Saturday 20 March 2010 (10.00am-5.15pm, registration 9.30-10.00am)
CHALLENGING BEHAVIOUR IN CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS: FROM UNDERSTANDING TO EFFECTIVE INTERVENTION
Cost: £160 (includes a complimentary buffet lunch)

In this conference, presenters will focus on effective interventions for dealing with challenging behaviour in children and teenagers: those who disrupt others’ learning, those with attention deficit or hyperactive problems, the oppositional defiant, those with conduct disorders who have moved into violence and anti-social acts, the hyperaroused who are unable to be calm. Such children and young people can de-skill and exhaust the adults in their lives. Moreover, behaviour problems can severely affect a child’s/young person’s capacity to learn, to enjoy human relationships, to develop emotionally and to lead a fulfilling life. Statistics show that a staggering 80 percent of children with behavioural problems at the age of five go on to develop more serious forms of anti-social behaviour, and over 90 percent of young offenders have had a mental health problem as a child. (Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in Great Britain ONS 2000). It doesn’t have to be this way.

The key focus of this conference will be on evidence based methods and tools and techniques for prevention and intervention. Presenters will offer practical ways of working with challenging children and young people based on a wealth of their own experience and expertise. Drawing on the advances in psychology, child development theory and neuroscience, presenters will share exciting initiatives to show how challenging children and teenagers can be enabled to develop emotional regulation and make the shift from primitive discharge of, or defence against, emotional intensity to being able to thrive emotionally and socially.

Benefits from attending this conference

• Understand the major causes of challenging and out of control behaviour
• Gain key psychological knowledge to support you in your work with troubled children
• Be empowered to form meaningful connections with, and make effective responses to, challenging children
• Hear inspirational case examples and watch moving video footage of out of control children making shifts into positive change
• Recognise when troubled behaviour is trauma based, and know what to do
• Understand the road from pain to violence
• Take away key tools and techniques to enable children with conduct disorders to choose a different road and thrive
• Learn simple, practical ways to avoid power struggles challenging children/young people

Speakers

Camila Batmanghelidjh
Psychotherapist. Most Admired Chief Executive, Third Sector Magazine, 2007. Founder of The Place2Be and Kids Company, inner city charity offering education, therapy and a life-line to thousands of young people whose lives have been affected by drink, drugs, violence, abuse or neglect. Author of the groundbreaking book Shattered Lives.

Dr Margot Sunderland
Director of Education and Training at The Centre for Child Mental Health, London. Honorary Visiting Fellow at London Metropolitan University and Child Psychotherapist with over twenty years’ experience of working with children and families. Author of over 20 books in the field of child mental health. What Every Parent Needs to Know (Dorling Kindersley) won First Prize in the British Medical Association Medical Book awards 2007 (Popular Medicine section). Research: The Application of arts and brain science to the psychological treatment of children.

Jay Vaughan
Psychotherapist and Dramatherapist. Co-founding Director, Family Futures - an organisation specialising in therapeutic work with highly traumatised fostered or adopted children who have experienced loss, neglect or abuse leaving many locked in aggressive or violent behaviour.

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