Important Notice:
Online registration is now CLOSED for this conference. You can arrive up to one hour early to register at the door.
Neufeld-Hirose Conference: Towards Flourishing Children & Youth
A Conference Tailored for Mental Health and Education Professionals at All Levels and Any Professional that Applies Developmental Science to Practice
Presented by Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D. and Eva de Gosztonyi, M.A. and Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D. and Tamara Strijack, M.A.
Monday, November 6, 2023 – Wednesday, November 8, 2023 | Saskatoon, sk
Download Brochure (.PDF)
Date & Location
Monday, November 6, 2023 – Wednesday, November 8, 2023
8:30am – 4:00pm
Hilton Garden Inn Saskatoon Downtown
90 22 St E, Saskatoon, SK S7K 3X6
phone: (306) 244-2311
IMPORTANT NOTICE
Pre-Registration for In-Person Attendance Closes Friday, Nov 3, 2023 at 12pm PST
Participants are welcome and encouraged to register in-person at the door.
Participants will not be turned away under any circumstances.
Virtual Registration Closes Wednesday, Nov 8th at midnight
Virtual participants can watch on-demand & earn CEU’s until January 6th, 2024.
Registration on this page is for live in-person attendance only. To attend virtually please register here: https://webinars.jackhirose.com/product/neufeld-conf/
Live In-Person Conference
- Complimentary tea, coffee and assorted pastries
- On-site exhibitors
- Buffet lunch available for purchase
Live Stream from Home
- This conference will be live streaming from Saskatoon, SK to online participants on November 6 – 8, 2023 from 8:30am – 4:00pm CST.
- Recorded footage and all course content will be available until January 6, 2024
- Please allow 3 – 5 business days after the conference has ended for recorded footage to become available
- More information & live stream registration: https://webinars.jackhirose.com/product/neufeld-conf/
Please note, in-person registration does not include access to the live stream or recorded footage.
The Neufeld Institute is once again joining forces with Jack Hirose Seminars to present a live three-day conference in Saskatoon on November 6-8, 2023. Our theme is Towards Flourishing Children and Youth. Although there is significant alarm these days concerning the deteriorating mental health of our children, there is still much confusion about how to reverse this disturbing trend. The ultimate answers lie in providing the conditions that are conducive to the unfolding of human potential. I am delighted to be joined by three of our most outstanding Neufeld Institute speakers – Deborah MacNamara, Tamara Strijack, and Eva de Gosztonyi. Together we will walk around the subject, using the attachment-based developmental approach to shed light on the dynamics, and based on this insight, to point to a way through. Whether a medical or mental health professional, a therapist or counselor, a teacher or school administrator, a day care provider or early childhood educator, a youth and family worker, a concerned parent or grandparent, this conference will help set the stage for turning stress around, in our children, our students, and even in ourselves. On behalf of the entire conference team, we look forward to engaging you in this timely theme.
A Message from Dr. Neufeld
We all want our children and students to thrive – to become all they were meant to be, despite the challenges they may face. But how is this to be accomplished? What conditions are required for optimal functioning? What experiences are essential to the unfolding of human potential regardless of the circumstances that may exist.
There could not be a more timely and important subject to address as the answers to flourishing are also the answers to mental health and well-being – the pressing topics of the day. And the current news is not good as the mental health of our children has been disintegrating so significantly that many experts have declared this an unprecedented crisis. In addition, learning and behaviour problems have also been increasing of late.
We will be addressing this important issue from a number of different angles, with each perspective adding to the understanding necessary to make a significant difference. It only makes sense that emotional health and well-being should become our collective priority, whether it be at home, at school, or at work.
This conference is a fundraiser for the Neufeld Institute and the offspring of a collaborative effort between Jack Hirose of Jack Hirose and Associates and Dr. Gordon Neufeld of the Neufeld Institute – a worldwide charitable organization delivering developmental science to those responsible for our children. The Neufeld Institute is deeply grateful for all who have extended themselves to make this event a success.
