Successful Strategies for Difficult-to-Engage Children & Adolescents

Successful Strategies for Difficult-to-Engage Children & Adolescents

Issues addressed include

• A detailed protocol for problem assessment including distinguishing the "puberty vs. delinquency" issue
• 6 basic reasons why extreme behavioural problems can develop with children and young people - from the development of inverted power hierarchies to two-steps-ahead thinking.
• How to engage and persuade parents and others to become engaged with any intervention programme
  An 8 step detailed muti-modal intervention package drawing on a broad range of techniques.
• How to give parents and carers the tools to be empowered to change young people's behaviour

How would you deal with the following:

• Carole (15 year old) within a residential unit is actively abusing drugs, non-compliant with school and staying out until 3 - 4 am many nights a week. She has a 17 year old boy friend and staff say they can not control her at all and are totally at a loss as to what to do
• Craig (12 years old) lives with his mother and 17 yr old sister. Their mother is alcohol dependent and tells her social worker she is getting treatment but misses more appointments that she keeps. Craig is violent towards his mother when she is drunk and he is acting aggressively at school

This day will give you ideas on how to approach these and many other difficult cases in new and constructive ways

Course Outline:

09.45 Registration & refreshments
10.00 Introduction: challenging Behaviour & CBT approaches for change
10.10 Understanding adolescent behaviour & emotional regulation
11.00 Cognitive models relating to emotion & behaviour
11.15 Refreshments
11.30 From models to practice. Threat reduction techniques.
13.00 Lunch Break (by own arrangements)
14.00 Responses to challenging behaviour - Cognitive Behavioural Strategies
15.15 Refreshments
15.30 Teaching skills to regulate emotional responses to perceived threat
16.00 Considerations for applying programmes for change
16.30 Finish