Mastering Therapeutic Soft Skills: Using Emotional Intelligence to Empower Solution-Focused Conversations – The Family Centre

In this 6-hour workshop, participants will:

• Understand their own emotional intelligence

• Recognize the difference between problem-solving and solution-building interviewing

• Understand the implicit assumptions of both approaches

• Learn practical tools and techniques for implementing solution-building conversations

Participants will receive an overview of introductory therapeutic skills, including active listening, validation, normalizing, paraphrasing, empathy, and containment. Additionally, your staff will learn the importance of "soft skills" such as self-reflection, self-awareness, accessibility, authenticity, genuine interest in others, flexibility, and humour.

TFC – Staff Skill Development

Understanding Attachment: The Impact of Trauma on Brain Development and Behaviour – The Family Centre

Join us for an enlightening workshop that delves into the intricacies of attachment theory.

Our 6-hour workshop includes:

• Detailed coverage of brain development affected by early attachment

• Identification of different attachment patterns

• In-depth discussion on complex trauma related to attachment

• Strategies for assessing and intervening with both children and caregivers

Through a blend of lectures, videos, and experiential exercises, participants will gain valuable insights into the impact of trauma on attachment behaviour. Participants will enhance their understanding and skills in working with service users in a supportive and engaging environment. This workshop uses content from: Alberta Family Wellness Initiative

TFC – Staff Skill Development

Teaching Traditional Parenting – The Family Centre

This immersive experience, facilitated in ceremony, provides an overview of Indigenous parenting concepts and practices, including the history, legacy, and intergenerational impacts of colonization on parenting.

In this 6-hour workshop, participants will:

• Learn about moss bags, cradleboards, swings, baby rattles, Indigenous stories, and tipi teachings

• Gain a deeper understanding of nêhiyaw parenting from an Indigenous worldview

• Acquire practical tools to help their service users integrate these concepts into their homes

The core of this workshop was developed by the late Janet Fox from the Onion Lake Cree First Nation.

To register: TFC – Indigenous Teachings

Parenting Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers – The Family Centre

As a parent of a child under five, every day is an exciting challenge full of surprises. You never really know what to expect next when it comes to things like language, learning, or physical activity. And then there are those temper tantrums that seem to flare up out of nowhere! At times, you may feel like nothing you do as a parent is working. We’ll offer positive strategies to help you guide your children’s behaviour and provide a nurturing home, while you take care of yourself.

Who can attend:

• Any caregiver who is parenting a child between 18 months and five years old.

• Caregivers interested in establishing positive parenting practices in toddlers or preschoolers.

You will build skills for parenting toddlers and preschoolers by understanding:

• What to expect as your child develops

• Your parenting style and how it affects your child

• Why children behave the way they do

• How to positively guide behaviours

• What bonding is and why it’s important

• How ‘play’ helps develop physical, intellectual, and social skills

• How to encourage confidence

• How to better communicate with children

• How to deal with misbehaviour and tantrums

• How to potty train

• How to care of yourself

By the end of the session, you will feel more comfortable:

• Creating effective parenting strategies and giving positive feedback

• Addressing misbehaviour or other issues

• Setting boundaries, limits, and guidelines

• Communicating with your child or children

• Providing a nurturing home environment

• Minimizing the negative effects of divorce or separation (if applicable), and

• Solving day-to-day problems and challenges

Cost:

Group workshop: $150 per person.

Private session: $325

We are dedicated to supporting families of all income levels. We offer a subsidy for attending the group workshop for this class, thanks to funding from the City of Edmonton Family and Community Support Services.

If needed, you can apply for a subsidy by selecting one of the subsidy options in the registration form.

To register: TFC – PTPS

Parenting School Age Children – The Family Centre

When your child turns 5, they start to gain a new level of independence. Between the ages of 5 and 11, they spend more time at school, with friends, and participating in extra-curricular activities. This means they are spending less time with you under your direct supervision and care.

Since you can’t be there to solve all of your child’s problems as they occur, you need skills to teach them to be independent and make positive choices. The Parenting School Age Children workshop offers a way to help you understand how they’re growing up and the type of role you should have with them as they go through the school years.

Who can attend:

• Any caregiver who is parenting a child between 5 and 11 years old

• Caregivers interested in establishing positive parenting practices or addressing challenges in school age children

You will build skills for parenting school-age children by understanding:

• What to expect as your child grows and develops

• Your parenting style and how it affects your child

• Why school-age children behave the way they do

• How to positively guide behaviours

• How to better communicate with your child

• What bonding is and why it’s important

• Ways to teach your child problem-solving skills

• The ins and outs of self-esteem

• Discipline strategies

• Internet safety

• Chores – what to expect and when

• What drives power struggles and how to address them

• How to care for yourself during this stage

By the end of the session, you will feel more comfortable:

• Creating effective parenting strategies and giving positive feedback

• Addressing misbehaviour or other issues

• Setting boundaries, limits, and guidelines

• Communicating with your child

• Providing a nurturing home environment

• Minimizing the negative effects of divorce or separation (if applicable), and

• Solving day-to-day problems and challenges

How much does it cost?