The three-day conference will consist of twelve presentations in total, with each day consisting of a morning and an afternoon block with two options each. The format will allow for sufficient immersion into the material without becoming too overwhelmed with input. The topics have been carefully chosen for the consistency of the approaches, the insights they provide, and the practical suggestions they offer.
We hope you will be able to join us for a learning experience that couldn’t be more significant or beneficial to the children in our care.
Sincerely,
Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D.
Clinical & Developmental Psychologist
Lunch Buffet Available
$25 per person, per day – includes taxes and gratuity. Must pre-purchase by Friday, November 3, 2024.
Lunch Buffet includes:
| Day One (Nov 6) | Day Two (Nov 7) | Day Three (Nov 8) |
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Who Should Attend
Education and Clinical Professionals: K–12 Classroom Teachers, School Counsellors/Psychologists, Learning Assistance/ Resource Teachers, School Administrators, School Paraprofessionals including Special Education Assistants, Classroom Assistants and Childcare Workers. All other professionals who support students including but not limited to: Nurses, Social Workers, Psychologists, Clinical Counsellors, Family Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Speech Language Pathologists, Addiction Counsellors, Youth Workers, Mental Health Workers, Probation Officers, Police Officers, and Early Childhood Educators.
Parents, Caregiver, Foster Parents, Grandparents, and Extended Family raising a child.
Agenda
Day One – November 6, 2023
Workshop #1: Towards Flourishing Children: Answering the Four Irreducible Needs of a Child
Presented by
Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D.
8:30am - 11:45am November 6, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
We all want our children and students to thrive – to become all they were meant to be, despite the challenges they may face. But how is this to be accomplished? What conditions are required for optimal functioning? What experiences are essential to the unfolding of human potential? Dr. Neufeld will put the pieces together to reveal rather surprising answers to this quintessential question of human development. A consciousness of the irreducible needs of children and youth is a much-needed antidote to a society that has become outcome driven and a culture that has lost its intuitive wisdom.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Updating Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
- Learning the keys to emotional health and well-being
- Appreciating the role of play and playfulness in the unfolding of potential
- Learning the natural blueprint for spontaneous development
Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a Vancouver-based developmental psychologist with over 50 years of experience with children and youth and those responsible for them. A foremost authority on child development, Dr. Neufeld is an international speaker, a bestselling author (Hold On To…
More information: www.neufeldinstitute.org
Workshop #2: The Neuroscience of Flourishing: How the Brain Works & What It Needs to Work
Presented by
Eva de Gosztonyi, M.A.
8:30am - 11:45am November 6, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
The human brain is complex and we very far from uncovering its many mysteries. Neuroscientific research is starting to get a glimmer of the complexity of its functioning. This presentation will outline the broad strokes of some of the key findings and their implications for those raising and educating children. It will then focus on what we as caring adults can do to help our children so their brains can flourish. The Neufeld paradigm provides us with the keys to understanding what our children need – faith in maturation, respect for vulnerability and defenses, the role of emotional expression, the need for play, and the all-important role of a strong child-adult attachment. These guiding principles have been used in schools in Quebec for a number of years and many easily applicable practices are now being used successfully. These include how to create strong child-adult relationships; how to protect vulnerable students and help them to stay out of trouble; ways of increasing emotional expression in the classroom, and guidelines for ensuring that essential play time is protected.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Explain the role of key areas of the brain in the developing child
- Increase child-adult attachment using strategies presented
- Describe a procedure for helping students to stay out of trouble
- Implement at least one activity for increasing emotional expression in the classroom
- Explain why play is important for the developing brain
Eva de Gosztonyi, MA, is a psychologist who has worked for over 45 years in schools across Canada. For 22 years she was the Coordinator of the Centre of Excellence for Behaviour Management, a support to the ten English School…
More information: https://neufeldinstitute.org/person/eva-de-gosztonyi/
Workshop #3: Making Sense of Attention Problems
Presented by
Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D.
