Learn about how you can support others with Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) over two full days of training:

• explore mental health issues and problems that people face in everyday life
• identify signs and symptoms that suggest a person is developing a mental illness
• learn how to provide initial support for a person experiencing a mental health crisis.

Mental Health First Aid is practical and hands-on, like a first aid course, and is delivered by Accredited MHFA Instructors. Participants receive a Certificate of Attendance upon completion.

Mental health issues affect 1 in 5 Australians, making this Mental Health First Aid course relevant to everyone from individuals to entire workplaces.

Learn how to facilitate Family Group Conferencing for families where concerns have been raised for the wellbeing and safety of a child or young person. This training teaches Coordinators a strengths-based and inclusive approach, assisting families to develop an agreement on how to provide safe, permanent, and stable care arrangements for their child or young person.

The Ngartuitya Family Group Conference (NFGC) Service allocates a Coordinator for all families referred from the Department of Child Protection. NFGC Coordinators focus on empowering families and community members to identify strategies to keep their own children and young people safe within family and kin. Ngartuitya (Nar-choo-wit-cha) is from the Kaurna language and means ‘for the Children’. Kaurna people are the traditional owners of the Adelaide Plains region.

Completion of this professional development course is required, to be considered for casual work opportunities as a Coordinator through this state-wide service. There are no other essential criteria for applying to become a Coordinator, besides your commitment to provide a family led decision-making process, which supports families to come together to ensure their child’s safety and promote wellbeing.

This training is a combination of 3 hours self-paced online learning (pre-requisite) and 3 days of face-to-face classroom learning facilitated by Sarah Decrea, Manager Family Led Decision Making at Relationships Australia SA.

For more information about Family Group Conferencing please visit the service page.

This course is aligned to the following two units of competency from the Certificate IV in Community Services:

• CHCFAM006: Assist families to self-manage contact
• CHCDIV001: Work with diverse people

At the conclusion of the face-to-face training, students can choose to be formally assessed and awarded with two units of competency upon successful completion. An additional charge of $300 will apply for registration and assessment.

Satisfactory completion of formal assessments will be issued with a nationally recognised statement of attainment.

Build your knowledge, over a full day, on how to effectively and confidently reach out to intervene in a suicidal crisis.

Learn about the ‘why’ of suicide by understanding contemporary evidence-based models of suicidality. Based on established core competencies that mental health professionals use to assess and manage suicide risk, this training includes:

• current approaches to suicide prevention
• warning signs
• risk assessment
• management of clients who present with suicidality.

You will find out about effective engagement, how to access useful resources, building resilience, and helping to facilitate protective factors for our communities.

Responding to suicide risk training is suitable for workers in any profession.

This workshop is an opportunity to put theory-into-practice when undertaking trauma-informed work, by using practical examples, case studies and roleplays about responding to children and parents who have experienced trauma.

This full day workshop will:

• build your skills in talking to parents about the effects of trauma and how trauma is reflected in children’s behaviours
• provide you with practical and simple strategies that support parents to remain connected to their children, despite traumatic events
• improve your ability to notice when parents and children are taking small actions to modify the effects of trauma and encourage those actions
• support you to respectfully respond to a parent or child who is experiencing distress
• introduce you to a range of children’s resources that will improve your support of families.

This training is open to all but free for frontline workers in the family and domestic violence and homelessness sectors.

Learn how to respond to men who perpetrate violence and, as a result, contribute towards greater community safety. Engaging with both victims and perpetrators of family domestic violence is critical for the safety of affected families.

Qualified facilitators can help avert further harm by educating abusive men about the consequences of their actions. In a counselling context, this training covers:

• factors that promote behaviour change in men who abuse
• how to support the process of accepting responsibility
• how to assist men to seek help.

Agencies and workers may only see the aftermath of a single incident in an ongoing pattern. Training in working therapeutically with men who perpetrate violence can help make a positive difference for men and families by supporting personal accountability and better understanding of patterns of behaviour.

Facilitator Bio

This training is run by David Tully, Practice Manager for Specialised Family Violence Services at Relationships Australia South Australia (RASA) and facilitator of Back on Track: A Men’s Group for Positive Change.

David has worked in the field of domestic violence and childhood sexual assault for over 20 years. David’s role at RASA focusses on developing organisational practice approaches to working with perpetrators of domestic and family violence.

He has participated on the research advisory panel for the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault and is a Peer-Assessor for Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety around perpetrator research.

Learn about narrative therapy as a respectful, engaging, and a creative way to work with young people and families. Narrative approaches support young people and their families to:

• reclaim authorship of their own lives in the face of vulnerability
• take steps toward their hopes and dreams
• promote the restorative position of ‘being with’ people rather than ‘doing to’ people.

In this interactive workshop, explore the concepts behind narrative therapy, harness opportunities to practice with other students, and discuss narrative skills and techniques.

Facilitator Bio

Carolyn Markey is passionate about using narrative approaches as a set of ideas that are hope-filled for workers and clients. Trained by Michael White, a founder of narrative therapy, Carolyn has worked her entire career as a Narrative Therapist.

Carolyn currently works in the Family and Relationship team at RASA, consulting with families, children or couples who are experiencing a range of concerns, many of which are the distressing consequences of unjust trauma. As part of this position, she also works collaboratively with a Yarnin’ group for Aboriginal families who have children under 4. A space where she is always learning. Carolyn also co-facilitates groups for men who are mandated to face up to the effects, and make amends for the violence they have perpetrated. In all of these contexts narrative ideas are central to her conversations. She has been privileged to teach nationally and internationally sharing narrative ideas across many cultures.

This refresher workshop is for workers required to report suspicions of child abuse and neglect who have completed the full training course within the last three years. The full training course is available if you are completing the course for the first time or have not completed the training in the last three years

It will refresh you on how to recognise, report and respond to children or young people who may be at risk of harm, child abuse or neglect.

The ‘Creating safe environments for children and young people’ refresher workshop focuses on child protection in the context of ‘Through Their Eyes’ and has the safety and wellbeing of children at its core. It covers:

• Introduction to child protection in context.
• Values and attitudes: ‘Through our eyes’.
• Risk and harm: South Australian legislation.
• Risk and harm: Abuse-related trauma.
• Sexual abuse and online grooming.
• Through their eyes: Disclosure.
• Safe organisations.
• Reporting suspicion of risk and harm.

In South Australia, when child abuse and neglect are suspected, a wide range of people are required by law to notify the Child Abuse Report Line. This half day refresher training is designed for professionals or volunteers who are mandatory reporters.