Professional Development and Training - Psychology
Upcoming Seminar
Please see our flyer for information regarding two upcoming seminars for professionals, hosted by the Psychology Department:
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Thursday July 30th: Anxiety in Children
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Friday July 31st: Autism Spectrum Disorders
The Department of Psychology offers a range of professional development and training activities for staff. We provide learning opportunities to assist clinicians to increase their competencies in providing professional care, and support attendance at local and international conferences and workshops, which provide up to date information on advances in clinical research and practice.
- Doctorate of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, University of Melbourne
- Introductory course in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for children and adolescents
- Annual seminars and workshop programs for professional and lay public.
Presentations by visiting scholars and practitioners are often open to the public.
Lectures and seminars and film/video presentations to professional colleagues and tertiary students.
Doctorate of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology
University of Melbourne
The Doctor of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology program is designed to prepare graduates for work in settings that deal with problems of children, adolescents and their families. The training program has been developed through partnerships between the Psychology Department staff of the University of Melbourne and staff of the Psychology Department at Melbourne's major paediatric service provider, the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH). The staff of the program are senior clincians with a breadth and depth of clinical and research experience in the child and adolescent areas that is unique in Australia. RCH staff contribute core teaching at advanced levels, and provide placement opportunities covering experience in a range of agencies and units within the hospital and in community teams attached to the RCH. There are exciting opportunities for doctoral research in the child and adolescent area in mental health and medical psychological domains through collaborative programs with staff of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, ORYGEN Youth Health and the Early Psychosis Intervention Centre.
The program aims to train graduates with the knowledge and skills required for professional practice in agencies specialising in adjustment difficulties across the whole developmental period - infancy to young adulthood. Graduates will be able to provide assessment, therapy, and management for a range of commonly presenting disorders and understand the intrinsic and extrinsic influences on the development of adjustment difficulties. They will be expected to generate research and to be skilled in accessing and applying current clincal research findings to enhance and evaluate their practice.
Objectives
The objective of this specialisation is to provide graduates with specialist expertise in those areas of clinical psychology that pertain particularly to child and family adjustment and maladjustment. Graduates of the program should have a thorough knowledge of the major disorders of childhood and adolescence, methods of assessment of cognitive, emotional and family factors, and familiarity with a range of treatment approaches appropriate for the particular problems and the developmental stage of child clients. They should acquire experience in all facets of work in this specialty area, including inpatient, outpatient and community based practice. They should also be expected to generate and apply research knowledge in ongoing enhancement and evaluation of their professional work.
Course Convenor: Assoc. Professor Elisabeth Northam, Dept. of Psychology, Royal Children's Hospital
Further Information
Application form and further information regarding this course is available from:
School of Behavioural Science
Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences
The University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC 3052
Phone: (03) 9344 5998
Introduction to Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy with Children and Adolescents
Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment for a range of psychological disorders in children and their families. It is brief, problem focussed and is readily evaluated.
A seminar series is available designed with the assumption that participants possess some background knowledge of psychology and have clinical experience working with psychological problems of children or adolescents and their families.
Information presented in seminars is cumulative and interdependent, so attendance at all six seminars is strongly recommended.
This is an introductory course and does not represent a qualification in the practice of CBT.
Program
Seminars 1 & 2: Basic principles of CBT
A background to the theoretical and empirical basis of cognitive-behavioural therapy.
- Illustrative examples will be provided.
- Models of CBT will be presented and approaches to child treatment introduced.
- Practical exercises will form part of these sessions.
Seminar 3: Problems in primary school age children: Internalising Difficulties.
Assessment, indicators and counter-indicators for intervention: treatment strategies and clinical case examples.
Seminar 4: Problems in Primary School Children: Externalising Difficulties.
Issues in assessment and treatment options for children with externalising behavioural difficulties, presented via case examples.
Seminar 5: Working with Adolescents
CBT for adolescents with a range of difficulties including eating disorders, mood and anxiety problems and self-harm behaviours. Clinical case examples and practical exercises will be used to illustrate principles and practice.
Seminars 6: Putting theory into practice.
In the final seminar, the emphasis will be on "in vivo" applications of CBT and participants will work through case examples in a workshop format. Participants are encouraged to bring their own case material.
Learning objectives of the CBT seminar series are:
To gain an understanding of:
- basic principles of behaviour, and cognitive behaviour theory and practice, including basic CBT models of therapy/treatment.
a CBT perspective on child and family assessment, (developmental considerations, capacity for self talk, "abc model", behavioural analysis). - treatment components such as coping skills, dealing with faulty information processing, problem solving, family attitudes, beliefs and fears and behavioural interventions.
- some of the applications for particular client groups, individuals, and families.
- some of the applications for different problems (internalising and externalising).
- indicators and counter indicators for use of CBT.
- strengths and limitations of CBT approach.
For further information:
Kathleen Allen, Ph: (03) 9345 5881