Facilitator: Jacqueline Benn-John

Frontline service professionals find themselves working directly or indirectly with families.  This one-day workshop is designed to support professionals work in a professional, effective and understanding manner when engaging with families.  Working from an empathetic foundation, the workshop explores the specific challenges workers face, instructs on strategies to engage, and offer support to family members and increase sensitivity to family dynamics. From here, the workshop introduces practices for working with families from a trauma-informed approach.   This session will provide facilitated instruction, scenarios and case examples; participants should come prepared to share their own examples and challenges.  Participants will leave the session with practical approaches ready to implement in their workplaces.  This workshop will offer opportunities to engage in group discussion and to address specific challenges.

Learning Objectives:

• Increase understanding of the contexts that may be impacting families
• Working with families: Using an empathetic awareness of these complexities
• Working with families: Using a trauma-informed approach

Increase understanding of Gender-based Violence:

1. What is Gender-based violence?
2. Impacts of violence
3. Professional Obligations of Frontline workers
4. Responding to Abuse: Tips for Responding

• • Taking a deeper look: Impacts on immigrant and racialized communities
  • Using a Trauma-informed approach to Gender-based violence
  • Learn cross-cultural solutions, strategies and effective interventions for supporting diverse families that reflect anti-racist/anti-oppression theory and practice
  • Stress, Compassion Fatigue and Burnout: An Integrative Approach to Self-Care for Helping Professionals