Learn how to facilitate Family Group Conferencing for families where concerns have been raised for the wellbeing and safety of a child or young person. This training teaches Coordinators a strengths-based and inclusive approach, assisting families to develop an agreement on how to provide safe, permanent, and stable care arrangements for their child or young person.

The Ngartuitya Family Group Conference (NFGC) Service allocates a Coordinator for all families referred from the Department of Child Protection. NFGC Coordinators focus on empowering families and community members to identify strategies to keep their own children and young people safe within family and kin. Ngartuitya (Nar-choo-wit-cha) is from the Kaurna language and means ‘for the Children’. Kaurna people are the traditional owners of the Adelaide Plains region.

Completion of this professional development course is required, to be considered for casual work opportunities as a Coordinator through this state-wide service. There are no other essential criteria for applying to become a Coordinator, besides your commitment to provide a family led decision-making process, which supports families to come together to ensure their child’s safety and promote wellbeing.

This training is a combination of 3 hours self-paced online learning (pre-requisite) and 3 days of face-to-face classroom learning facilitated by Sarah Decrea, Manager Family Led Decision Making at Relationships Australia SA.

For more information about Family Group Conferencing please visit the service page.

Please note: Skills Centre Training (Port Augusta and Berri) is supported by the Department for Education, Government of South Australia. 

This course is aligned to the following two units of competency from the Certificate IV in Community Services:

• CHCFAM006: Assist families to self-manage contact
• CHCDIV001: Work with diverse people

At the conclusion of the face-to-face training, students can choose to be formally assessed and awarded with two units of competency upon successful completion. An additional charge of $300 will apply for registration and assessment.

Satisfactory completion of formal assessments will be issued with a nationally recognised statement of attainment.

In this powerful, full-day workshop, participants will develop the essential skills needed to support individuals experiencing thoughts of suicide. Through connection, empathy, compassion, and hope, you will learn how to foster a safe, non-judgmental space that encourages people to express their feelings openly and break the isolation they may be facing.

What You’ll Learn

• Build Trust Through Compassionate Listening: Create an empathetic environment that helps individuals feel seen and heard.
• Skilfully Address Distressing Thoughts: Practice gentle, supportive techniques to interrupt thoughts of suicide and instil hope.
• Promote Healing and Resilience: Develop the confidence to encourage resilience and guide individuals toward life-affirming choices.

Guided practice sessions will enhance your ability to recognise signs of distress, connect meaningfully, and help others find support pathways. This workshop is invaluable for anyone who may encounter individuals with thoughts of suicide, offering practical tools and insights to make a life-saving difference.

Who Should Attend?

This training is open to everyone and is especially beneficial for professionals who interact with individuals in crisis as part of their work.

Join us to be part of a compassionate community dedicated to supporting those in need and empowering them toward healing and hope.

Please note: Skills Centre Training (Port Augusta and Berri) is supported by the Department for Education, Government of South Australia. 

This workshop is an opportunity to put theory-into-practice when undertaking trauma-informed work, by using practical examples, case studies and roleplays about responding to children and parents who have experienced trauma.

This full day workshop will:

• build your skills in talking to parents about the effects of trauma and how trauma is reflected in children’s behaviours
• provide you with practical and simple strategies that support parents to remain connected to their children, despite traumatic events
• improve your ability to notice when parents and children are taking small actions to modify the effects of trauma and encourage those actions
• support you to respectfully respond to a parent or child who is experiencing distress
• introduce you to a range of children’s resources that will improve your support of families.

This training is open to all but free for frontline workers in the family and domestic violence and homelessness sectors.

Please contact us to discuss future offerings or bespoke workshops for this course

Learn how to respond to men who perpetrate violence and, as a result, contribute towards greater community safety. Engaging with both victims and perpetrators of family domestic violence is critical for the safety of affected families.

Qualified facilitators can help avert further harm by educating abusive men about the consequences of their actions. In a counselling context, this training covers:

• factors that promote behaviour change in men who abuse
• how to support the process of accepting responsibility
• how to assist men to seek help.

Agencies and workers may only see the aftermath of a single incident in an ongoing pattern. Training in working therapeutically with men who perpetrate violence can help make a positive difference for men and families by supporting personal accountability and better understanding of patterns of behaviour.

Facilitator Bio

This training is run by David Tully, Practice Manager for Specialised Family Violence Services at Relationships Australia South Australia (RASA) and facilitator of Back on Track: A Men’s Group for Positive Change.

