Wales

Training in Wales

Training courses for the adoption community, including wider family members, kinship carers, foster carers and professionals working in adoption in Wales.

Our fully funded courses are delivered online for participants in Wales. Courses can also be commissioned by adoption and fostering agencies in Wales. For further details and a full list of all available courses, please contact [email protected]

Life Journey Work (for adoptive parents in their first 3 years of adoption)

This session will help de-mystify Life Journey Work and introduces the Wales National Adoption Service’s Life Journey Work Good Practice Guide, Framework and Toolkit. These documents are available on the NAS website . An opportunity to ask all those niggling questions and hear some practical suggestions to help children understand their background and promote a positive sense of identity.

Wednesday 15th May 2024 10.00am – 12.30pm (online)

Understanding Attachment (for adoptive parents in their first 3 years of adoption)

This interactive course gives participants an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of what we mean when we talk about “attachment issues”. Participants will explore ways attachment issues can manifest in children and why, and consider practical ways to support children with attachment issues.

“Thinking of your child as behaving badly disposes you to think of punishment. Thinking of your child as struggling to handle something difficult encourages you to help them through their distress” Anon

By the end of the session participants will have :

Gained a deeper understanding of what attachment is
Explored ways in which attachment issues can manifest in children and why
Considered practical ways to support children with attachment issues.

Wednesday 26th June 2024 6.30pm – 9.00pm (online)

Commissioned Courses

The courses below are available for commissioning by Adoption Support Agencies. Please contact your agency directly to check whether they are offering a particular course or ask to them to consider commissioning it.

Who can attend the training courses?

Courses are designed to be accessible to participants from across Wales including adoptive parents, kinship carers, foster carers, social workers and other practitioners supporting families.

How can I access the training courses?

Courses are usually offered via Zoom and last for 2½ hours including a comfort break. Copies of PowerPoint slides, useful resources, clips and links will be provided electronically after each course.

We recommend a maximum of 12 participants per course. However we suggest you accept additional bookings up to 15 participants as experience shows that several participants drop out at the last minute or are “no-shows”.

Course numbers are limited to ensure an interactive opportunity which allows each participant to get involved. The training is led by experienced and relevantly qualified trainers who have personal, lived experience of adoption.

What do the courses cost?

NVR in Practice	£2993
One block of 6 x 1 hour NVR 121 support sessions	£525
Education courses - Full Day	£788
NVR Awareness Raising half day	£368
Life Journey Work half day	£368
When the Senses Don’t Make Sense half day	£368
Education courses half day	£368
All other half-day courses	£263

All the above prices are excluding VAT.

To commission a training course, please contact [email protected]

2^nd Time Round adoption for families with previously adopted child

This course is for families who are adopting for a second time. The session provides an opportunity to consider the impact on adopters and their previously adopted child when a second child is placed for adoption. Participants will reflect on the potential dilemmas posed by the differing needs of all the children involved and discuss a range of ideas for preparing for and understanding the changes.

Adopting when you have a birth child

This course is for families who have birth children and are adding to their family through adoption. The session provides an opportunity to consider the impact on adopters, their birth children and other family members when a child is placed for adoption. Participants will reflect on the potential dilemmas posed by the differing needs of all the children involved and discuss a range of ideas for preparing for and understanding the changes.

Building Your Support Network

Adoptive parents always say they need support from people who 'get it’. As time goes on they sometimes become isolated as the people in their network drop off. This might be because of the child's behaviour or the demands of family life. This course aims to highlight this risk and consider ways to encourage parents to build on their support network from the start of their adoption journey. The course will consider informal and formal support from friends, family and professionals. It will be an opportunity to reflect on how that support can be provided and how it changes over time.

Challenging Behaviour – understanding and addressing it

This course is based on the online course developed with AFA Cymru and available on the National Adoption Service website. For those who want to understand more about challenging behaviour – what triggers it, the unmet need beneath it, how to manage it and how to reduce it. There will be an opportunity to consider a range of strategies that work for children who have experienced trauma in their early weeks, months and years. The course is suitable for all parents, carers and practitioners, particularly those with younger children who are keen to understand any emerging behaviours that they are concerned about.

Contact – what does it really mean?

This course is based on the online course developed with AFA Cymru and available on the National Adoption Service website. It provides space for adoptive parents to reflect on the benefits and risks associated with contact. Participants will be given the opportunity to think about who might be significant for their child to have contact with and how this could happen. Participants will discuss how to support a child through the process and reflect on their own feelings about contact.

Difficult Conversations - a half day interactive training workshop focussing on how to have difficult conversations with adopted children. Adoptive parents who have attended Adoption UK Wales’ Life Journey Work and Contact courses often ask how to have difficult conversations with their children, especially about the traumatic experiences and behaviour that led to children not being able to live with birth parents, birth family members or foster carers. This session aims to address these issues in more detail and focus on how we can start talking about these really difficult topics from a very early age. There will also be an opportunity to talk about the following.

