Training Services

The Centre is responding to the increasing demand for on-site training and helpful training resources. Over 10,000 professionals attended training workshops last year and hundreds of thousands accessed our resources through the Internet. Whether it's introductory material or advanced skills for seasoned professionals, our training services support front-line staff and supervisors as they develop, deliver, and evolve services for children, women and families. Years of experience help us package knowledge and skill-bulding strategies in a high-energy format that people enjoy and find extremely helpful. Role plays, small groups exercises, video clips, and facilitated discussion help participants make connections to their own settings and hone skills.

Handbooks, Manuals and Training Resources

Tools, program manuals and resources help you take the learning back to your colleagues along with the skills and new contacts. Almost all our training resources are available at no cost for download on this web site. These resources will be helpful for any helping professional who works with children in the context of violence against women agencies, law enforcement, education, early childhood education, residential treatment facilities, custody settings, mental health agencies, victim services, and the court system.

Here are some examples.

Understanding how Violence Against a Mother Shapes Children as they Grow

A resource for anyone looking to understand how children experience violence against their mothers and how those experiences may shape them as they grow, from infancy to adolescence. We combined the most popular information from our most popular resources, included lots of new material, and added reference to the latest sources of information and updated statistics. Topics addressed include facts & figures, ten ways a child can be changed by living with violence at home, and some myths about woman abuse and children. This is a concise source of information for anyone wanting to understand how children experience violence against their mothers and how those experiences may shape them as they grow, from infancy to adolescence.

Helping Women in Shelters

Helping women in a residential program such as an abused women's shelter, refuge or transition house is a unique opportunity to provide intensive support at a time of crisis and transition. Building on the material in the "Helping Hands" guide called Helping an Abused Woman: 101 Things to Know, Say and Do, this second "Helping Hands" guide is written specifically for those who work in women's shelters, transition houses and refuges, grounded in an understanding of the unique context and the needs expressed by women. You'll find concrete "tool box ideas" for interventions with women, reference to the latest research, ideas for discussion as a staff team, and also worksheets and other handouts to supplement your one-on-one or group work with women.

Supporting Woman Abuse Survivors as Mothers to Help Children Thrive

This 76-page resource written for service providers assisting women who have survived woman abuse. Material addresses the needs of abused women as mothers, how abusive men parent, how abusive men affect family dynamics, effects of power and control tactics on mothers, the potential impact of woman abuse on children of different ages, and strategies used by young people to cope with violence in their homes. Guidance on parenting children who have lived with violence is also offered. Forty-two pages serve as handouts for women, for use in individual or group interventions on woman abuse or on parenting.

Prevention and Intervention for Adolescent Suicide in Residential Settings

A three-day train-the-trainer training program with associated manual and resources including videos and overheads. Everything you need to train staff in your setting to work with high-risk and high-need youth. Trainers will increase their knowledge of adolescent suicide, ability to identify risk indicators and protective factors, and skills for reducing harm and supporting young people. They will also learn facilitation skills and have opportunities to practise the training of peers.

Handbooks for Professionals Aboout Children and Domestic Violence

These four user-friendly handbooks, funded by the Packard Foundation for an American audience of four front-line groups: early childhood educators, police trainers, educators, and youth justice workers. The material in each handbook underwent a rigorous review process to increase their functional value.

Helping Children Give Evidence in Court

These seven concise handbooks help prosecutors, victim-support workers, judges and others understand and meet the needs of children who testify in court. The goal of these efforts is to help the witness provide complete and accurate evidence to the judge or jury. Topics covered are: overview of issues related to child testimony, testifying outside the courtroom (e.g., via CCTV), witness screens, video-recorded evidence, designated support person, hearsay evidence and children, and children and teenagers who testify in domestic violence cases.

The SIGMA Series: Applied Essentials for the Helping Professions

Brief summaries for seasoned professionals to catch up on the latest research, organized by descriptive headings and presented in point form style for quick scanning and comprehension. SIGMAs are available on five topics: Conferencing for Youth; Peer-to-Peer Aggression in Residential Settings; Adolescent Depression & Suicide; Adolescent Relationship Violence; and Ambiguous Loss in Adolescents.

Guidance for Communities Implementing Child Protection Mediation

We can help your local stakeholders work through key decsions to design a child-protection mediation service that matches local needs and resources.

For information on other resources, consult our web pages describing our publications.

Topics

On-site training is available on these topics:

• adolescent suicide in residential facilities, prevention and intervention
• anger awareness in adolescents
• ambiguous loss
• bullying in and near schools
• children exposed to family violence
• conduct disorder
• depression and suicide in adolescents
• cognitive-behavioural approaches to intervention
• interviewing children after sexual abuse
• peer-to-peer aggression in residential settings
• preparing children for court testimony
• vicarious trauma in service providers
• designing child-protection mediation services

On-site Training

Our trainers distill the latest research and convey the results in an interactive format designed to be relevant for front-line professionals. We are available to deliver training across North America and Europe.