Understanding Group Work and the Community Meeting (pt1)
Understanding Group Work and the Community Meeting (pt1)
Friday 21st November
11.00 – 14.00
Online Via Zoom
Working in and through groups is fundamental to Therapeutic Community and Enabling Environment practice, and many mental health care and children’s settings use groups all the time, but they aren’t always understood as being therapeutic. Indeed, Adrian Ward wrote that:
The group is the greatest resource in any group care setting, yet it is often under-used because people do not fully recognise its strengths or know how to harness them.
In this presentation, I will define what a group is, show why groups are fundamental to therapeutic work, and how to tap into and utilise the developmental potential of groups for each member. I will also consider the theory and practice of communities meetings which are a central hub and focus of therapeutic community work.
Learning points:
- Why run groups?
- How to run groups
- Why are groups developmental?
- What are the psychodynamic elements in groups
- What are Community Meetings and how do we run them?
- What skills and competencies do I need as a group facilitator
There will be plenty of time for discussion and your questions.
Facilitator
Dr Chris Nicholson
Chris has been Chair of The Consortium of Therapeutic Communities since December 2021.
He is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex. Chris has devised two new degrees, BA Psychodynamic Practice (which he leads) and BA Childhood Studies.
Before joining the Department, Chris was the Admissions and Assessment Manager at the Jacques Hall Foundation and Therapeutic Services Manager at Donyland Lodge, both therapeutic communities for traumatised adolescents. He develop an assessment service, a provision for leaving care, and with colleagues, set up The Junction, a Young Person’s service for Colchester MIND. His 2010 book, Children and Adolescents in Trauma: Creative Therapeutic Approaches, draws on these experiences. His research interests are in psychoanalysis and literature, trauma and therapeutic communities, and experiential forms of learning. He sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Robert Graves Review, and the International Journal of Therapeutic Communities.
He developed the Core Competency Framework for Therapeutic Community Practitioners in 2014, and Leadership Competencies for the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway in HMPs in 2024. He sits on the Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB, and provides training, consultation and supervision to therapeutic services in the UK and abroad.
Chris is a Black Belt in Kyokushin Karate, enjoys running, wild swimming, and family walks with the dogs.
This meeting is part 1 of a series of 2. Part 1 can stand alone as a training session.
Part 2 date TBC
Book your tickets!
Book your place on our Group Work and the Community Meeting Session
For further information, please contact us via admin@therapeuticcommunities.org
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