Workshops

:: UPCOMING WORKSHOPS ::

Half-Day Workshop

Seminar: Anxiety, Alarm And Attention Problems – How To Help Students Focus And Attend

When a student is anxious or has a difficult time settling down, staying still as long as other children, or paying attention to the task at hand, adults become concerned. Should this student be assessed for anxiety or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)? This session will uncover the underlying dynamic of an over-activated alarm system that contributes to these symptoms. While a diagnosis may help, ultimately it is how we “see” the student, as one who is facing too much alarm and usually too much separation, that will lead us to find interventions that will help in the long term.

Speaker: Eva de Gosztonyi

Eva de Gosztonyi, MA, psychologist, OPQ has worked for over 45 years in schools across Canada. For the past 20 years she has been the provincial resource person for the English School Boards of Quebec through the Centre of Excellence for Behaviour Management, helping adults in the school setting provide effective developmental interventions for students with behavioural challenges. Her guiding principles are that we must value the natural maturational processes of our children and youth, respect their immaturity and vulnerability, and understand that safe and caring attachments with adults are essential for their optimal growth. Grounded in a robust theory, the interventions that she recommends to schools are practical and doable and go deeper than just managing symptoms. Her interventions are being applied in regular school settings, regular classrooms and also in specialized classrooms and schools with great success. Those implementing these strategies affirm that they lead to long-lasting changes that only come about when we understand the “why” behind the behaviour and respect the student’s developmental needs in our interventions. Her understanding of child development is primarily informed by the attachment-based developmental paradigm of Dr. Gordon Neufeld. Interventions are also guided by neuroscience, are trauma-informed and trauma-responsive, and are attachment-based and developmentally friendly. Eva is on Faculty at the Neufeld Institute and is an authorized presenter of the Neufeld paradigm.

Course Outline

1. Alarm and the alarm system
   • Introducing the emotion of alarm
   • How the Limbic System works
2. Neufeld’s Traffic Circle of Alarm
   • How a functioning alarm system should work
3. Separation and Alarm
   • Separation as a major source of alarm
   • How the brain handles alarm too much to bear through defenses
   • Anxiety as a defense
   • Attention as a defense
   • The role of the prefrontal cortex in directing attention
4. Understanding why certain interventions do not help
   • Timeouts
   • Consequences
   • Reward systems
5. Interventions
   • Intervening with Anxiety in the classroom
   • Creating conditions in the classroom for the student with attention problems
   • Using a continuum of interventions to help students with differing level of problems

Course Objectives

On completion of the workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the many sources of alarm
2. Describe the role of alarm and defenses in the development of anxiety
3. Describe the role of alarm and defenses in the development of attention problems
4. Explain the role of attachment in easing anxiety and attention problems
5. Accompany a student in the process of adaptation to alarm that cannot be avoided
6. Assist a student in finding their mixed feelings to help lead them to courage
7. Create conditions within a classroom to help students with anxiety problems
8. Create conditions within a classroom to help students with attention problems

Who Can Benefit?

This workshop is appropriate for those teaching elementary students and special education groups, social workers, counsellors, psychologists, administrators and mental health professionals.

Course Fees & Closing Dates

Registration Type	Closing Date	Fees (S$) /pax
	30 Jul 2022	160
Normal	Till Full	190