Group workshops: $150 per person.

Private session: $325

We are dedicated to supporting families of all income levels. We offer a subsidy for attending the group workshop for this class, thanks to funding from the City of Edmonton Family and Community Support Services.

If needed, you can apply for a subsidy by selecting one of the subsidy options in the registration form.

To register: TFC - PSAC

Birth & Babies – Alberta Health Services

This program is available in varying durations, from 2 weeks to 5 weeks, or on weekends. Each class is two hours long. Classroom topics are determined in real time and may change from group to group and class to class. Topics often include when to go to the hospital, the labour process, coping strengths & strategies for both mom and the support person, postpartum care, newborn feeding & care basics, finding credible information on the internet and more.

We recommend bringing with you: water bottle/snacks, a mat (to try out labor positions/massage) and printed resources sent to you by your facilitator for activities. Hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes will be provided in class.

It is recommended that a series ending approximately 4 weeks prior to the expected due date be selected whenever possible. If this is not possible, please choose a class that works best for you.

If you require financial support to attend a class please call 780-342-2833 or email birthandbabiesedmonton@albertahealthservices.ca.

To register: AHS – B&B

CITC811 Critical Thinking – NAIT

Critical thinking calls for the use of reasoning skills. Being an active learner rather than a passive consumer of information is key. Instead of accepting ideas and presumptions at face value, critical thinkers vigorously challenge them. They are constantly willing to discover that the concepts, justifications, and conclusions do not fully capture the situation. Instead of relying on gut instinct or intuition, critical thinkers will discover, analyze, and methodically solve problems.

Today, many people experience information overload. We are bombarded with messages urging us to believe certain ideas, purchase certain products, support specific causes, and live our lives in this or that particular way. How do you know what to believe? How do you separate the truth from the myths? The answer lies in critical thinking skills. The ability to clearly reason through problems and present arguments logically and compellingly has become a key skill for survival in today’s world. With the tools you gain in this course, you will be able to differentiate critical thinking from non-critical thinking, recognize and evaluate assumptions, identify types of faulty reasoning, and apply practical techniques to achieve clarity in thinking and problem-solving.

Offered in self-paced on-demand or remote live formats.

To register: NAIT – CITC811

Effective Intercultural Practice - Center for Race and Culture (CFRAC)

This workshop will examine the concept of culture, the effect culture has on one’s personal and professional life, as well as the role that our cultural norms and expectations play in our interactions with others.

It will equip the participants with practical tools to reflect on their programs and services, apply strategies to challenge cultural bias and discrimination, practice intercultural communication to create a more inclusive workplace where colleagues and clients from different cultural backgrounds feel valued and respected.

In this session, participants will:

• Explore culture, cultural norms, and the way our own cultural lens influences our work

• Understand our cultural biases and the way they can lead to discrimination

• Understand intercultural practice in the context of social inclusion and equity

• Use culturally informed practices to guide their interactions for effective intercultural communication

For more information: CFRAC Training

Understanding and Mitigating Bias - Center for Race and Culture (CFRAC)

Taking an intersectional approach, this workshop will help participants to build their understanding of bias and practice steps that can be taken to limit the impact of unconscious biases on our decisions and behaviours.

Participants will enhance their self-awareness of their own biases, build understanding of their social conditioning, and examine behaviour versus intention in professed values and daily behaviours. Through case studies and interactive exercises, participants will identify their biases and assumptions, and learn how strategies to mitigate biases at the personal and organizational levels.  After participating in this training, participants will be able to:

• Understand and define the concept of unconscious bias

• Recognize personal and organizational biases and the way they impact our behaviours, interactions, and decisions

• Identify and use tools and strategies to mitigate their personal and organizational biases

For more information: CFRAC Training

Anti-Racism Education - Center for Race and Culture (CFRAC)

This training aims to empower the participants by focusing on mobilizing anti-racism knowledge and providing tools for prevention, intervention, and meaningful ally-ship.