12:45pm - 4:00pm November 6, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
What has happened to our kid’s attention and lack of engagement in play or learning? Can we simply blame technology or is there something else we have missed? Attention and agitation issues are increasing at alarming rates among our children and youth. Restlessness can pose challenges for learning and behaviour at home and school leaving adults overwhelmed in wondering how to make headway with a child or teen. In trying to alleviate symptoms we can unknowingly employ measures that serves to exacerbate their attention problem. There is much that can be done to help bring a child to rest by understanding the two common roots of attention problems.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Understand the role of immaturity and alarm in attention problems
- Examine the role of emotional defenses in creating attention issues
- Provide strategies for making headway on attention issues based in immaturity
- Provide strategies for making headway on attention issues based in heightened and stuck alarm
Deborah MacNamara, PhD is a clinical counsellor and educator with more than 25 years’ experience working with children, youth, and adults. She is on faculty at the Neufeld Institute, operates a counselling practice, and speaks regularly about child and adolescent development…
More information: www.neufeldinstitute.org/person/deborah-macnamara/
Workshop #4: Neufeld's Traffic Circle of Frustration: A Revolutionary Approach to Aggression, Depression & Suicide
Presented by
Tamara Strijack, M.A.
12:45pm - 4:00pm November 6, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
We all get frustrated, as this primal emotion is automatically evoked when something – anything for that matter – doesn’t work. There are several indicators that the groundswell of frustration is rising. This powerful emotion can be experienced in many ways and have a myriad of outcomes. Included in the array of emotional outcomes are compulsions regarding change, attacking impulses, suicidal impulses, aggression, and even frustration-based depression. Frustration can also result in healthy change and inner transformation. Tamara Strijack will help us walk through the traffic circle of frustration in a way that benefits all. Given the critical importance of developing a healthy relationship with frustration, we should all be ready to serve as traffic directors when needed.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Understanding the underlying roots of aggression and depression
- Appreciating the key role that frustration is meant to play in our lives
- Recognizing when pivotal feelings are missing that need restoring
- Knowing the symptoms, signs and challenges when frustration gets stuck
- Making sense of why some of our current behaviour management approaches backfire
- Knowing how to direct traffic when frustration needs to find an outlet
Tamara Strijack, MA is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who lives and works in the Vancouver Island area. She is co-author (with Hannah Beach) of the book, Reclaiming our Students: Why our children are more anxious, aggressive and shut down than ever,…
More information: www.neufeldinstitute.org/person/tamara-strijack/
Day Two – November 7, 2023
Workshop #5: Resilience & The Stress Response: Addressing Emotional Stuckness Including Trauma
Presented by
Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D.
8:30am - 11:45am November 7, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
New understandings reveal that there is much wisdom to the stress response. Rather than focusing on dysfunction, we should begin by appreciating how our brains are brilliantly programmed to not only summon the strength required to deal with distressing situations, but to also serve as an emotional first-aid response. The problem is not with the stress response per se, but when the stress response is not followed in a timely fashion by its partner, the resilience response. We will be much more effective in our interaction with distressed children, youth, and students if we first come alongside how their brains are trying to take care of them, and from this stance, proceed to help the stress response become unstuck.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Updating an understanding of the stress response through the lenses of attachment and emotion
- The ability to differentiate between the two kinds of strength that is often associated with resilience
- An appreciation of what has to bounce back for emotional health and well-being
- An understanding of the wisdom of the stress response and how to come alongside it
Workshop #6: Making Sense of Today's Feeding & Eating Problems
Presented by
Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D.
8:30am - 11:45am November 7, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
We have never known so much about food and what our bodies need to survive yet we continue to face increasing feeding and eating issues with our kids. What has come undone and what do we need to do to get back on track? What if it wasn’t just about food, or the table, or sitting beside each other to eat? We have missed something more critical to well-being that was meant to go along with eating. This issue couldn’t be more urgent with eating issues mounting in our kids and with children eating at least one meal away from home in the care of other adults. It is no longer about what happens at home with the responsibility for feeding our kids shared among many in a food obsessed context. Based on over ten years of research, Dr. Deborah MacNamara will share her findings based on her new book, Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring for our Kids (and everyone else we love).
