Administration workers are often the first persons with whom a client or potential client of your agency will have contact. When that initial contact is by an upset, highly anxious or angry client, it is not easy to find the right response. This workshop equips and supports administration workers in their role of providing ‘first-up’ responses to clients and members of the public who present in person at reception or over the phone. We consider how to interact calmly and safely with people who are presenting in a state of crisis or affected by alcohol or drugs, including how to convey empathy while encouraging the client to contain their anger or upset or behaviour. A workshop for all admin workers who may be ‘first-up’ in responding helpfully in difficult situations or helping to de-escalate potential crises.

Who should attend?

Administration workers in human service agencies who have direct ‘front counter’ or telephone contact with clients and members of the public.

Recording – from case notes to formal reports – is essential to effective child and youth work but can be difficult to do well. This highly interactive workshop examines the art of recording in various contexts. Learn how to write well-structured notes and reports which achieve their purpose as tools to help protect and support children and young people. Participants will learn to apply the ‘rules’ for succinct but effective recording, producing efficient and useful documents to support good practice.

The focus of this workshop is on improving the capacity of workers to make written records which ‘serve their purpose’, whether this is for accountability, or to guide their work with a family, young person or child, or to help review progress. By helping workers to consider how best to structure and approach different types of written records, this workshop aims to remove some of the barriers to good recording and make this a less arduous task. There is a focus on recording in a way that is inclusive of clients and makes written records accessible to them. This workshop is relevant for any workers in child, family and youth welfare who are required to keep case-notes or log entries for various purposes. In practicing recording skills, we go ‘back to the basics’ to examine how to make an effective record, irrespective of the technology used.

Who should attend?

Government and community agency workers, family support workers, youth workers, foster and kinship care support workers, intervention service workers, Assessment and Service Connect practitioners.

The research is in! Children living away from home need to be cared for by kin whenever possible. However, there can be some challenges to negotiate. Family relationships and interactions, cultural matters and worries about capacity or intergenerational trauma can all impact here. This workshop uses contemporary research and thinking to spotlight how workers can be most effective in collaborating with families to enable and promote safe and responsive care by kin for children and young people. If we understand care by kin as ‘family supporting family’ then the question for workers is how to best support, resource and enable this?

Who should attend?

Workers actively supporting care by kin from government and non-government services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander agencies and non-Indigenous organisations.

Administration workers are often the first persons with whom a client or potential client of your agency will have contact. When that initial contact is by an upset, highly anxious or angry client, it is not easy to find the right response. This workshop equips and supports administration workers in their role of providing ‘first-up’ responses to clients and members of the public who present in person at reception or over the phone. We consider how to interact calmly and safely with people who are presenting in a state of crisis or affected by alcohol or drugs, including how to convey empathy while encouraging the client to contain their anger or upset or behaviour. A workshop for all admin workers who may be ‘first-up’ in responding helpfully in difficult situations or helping to de-escalate potential crises.

Who should attend?

Administration workers in human service agencies who have direct ‘front counter’ or telephone contact with clients and members of the public.

Work to reconnect or reunify children, young people and their families is complex, sensitive, challenging and rewarding. It must be done well. We know that most children and young people living away from their families will return home – at some point, in some way. Even for those who cannot ‘go home’, research suggests there are benefits in family connection. The craft of this work lies in how to determine the optimal level and nature of this connection for individual children and young people. If you are interested in exploring this area of practice with a view to clarifying and consolidating your understanding, skills and approach, this is the workshop for you. Contemporary thinking and research inform activities designed to develop your knowledge and skills in: assessing safety; planning effective support and intervention; and collaborative work with children, young people, their families and carers in this emotive and critical work.

Who should attend?

Government and non-government alternative care and reunification workers, residential care workers, foster and kinship care support workers