Saturday 20 February 2010 (10.00am-5.15pm, registration 9.30-10.00am)
EARLY INTERVENTIONS FOR TROUBLED INFANTS AND YOUNG CHILDREN TO PREVENT LIFELONG SUFFERING FOR SELF AND SOCIETY (age 0-8 yrs)
Cost: £160 (includes a complimentary buffet lunch)

The presenters at this conference are all pioneers in their field who have developed deeply moving and effective early interventions with troubled infants and children. They will address early signs of autism, Asperger’s, depression, anxiety disorders, aggressive behaviour and other troubled emotions and behaviours. They will pay particular attention to troubled parent-infant relationships and what can be done. A staggering 80 percent of children showing behavioural problems at the age of five go on to develop more serious forms of anti-social behaviour. (Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in Great Britain, Office of National Statistics 2000.) With early interventions, it doesn’t have to be this way. In other words, do we help children at 5 or lock them up at 25?

Furthermore, it is possible to detect and effectively treat early signs of alarm often at a few months old, including those infants in danger of developing full blown autism. Yet so many children are not diagnosed until too late, after crucial brain developmental stages and windows of opportunity have passed.

In financial terms, the current situation just doesn’t make sense. We spend under £3 billion on children’s services and £3 billion on child health care (Royal college of Paediatrics and Child Health Report 2007). Yet we spend £6 billion on criminal justice in the under 25s. 70 percent of young offenders re-offend within 12 months of being released. We also spend £12 billion on stress related illness. If we don’t intervene effectively in the early years, we pick up a terrible price tag both financially and psychologically in the teenage and adult years.

Benefits from attending this conference

• Learn to recognise early signs of alarm so these can be treated before it’s too
• Understand early years presenting symptoms of autism, Aspergers, depression, anxiety disorders, aggressive behaviour and other troubled emotions and behaviours and how to intervene
• Learn about tried and tested early interventions with very troubled infants, which have had dramatic results
• Watch profoundly moving film footage showing how early interventions with troubled infants and their parents can make that vital shift from mental ill- heath to thriving
• Learn about the healing of troubled parent-infant relationships

Speakers

Hannah Alonim
Expert in early childhood in Autism, Founder and director of the Mifne Center for Early Intervention in Autism in Israel since 1987. Head of the Mifne School for Therapists, Bar-Ilan University. Founder of the Diagnosis of Infants at Risk unit, at the Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv. Partner in research of Autism in early childhood at the Schneider Hospital. Co-author: Early Signs of Autism. Research: Eating disorders in young children with autism. Presented papers in Europe, US, Australia, and Africa.

Dr Fraser Brown
Reader in Playwork at Leeds Metropolitan University, and Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Playwork degree. Extensive cutting edge research on therapeutic play for children in Romanian orphanages. Director of the playwork training agency Children First for ten years, and previously held advisory posts with Playboard and the NPFA. Publications include Children without Play, Foundations of Playwork, Playwork: Theory and Practice, Working Together: a Playwork Training Pack. Major contributor to Perspectives on Play (2009); and Childhood: Services and Provision for Children. Chair and Co-Founder of the Aid for Romanian Children charitable trust.

Dr Amanda Jonesr
Head of North East London NHS Foundation Trust’s Tier 3 Perinatal/Parent-Infant Mental Health Service. Longstanding interest in the application of psychoanalytic and systemic ideas in parent-infant psychotherapy. Trained as a family therapist and then pursued her doctoral research at the Tavistock Centre in which she investigated how the maternal use of ‘projective identification’ can derail a baby’s development. In collaboration with the Anna Freud Centre, was involved in the Channel Four documentaries Help Me Love My Baby, winner of the 2007 Royal Society of Television’s best factual programmes award. Teaches on the clinical psychology programmes at UCL and UEL.

Professor Lynne Murray
Research professor in Developmental Psychopathology, University of Reading. Co-director of the Winnitcott Research Unit. Research: the development of children of parents with psychiatric disorder. Conducted longitudinal, experimental and treatment studies, in UK and South Africa.

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