Participants with varying levels of experience and knowledge of bias, discrimination, and racism will be able to work through the material at a level that is meaningful to them. They will deepen their understanding of racism and its history, how it impacts communities and workplaces, how to support racial equity. After participating in this training, participants will be able to:

• Develop a common understanding of the concepts related to race, racialization, and racism

• Understand the history of racism and current realities in the international and national contexts

• Recognize the impacts of racism on an individual, institutional and societal level and the importance of anti-racism education

• Gain experience with tools for responding to situations of racial discrimination

• Learn anti-racist strategies to support racial equity in policies and practices

For more information: CFRAC Training

Micro-Inequities in the Workplace - Center for Race and Culture (CFRAC)

In this workshop, participants will have a good understanding of micro-inequities, the way they impact individuals and workplaces, how to identify and respond to such behaviours, and how to implement preventive strategies.

A micro-inequity is a behavior, a subtle form of discrimination where a person is singled out, devalued, overlooked, or ignored due to their accent, ethno-racial identity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic class, disability, or membership in a minoritized group. Micro-inequities have negative impacts on workplaces and the wellbeing of individuals and communities. Focusing on education as the key to promoting inclusion and respect, the workshop’s main objectives to enhance the capacity of participants in addressing and challenging discrimination and inequity include:

• Raising awareness around micro-inequities

• Support skill development in the area of anti-discrimination to mitigate and intervene in instances of micro-inequities

• Promoting inclusive communication skills and service delivery

• Leading to new behaviors including reducing discriminatory habits and attitudes

For more information: CFRAC Training

Building Inclusive Workplaces and Practices - Center for Race and Culture (CFRAC)

This interactive workshop will focus on tools to recognize, articulate, understand, examine, challenge, and change workplace practices with the lens of using curiosity, collaboration, and conversation as a response and reinforcing that learning organizations use these moments (of potential constructive conflict) as learning opportunities.

Supervisors and employees will consider their separate but interconnected roles in creating and maintaining inclusive workplaces. Participants also will have the opportunity to apply these concepts in the context of their personal life in addition to their work, as we know that the ‘person’ and the ‘worker’ are one and the same, and that there are no clear boundaries between what we bring to work and what affects us in environments outside of the workplace.

In this workshop, participants will:

• Gain a deep understanding of key concepts around diversity, inclusion, and equity

• Learn how to apply the EDI framework to build stronger and more productive teams

• Work in groups on goal setting around creating and maintaining an inclusive and effective organizational culture

For more information: CFRAC Training

Unmasking Micro-Inequities - Center for Race and Culture (CFRAC)

Learn about micro-inequities, how they impact others, and how to hold people accountable for them.

The Centre for Race and Culture has developed a series of educational workshops and free open-access resources for service providers and the general public in Edmonton, Alberta under the name Unmasking Micro-inequities. This project supports participants to learn ways to hold themselves and others accountable when faced with everyday moments of discrimination—specifically micro-inequities—in their own lives and workplaces. We define micro-inequities as subtle, indirect, and often unintentional practices or behaviours that communicate bias or prejudice against members of marginalized groups, making them feel belittled, excluded, disrespected, or disadvantaged. These discriminatory acts occur across power dynamics, impacting members of marginalized groups such as women, 2SLGBTQ+ folks, people with disabilities, religious minorities, and persons living in poverty. By learning about the interplay between macro- and micro-level inequities, participants will learn why micro-inequities are not small or insignificant, but harmful. Together, we will explore the various forms of micro-inequities and the power dynamics that inform them, along with strategies for recognizing and meaningfully responding to incidents of micro-inequities. Educational content will include definitions, up-to-date theory, and a broad range of examples and stories, all contextualized to the realities we face in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Using an engaged approach, opportunities for self-reflection, sharing experiences, discussion and action-planning will be woven throughout the workshops and resources. 

We will learn: 

• What micro-inequities and microaggressions are;  

• How to recognize and unmask them;   

• Why and how they are harmful; and, 

• Strategies for intervening in them (as bystanders, allies and targets) 

For more information: CFRAC Training

KAIROS Blanket Exercise – Reach Edmonton

The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is a workshop that explores the nation-to-nation relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Blankets arranged on the floor represent land and participants are invited to step into the roles of First Nations, Inuit and later Métis peoples. The workshop helps people to understand how the colonization of this land impacts those who were here long before settlers arrived. It engages people’s minds and hearts in understanding why the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples is often broken and how we can take an action together.

The Blanket Exercise is available for community organizations in Edmonton and surrounding areas upon requests. The cost is subsidized by REACH for non-profit organizations that work with vulnerable populations. It is recommended that groups have a minimum of 12 participants.

If you are interested in having Blanket Exercise for your team, please contact Rie Nakai at rie.nakai@reachedmonton.ca.

To register: KAIROS Blanket Exercise – REACH

Intercultural Learning and Social Justice Workshops – Multicultural Health Brokers Co-Operative

These workshops intend to increase knowledge and build skills of participants in understanding social and cultural identities and how they influence experience of privilege, oppression and marginalization. 