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Understand the connection between attachment issues and feeding problems
- Deconstruct the role of emotional defense in eating challenges
- Provide a developmental and relational lens on the roots of picky eating to eating disorders
- Provide relational and developmental strategies for making headway on eating and feeding issues
Workshop #7: The Vital Role of Emotional Playgrounds in Flourishing: From Toddlerhood To Elderhood
Presented by
Tamara Strijack, M.A.
12:45pm - 4:00pm November 7, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
Emotions need room to play, for their sake, for our sake, for everyone’s sake. Just as the brain has to sleep for optimal functioning, emotions need to play in order to do its work in moving us towards health and well-being. Fresh insights from developmental science reveal play as the care-taker of emotion and thus key to emotional health and well-being. What play can do for emotion is remarkable, providing safety for expression as well as acting as a sanctuary for feeling, a womb for adaptation, a hospital for healing, and a greenhouse for development. Once upon a time, the kind of play we needed was built in to our culture. Unfortunately, the wisdom of true play is becoming eclipsed today and therefore we are left to create what culture no longer provides. In this session, Tamara Strijack will guide us as we consider the emotional playgrounds that can best serve the emotional health and well-being of those in our care, as well as ourselves. It is never too late to invite emotions to come out and play, and never too early to put emotions into the hands of play.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Appreciating the role of emotion in our well-being
- Recognizing the signs and symptoms of emotional stuckness
- Making sense of the role of play when it comes to emotional expression and release
- Awareness of what gets in the way of healthy expression
- Recognizing when pivotal feelings are missing that need restoring
- Knowing how to create the conditions for emotion to move
Workshop #8: Shielding the Vulnerable: How to Protect Their Hearts & Minds
Presented by
Eva de Gosztonyi, M.A.
12:45pm - 4:00pm November 7, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
For those who spend their days interacting with the young, be it in schools, group homes, daycares and in our own homes, we sometimes forget how vulnerable they are. Developing beings are entirely dependent on the care of the more mature. Yet so many common practices we use, especially when behaviour is challenging, increase feelings of vulnerability and inadvertently lead to other unanticipated problems, including mental health issues. This session will focus on creating a better understanding of what our children need from us and on analyzing the pitfalls of some of our most commonly used interventions and interactions, including the use of praise, rewards, consequences, time outs, democratic or child-led practices, and self-regulation. The presentation will then provide alternatives to these, as well as encouraging adults to find ways to support children in the most important task of all, helping their emotions to move through.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Explain why at least three common practices increase vulnerability
- Improve their ability to increase child-adult attachment using strategies presented
- Describe ways to help children to stay out of trouble
- Improve their capacity for helping children to live fully with their emotions
Day Three – November 8, 2023
Workshop #9: Disordered and Troubled Attachments & The Current Youth Mental Health Crisis
Presented by
Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D.
8:30am - 11:45am November 8, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
The alarming rise in anxiety, depression, despair, and attention problems, begs for an explanation. The prevailing premise blames the social isolation experienced during the pandemic. When the dots are joined however, another picture emerges that reveals the attachment roots of mental health. This current mental health crisis provides us with a unique opportunity to understand the underlying dynamics, giving us a guide to better take care of our children, our students and ourselves.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Gaining insight as to the attachment and emotional roots of mental health
- Making sense of how the pandemic affected the mental health of students
- Appreciating how peer orientation predisposes to mental health problems
- Understanding why self-care for children can be counterproductive
- Being equipped with developmental interventions for the prevention and reversal of mental health problems
Workshop #10: Towards Flourishing in Adolescence: Special Challenges in Helping Teens Navigate Their Emotional World
Presented by
Tamara Strijack, M.A.