David has worked in the field of domestic violence and childhood sexual assault for over 20 years. David’s role at RASA focusses on developing organisational practice approaches to working with perpetrators of domestic and family violence.

He has participated on the research advisory panel for the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault and is a Peer-Assessor for Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety around perpetrator research.

This is an energising and introductory practice based day of narrative therapy training, in relation to working with families responding to traumatic events. Transcripts of work and the practice of narrative question frameworks will be used. It will also reference the bodies of knowledge that combine to make what is known as Narrative Ideas.

We will look at how to develop questions that help people remember helping actions they took, and can take, in the face of trauma rather than just building on the problem stories of how they were traumatised or positioned as a victim.

This training is relevant to workers consulting with families and individuals effected by Family and Domestic Violence, grief or loss, effects of family separation, depression, anxiety and school problems.

Facilitator Bio

Carolyn Markey is passionate about using narrative approaches as a set of ideas that are hope-filled for workers and clients. Trained by Michael White, a founder of narrative therapy, Carolyn has worked her entire career as a Narrative Therapist.

Carolyn currently works in the Family and Relationship team at RASA, consulting with families, children or couples who are experiencing a range of concerns, many of which are the distressing consequences of unjust trauma. As part of this position, she also works collaboratively with a Yarnin’ group for Aboriginal families who have children under 4. A space where she is always learning. Carolyn also co-facilitates groups for men who are mandated to face up to the effects, and make amends for the violence they have perpetrated. In all of these contexts narrative ideas are central to her conversations. She has been privileged to teach nationally and internationally sharing narrative ideas across many cultures.

This refresher workshop is for workers required to report suspicions of child abuse and neglect who have completed the full training course within the last three years. The full training course is available if you are completing the course for the first time or have not completed the training in the last three years

It will refresh you on how to recognise, report and respond to children or young people who may be at risk of harm, child abuse or neglect.

The ‘Creating safe environments for children and young people’ refresher workshop focuses on child protection in the context of ‘Through Their Eyes’ and has the safety and wellbeing of children at its core. It covers:

• Introduction to child protection in context.
• Values and attitudes: ‘Through our eyes’.
• Risk and harm: South Australian legislation.
• Risk and harm: Abuse-related trauma.
• Sexual abuse and online grooming.
• Through their eyes: Disclosure.
• Safe organisations.
• Reporting suspicion of risk and harm.

In South Australia, when child abuse and neglect are suspected, a wide range of people are required by law to notify the Child Abuse Report Line. This half day refresher training is designed for professionals or volunteers who are mandatory reporters.

Please note: Skills Centre Training (Port Augusta and Berri) is supported by the Department for Education, Government of South Australia.

Marte Meo, developed by Maria Aarts from the Netherlands, is a social-emotional developmental support program used by a variety of professions, including early childhood educators, social workers, psychiatrists, paediatricians and nurses and used in a range of sectors including early childhood, family support, disability and aged care. Established in over 50 countries, Marte Meo is valued because it helps build connection and establish better relationships.

The Marte Meo Practitioner training is a 6 day course. Participants learn to incorporate supportive Marte Meo communication skills into their daily work and are specially trained to be developmentally oriented through the use of the developmental checklists. The focus is on practical exercises and application, based on videos that the participants have recorded in everyday interactions within their field of work.

This six-day supportive communication skills training covers: 

• An overview of Marte Meo
• Exploring and practicing the adult supportive communications skills of following and leading
• Making emotional connections
• Activating development rather than compensating for the problem
• Reading the developmental message behind behaviour
• Recognising how to use supportive communication skills in daily interactions, in the right moment.

Course outcomes for a Marte Meo Practitioner: 

• Participants will know how to use Marte Meo skills in their interactions
• Participants will understand how they can use this information in their daily professional work to make warm, healthy connections
• Participants will understand what to look for in interaction moments
• Be able to put this knowledge and understanding into everyday practice.

This training is particularly suited to people from the child and family sectors, early childhood education, disability, and aged care.

NOTE: Please note this Practioner Level Training  is a prerequisite to continue studying to become an internationally qualified Marte Meo Therapist or Colleague trainer. To recieve International Accreditation training as a Marte Meo Practitioner, participants are required to attend all six days of the course.

*Minimum numbers are required for this course to run.