These workshops explore broader issues of inequities and the complexities of building intercultural alliances to achieve social justice and change

Workshops can include:

• Integrating a racial equity lens in policy and practice 

• Organizing culturally diverse communities for change

Interested? Individuals and organizations interested in accessing our Journeys program can contact MCHB for public offerings and customized workshops for organizations. For more information contact Arlyn at mchb@mchb.org or call 780-423-1973.

Website page: MCHB - Journeys to Intercultural Wisdom and Equity

Skills Building Workshops – Multicultural Health Brokers Co-Operative

The skills building workshops will enable participants to apply intercultural strategies and tools in various areas of practice. 

We recommend that individuals complete the Foundations of Intercultural Practice Workshop to maximize the learning experience.

The suite of skill building workshops include:

• Intercultural communication – communication styles, verbal and non-verbal communication and intercultural communication bridging strategies 

• Intercultural planning and engagement – designing and evaluating programs and services across cultures, engaging people and communities from diverse cultural backgrounds

• Cultural mediation and brokering – the concept and practice of acknowledging and bridging differences in a variety of context 

• Trauma-informed workshop – focusing on the unique causes and impacts of trauma on immigrant and refugee populations..

• Practice-specific workshops – parenting in two cultures, family violence prevention across cultures, chronic disease prevention in culturally diverse communities 

The length of any of these workshops can vary from 2 – 6 hours depending on the interests and preferences of participants and requesting organizations.

Interested? Individuals and organizations interested in accessing our Journeys program can contact MCHB for public offerings and customized workshops for organizations. For more information contact Arlyn at mchb@mchb.org or call 780-423-1973.

Website page: MCHB - Journeys to Intercultural Wisdom and Equity

Foundations for Intercultural Practice Workshop– Multicultural Health Brokers Co-Operative

This foundational workshop will increase your knowledge about interacting, relating and communicating with culturally diverse people. 

Participants will be able to:

• Incorporate diverse cultural contexts in their work and practice

• Be more confident to address cultural issues in a personal and professional context 

Topics may include:

• Overview of Diversity and Immigration

• Cultural Self-Awareness

• Cultural Knowledge

• Introduction to Intercultural Learning and Development

Interested? Individuals and organizations interested in accessing our Journeys program can contact MCHB for public offerings and customized workshops for organizations. For more information contact Arlyn at mchb@mchb.org or call 780-423-1973.

Website page: MCHB - Journeys to Intercultural Wisdom and Equity

Rights of Young People & In-School Human Rights Practice – John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Advocacy

Using diverse and age-appropriate educational resources and fun interactive activities, we guide the exploration of various issues and elements of human rights relevant to schools and the communities where they are located.

JHC was founded with a core principle of creating space for young people to engage in and know their rights and responsibilities in community.

 JHC can support young people, teachers and school administration in implementing human rights and peace education while creating human rights communities. JHC’s education team uses human rights-based approaches and tools to help your school and students advance a culture of inclusion and equity. We create processes and sessions to build Rights Respecting Schools where everyone is respected, included, valued and belongs.

These courses include:

• Human Rights and Peace Education for Educators

• Human Rights and Peace Education for Young People

• Digital Literacy and Online Safety

For more information: JHC – RYPISHRP

To register: JHC – Workshop Google Form

Building Equity, Diversity and Inclusion through an Anti-Oppressive, Human Rights Framework – John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Advocacy

These workshops aim to explore the complex nature of oppression and support the creation of anti-oppressive strategies in different contexts.

Organizations can either select several sessions to inform and guide the building of an anti-oppressive strategic plan, or one or a few sessions that help them increase awareness and understanding, incorporate changes in their practices, and introduce a human rights culture for individual and organizational growth.

These courses include:

• Fundamentals of Anti-Oppression

• Anti-Racism—Learning to Confront the Uncomfortable

• The Not So “Micro” Aggressions

• Building a Rights-Based Organization

• True Colours Personal Development

• Understanding the ‘-isms’ and Learning How to Respond

• Confronting Ableism: Developing a Culture of Inclusion

For more information: JHC – BEDIAOHRF

To register: JHC – Workshop Google Form

Peace Building and Transformative Dialogues – John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Advocacy

Guided by human rights principles and anti-oppressive practices, JHC supports organizations and grassroots communities in designing and facilitating safe and brave spaces for difficult conversations conducive to integrating human rights into their policies, practices, and guidelines, solving tensions, and engaging in strategic planning.

Human Rights facilitation processes are conducive to action, foster collaboration, and center on the voices of all members of the group, especially those of equity-deserving groups.

These courses include:

• Human Rights Facilitator: Level One

• Advanced Human Rights Facilitation

For more information: JHC – PBTD

To register: JHC – Workshop Google Form