- What to share with your family and friends

- Risks/reality of conversations started online

- Helping children talk with their peers about being adopted

- Helping children understand how the brain work

Getting Ready for School

This course has been designed by our Lead Education Officer for Wales and is aimed at parents with pre-school/recently placed children. The course will provide up-to-date information about how to choose the school best suited to a child’s needs. Participants will explore how to help their child settle into the school environment and who can assist with this. The significance of big (and small) transitions in relation to school will also be discussed.

Getting to know the Adopted Child in your family

This course is based on the online course developed with AFA Cymru and available on the NAS website. Designed for family members and friends of adoptive families to help them understand the impact of early trauma on adopted children. Sometimes adoptive families tell us that their family and friends struggle to understand the support needed when times get tough. Participants will consider what happens to a child physically, emotionally and psychologically as a result of difficult early life experiences and find out more about therapeutic parenting and why “love isn’t enough” and “all children don’t do that”!

Health and Development and your adopted child

This course is based on the online course developed with AFA Cymru and available on the NAS website. Participants will learn about healthy child development and reflect on why some children progress at a different pace to others. The materials will help parents decide “is this something I should be concerned about, or is it a normal part of development?” Practical guidance will be provided about what to look out for and who to approach for support.

Helping your adopted child to cope in school

An opportunity to look at how to support children through the many transitions that happen in school. The session will consider children’s feelings and how they show them. It will focus on the importance of planning ahead, talking with children and lots of practical tips to support transitions – the big ones (eg from primary to secondary school) and the small ones (eg. from home to school each morning or from classroom to classroom). Useful resources will be demonstrated and ideas for activities and conversation starters will be provided.

There will also be an opportunity to find about new developments coming up for schools in Wales, and time to discuss concerns parents may have. When you book onto this course, please remember to submit any questions that you’d like covered during the session.

Life Journey Work

Non-Violent Resistance Awareness Raising Course (half-day)

An introduction to a range of practical Non-Violent Resistance approaches. This session provides information about what NVR is (and is not). It will help parents, carers and practitioners decide whether Non-Violent Resistance would be beneficial in specific situations where child to parent violence (verbal and/or physical) is a regular occurrence.

NVR Online Support Groups

Open to adoptive parents who are Adoption UK Members and have received previous NVR support/training from Adoption UK Wales. Please contact [email protected] for more information on session times/joining details. All sessions are led by a fully qualified and experienced NVR Practitioner with lived experience.

For parents of young people of secondary school age and older - Morning group

For parents of primary school age – evening group

NVR in Practice for Practitioners

The course builds on our awareness raising sessions. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about all the NVR approaches, rehearse and put them into practice with families between sessions. The online course runs for 6 half-day sessions with the option of access to our monthly online support group for NVR Practitioners as required.

NVR Practitioners’ Forum

A monthly drop-in session for practitioners working with families where children and young people’s challenging behaviour is persistent, frequent and appears intransigent. Sessions are usually held from 1.30pm to 3pm on the third Wednesday of each month via Teams and are facilitated by fully qualified Partnership Projects accredited NVR Practitioners. The drop-in provides a confidential, safe space to discuss any aspects of NVR including how to use and adapt the strategies to meet the needs of individual families and how the NVR approach can work alongside other therapeutic parenting interventions. For more information email [email protected]

We will also continue to offer our very popular NVR 121 programme.

We offer 6 x 121 NVR sessions of approximately 1 hour per session to parents. During the sessions we introduce all the NVR approaches and support parents to adapt/use the approaches within their families. We provide tailored resources after each session. All parents are then given ongoing support via our monthly NVR support groups.

Self-care Workshop

A 2 ½ hour workshop focussing on self-care for parents. An opportunity for parents to learn more about the importance of self-care and help them find time in every hectic day for moments of pure, selfish indulgence. The trainer will share techniques that are popular with other adoptive parents, including adoptive Dads, who were consulted when the content of this workshop was prepared. It’s also an opportunity for parents to share their own techniques with one another. This is probably our only training workshop where we do NOT talk about our children. This is all about YOU.

Settling in

This course is for adopters who are in the early days of their adoption journeys. It will be an opportunity to learn more about matching, introductions, how to help a child feel at home with you, managing the transition from foster care to a “forever home” and what will be important to the child from their life before they joined your family. Adopters are invited to come along with those niggling questions and explore their hopes and any concerns for their journey into parenthood.

The Power of Play – a practical, fun half-day workshop that explores play and its benefits for children who are adopted. An opportunity for parents to explore their own relationship with play and how it impacts on how they play with their children. Parents will consider how play can help build attachment with their child before looking at therapeutic play. Parents will have the opportunity to build a toolbox of practical ideas and start compiling a “play plan” for their children.

The Teen Years

This course is based on the online course developed with AFA Cymru and available on the NAS website. The course gives participants space to reflect on teenage brain development, adolescence and the impact on behaviour. We will consider some risky behaviours in the context of teenage development and explore communication skills and ideas that can be used to maintain relationships. There will be time to focus on the importance of identity, social development and presentation in adolescence and look at some practical sources of support for more complex issues.

When the Senses Don’t Make Sense

A training workshop providing opportunities to talk about the links between sensory and emotional issues for adopted children, and how using connected play and developing relationships can help in child development. This workshop is led by a children’s Occupational Therapist, trained and supervised in DDP who is also an adoptive parent.

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