways of spending time together while for others its provided the space to come together more often. As we return to our normal routines we have an opportunity to pause and consider what works and what doesnt. We have some choice about how wed like it to be different and as therapists we can invite the families we work with to consider this too. There may be broader considerations about work hours and structured activities however for many families it will be about creating space for a little more time together into their regular routine. As therapists we know that family routines and rituals are important and it is a useful time to support the parents we work with in establishing these. Taking time to talk about the experience of isolation can facilitate some useful discussion about any routines or rituals families might like to incorporate going forward. Here are some suggestions you might be able to offer families For families who have enjoyed playing board games together suggesting a regular games night can be a good idea. Planning to have one special family dinner each week might be a good fit for those families who have enjoyed cooking and eating together more often. Having a regular family movie night is often a good fit for those families who have enjoyed some time on the couch together. Planning a weekly family walk or bike ride can work well for families whove been enjoying getting active during isolation.

12.01.2022 Helping children and families to understand anxiety can be empowering for them and is an important step early in therapy. Karen Young, author of Hey Warrior, has a lovely approach to educating children about anxiety, explaining it in a very positive and normalising way. We recently discovered all the videos that Karen has shared on her Hey Sigmund website, including lots of nice, short videos explaining anxiety and helpful ideas to manage it to children. Check them out at https://www.heysigmund.com/treehouse/ Thank you Hey Sigmund - Karen Young!

11.01.2022 I often look carefully at my household recycling before deciding whether to place it in the recycling bin. It often holds many items that can be re-purposed for craft activities in therapy and is an economical way of providing the child with something they can take home at the end of the session. Im finding it particularly useful at present however as a way of limiting the amount of cleaning we need to do in the clinic room. As we move back into face to face work Ive had to...Continue reading

11.01.2022 Weve always had one TV in my house. My thought has been that we can negotiate and compromise and that this is, indeed, an important thing for us to do as a family. Im certainly not about to judge others for the number of televisions they might have, however it worked for us. That was, of course, until Covid happened and we found ourselves in isolation. One of the first things we did then was to order a second TV. In many ways this highlights for me one of the most impo...rtant questions I find myself asking when I work with families, namely who needs to come together and who needs to separate. What I realised over Covid is that because in my family there are lots of things that usually take us in different directions, like school, work and sports, we typically spend much of our time at home in activities that bring us together. Whether thats making pizza or negotiating what we will watch on TV our time at home tended to centre on family activities. Covid however increased the amount of time we all spent together and created a situation in which we needed to have the opportunity to separate. Much like a new developmental stage Covid created a new challenge in our family that there needed to be some adjustment as a result. To read more click here https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/my-new-tv-and-a-re/ See more

11.01.2022 We have missed running our in-person workshops and are really looking forward to returning to running these again later this year! We are counting down for our Creative Ways to Help Children Manage Emotions workshop in Melbourne on 4th September and in Sydney on 27th November. If we can, wed love to open up a Brisbane workshop late in the year too, fingers crossed! If you prefer to stick to online training for now, our online version of this workshop is always open for enrolment. All the details are on our website at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/ Keep up to date by joining our mailing list.

10.01.2022 Visiting Feelings is one of my favourite books to use in therapy. Books can be a great starting point with children and I love using craft to bring these to life. Often Ill make a simple cardboard door, like the one below, to talk with children about what feelings might be visiting them. If you are interested in more ideas and tips for using books well in therapy check out our blog at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/using-picture-book/

10.01.2022 Amazing. The activities and ideas are practical and very easy to apply....I feel I have done the best course. I have already started applying many ideas with the children I work with and excited to apply more. We loved seeing this comment from an OT who recently completed our Creative Ways to Help Children Manage Emotions online course! Course information at https://buff.ly/2OYa6kS

07.01.2022 Creating comic strips can be a great way to explore a whole lot of therapeutic concepts with children and adolescents. Drawing these in face to face sessions works well, however they can also be a good option for telehealth. Caroline Mehlomakulu shared some of her ideas about using comics in online sessions in her recent blog post, along with some suggestions about platforms you can use. Check it out here - https://creativityintherapy.com//creating-comics-in-thera/

07.01.2022 I'm having lots of goal setting conversations this week. With my current clients that means pausing and talking openly about what's working, what's not, and where to next. These important discussions really set up our work for the term. What are your tips for pausing and reviewing progress in therapy?

