Compass

Seminar Overview

Important advances been made recently in the study of emotional communication between children and their parents and caregivers.  The importance of adults who care for children naming and acknowledging emotions and talking about them in conversation, as well as recognising children’s emotional cues and responding appropriately, is now clear and has been linked by recent research with positive developmental outcomes.

In this workshop Wendy will present the latest findings in the field of attachment and emotional communication, some of the specific areas to be addressed will include:

•    A brief summary of attachment concepts to act as a foundation for understanding.

•    An in depth look at new research on the role of fathers and early childhood teachers as attachment figures, and the role relationships with teachers play on a child’s learning.

•    Specific focus on the importance of emotional regulation for children and how emotional communication and empathy expressed by adults, whether they are parents, teachers or in the role of a therapist, can be helpful for children’s development.

•    An overview of useful concepts relevant to attachment such as mentalisation and mind-mindedness, which cover the influence of the way a parent thinks about a child on the child’s development.

•    How helping professionals can assist parents to enhance emotional connectedness in various aspects of their parenting.

•    A brief discussion of useful assessment tools such as the Emotional Availability Scale.

Wendy Kelly is a Teaching Clinician with the Clinical Psychology program at Victoria University and is completing a PhD on the topic: Looking after children in care: What psychological factors affect the caregiver-child relationship?  She also runs a private practice providing supervision and consultation services for professionals working in this area. She has worked in the child protection and mental health fields for around 20 years, including five years as a clinical psychologist in Child Youth and Family’s specialist services.  Wendy has previously delivered the attachment seminar ‘Becoming Attached’ with Compass and has developed this new workshop to reflect the phenomenal amount of new knowledge and research that has occurred recently in this important area of practice. Wendy’s engaging and interactive presentation style combined with her depth of knowledge in this topic mean that this workshop will be of benefit to all professionals who work with troubled children or their families.

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