07.01.2022 In our playful therapy activities with children, we often find different ways to explore the idea of scaling feelings like anger or worry. This can help children reflect on the size of their feelings and begin to notice lower levels of these feelings, like times when they are feeling annoyed rather than furious. Kari Dunn Buron is the author of The Incredible 5-Point Scale, and we noticed she has shared lots of colourful, printable scale templates at https://www.5pointscale.com/scales.html To find out more about our hands-on approach to child therapy, visit https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au

06.01.2022 The Calm your Anxiety summit launches on Monday. You can check out our interview on Encouraging Positive Self-Talk in Preschoolers along with all the other terrific topics that are being discussed. The summit is organised by MindBe Education and is free. You can register at https://www.calmyouranxietysummit.com/signup-calm-your-anxi

06.01.2022 Meet the team at Creative Child Therapy Workshops #2! Today we'd like to introduce Dr Suzanne Barrett, one of our two co-founders, authors and workshop facilitators. Suzanne is a clinical psychologist who has over 20 years experience working with children, adolescents and families. She has worked in a variety of settings and currently works in private practice, where she is passionate about providing effective, engaging and developmentally appropriate therapy for young peop...le and working closely with their families. In addition to her clinical work, Suzanne enjoys providing supervision and training for other therapists working with children and adolescents. Outside of work, Suzanne enjoys spending time with her three children, husband and cavoodle, as well as hanging out with all of her large family and friends, reading and travelling (so she is looking forward to being able to socialise in person and travel again!) For further information about our backgrounds and approach please visit https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/about-us/

06.01.2022 Some children are very interested in learning about their brain, and this can be therapeutic for different reasons. It can be empowering for children to understand how their brain can change and learn, or how different parts of their brain are in charge of thinking or feeling. If you have moved to telehealth and would like an online way to explore the brain and its functions, check out this cool interactive brain model at https://www.brainfacts.org/3d-brain#intro=false&focus=Brain For other engaging ideas for therapy with children, check out the free resources on our website at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/free-resources/

05.01.2022 It was lovely to meet Helen from MindBe Education recently. I joined her for an interview for the Calm your Anxiety summit, which looks like it has a great line up. For more information on the summit go to https://www.calmyouranxietysummit.com/calm-your-anxiety-sum

04.01.2022 We love running our in-person workshops, meeting the new groups of therapists and having a great day together, and have missed doing so this year so far due to the restrictions! We are grateful that we have our Creative Ways to Help Children Manage Emotions online course so that we can still share our ideas with other therapists. The online course allows for hands-on activities and sharing and questions via the online comments. It is self-paced, so therapists complete it in their own time. For details check out our website at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/online-cpd-for-chi/

04.01.2022 We were so glad to see that Buster and Ann have found our training helpful! Thanks Ann and Buster.

04.01.2022 Often as therapists we support a large number of children and families. Our case notes often help us to track their progress, however it can be easy to lose track of details, like what activities they do after school or what on earth their dog’s name is! Understanding a child’s interests can provide us with insight into how they think and what they value, often shaping our therapy work. You can read more about this in our blog post on Using Children’s Interests in Therapy. The following template provides a space in which you can record any of these details as they become apparent in your work with a child and family. It can be a great resource when you are feeling stuck in therapy and ensures that children really feel known. Check it out here - https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/f/personal_profile/

03.01.2022 As I move back into the clinic I'm finding that some families are continuing to choose telehealth sessions, at least in the short term. While I'm loving having some face to face sessions I'm continuing to embrace telehealth and finding that I can use very similar activities. Simple crafts that require only paper and pencils work well via telehealth as most children can readily access these at home. This Lift the Flap on Anger activity is a great one that works just as well via telehealth as it does face to face. Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCfyEY7mKLU

02.01.2022 Im loving my polymer clay while working over telehealth. Its enabled me to create something for a child during a session and then cook it and pop it in the mail to them afterwards. Special symbols or words that can be attached to a keychain or necklace work really well. For more creative therapy ideas, check out our workshops, online courses and free resources at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au

02.01.2022 We always appreciate course participants taking the time to provide us with feedback. We loved reading these recent comments about our Creative Ways to Help Children Manage Emotions Online Course - This course was amazing as it opened my eyes to not only different techniques and ways of working with children and families but also activities that I could use during these sessions to make them more interactive. - Child Psychologist, 4 years experience in child work "Fantast...ic. I could do it at my own pace and repeat parts I wanted to clarify my thinking about. It was really pleasing to realise that as an OT, not a psychologist, that a lot of activities I'm already using could be extended or used in a different way to help children work though some of their tricky feelings, whilst still feeling comfortable that I'm staying within the bounds of my expertise." - Paediatric Occupational Therapist, 25 years experience in child work "I have found this course very accessible and practical which has been great - I have a lot of ideas/activities I am looking forward to putting into practice with clients." - Clinical Psychologist, over 10 years experience in child work If you'd like to join in too, you can enrol and complete the course anytime, details at https://childpsychologyworkshops.com.au/online-cpd-for-chi/.

02.01.2022 The team at Beacon House have developed many excellent resources about developmental trauma, which they share freely on their website. This is one weve found helpful in encouraging people to reflect on how they are thinking about and describing vulnerable children. Check it out at https://beaconhouse.org.uk//2019/09/What-We-Say-Comic-1.pdf. Information courtesy of Beacon House Therapeutic Services and Trauma Team | 2019 | www.beaconhouse.org.uk

01.01.2022 Staying connected is so important, particularly right now. I'm loving these posters from the Australian Childhood Foundation that provide children with lots of ideas for greeting and farewelling each other safely. Check them out at https://www.childhood.org.au//ACF510-Hellos-Goodbyes-hando