8:30am - 11:45am November 8, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
Adolescence is a unique time – no longer a child, but not yet an adult. And navigating this time seems to be more difficult these days – with the impact of social media, bullying, depression, higher rates of suicide, and increasing diagnoses of disorders. Making sense of what is going on during this time can shed light on what is needed to restore emotional health. How do we make room for all that is stirred within them on this journey from childhood to adulthood and compensate for stuckness, especially when we can often feel stuck ourselves in dealing with them? How do we make it safe to process their inner world and the often-wounding world they find themselves in. In this session, we will explore the developmental changes, the emotional drives and the body’s natural defense system that is designed to protect from too much wounding, as well as the natural ways through to emotional health. And most importantly, we will look at our vital role as caring adults in our adolescents’ lives – whether coming as an educator, counsellor, parent or mentor.
Workshop #11: Managing Behaviour Without Rewards
Presented by
Eva de Gosztonyi, M.A.
12:45pm - 4:00pm November 8, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
When students have difficulty with their behaviours teachers are often advised to implement a reward system. However, developmental science and trauma research do not support these systems, warning of unwanted side-effects for children’s development. These systems are known to lose their effectiveness over time, are complicated to implement, and rarely result in long-term change. Of concern is that they can significantly affect the all-important child-adult attachment relationship, can increase anxiety even among the “well-behaved”, and can cause discouragement and a sense of shame for the student who cannot do better despite best intentions. This presentation will provide an analysis of what works and does not work, and why. Then effective alternatives to help manage behaviour in the classroom such as increasing the students’ desire to please their teacher, simple classroom alterations that can make behaving appropriately easier, and suggestions for how to respond when behaviour is challenging, will be described.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Describe at least 3 reasons why rewards systems are not advised for the optimal development of a child
- Increase child-adult attachment using strategies presented
- Implement classroom alterations to help address behavioural concerns
- Respond more effectively to a misbehaving student
Workshop #12: When Feelings Go Missing: Moving Through Emotional Defense
Presented by
Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D.
12:45pm - 4:00pm November 8, 2023
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This session is available for live stream.
We are meant to be full of emotion but sometimes there is simply too much emotion or there isn’t time for feelings. What gets in the way of feeling? We have an emotional unconsciousness that operates outside of direct awareness. This is not a mistake, but part of the brain’s sophisticated capacity to defend and inhibit emotional awareness to serve survival needs. How does the brain inhibit vulnerable emotion? How can we create the conditions for the defenses to come down? How can we become conscious of defenses operating when they are meant to blind us in the first place? Developmental science helps to provide answers to these puzzling emotional questions.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Understand the role of emotional defense by integrating neuroscience, attachment science and developmental approaches
- Outline the three types of emotional defenses and their corresponding symptomology
- Distinguish between emotion and feelings, and the impact of defenses on learning and behaviour
- Provide strategies for reducing emotional defenses using a relational and developmental approach
Registration & Fees
| Registration | Early bird Fee | Regular Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Individual 1 Day Enrollment | $279 | $299 |
| Individual 2 Day Enrollment | $499 | $519 |
| Individual 3 Day Enrollment | $699 | $719 |
| Group 3-7 | $679 | $699 |
| Group 8-14 | $659 | $679 |
| Group 15+ | $639 | $659 |
| Full-Time Student | $639 | $659 |
All fees are in Canadian Dollars ($CAD)
Fees do not include applicable taxes (5% GST).
Early bird cutoff date: October 23, 2023
The early bird date has passed. Regular rates apply.
Please review our Registration Terms and Conditions for information on our cancellation policy, payment policies, rebates, and more. You must agree to our Terms and Conditions to register for a workshop or conference.
Register Online Download Registration Form (.PDF) Register your Group
Downloads
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Recommended Accommodation
Hilton Garden Inn Saskatoon Downtown
90 22 St E, Saskatoon, SK S7K 3X6
phone: (306) 244-2311
Our rates:
Call: Please contact the hotel directly for current group rates, when booking please reference “Jack Hirose & Associates”. To make a reservation over the phone, please call 306 244-2311.
Email: Email your reservation request to hgisaskatoon@gmail.com
Double Queen & King Rooms: $159.00 plus tax per night
Parking: $15.95 plus tax
*please note, room reservations are subject to availability*
Please keep in mind when booking Jack Hirose and Associates corporate guest rooms, reservations booked for most hotels can be cancelled within 48 hours. If you are booking guest rooms through third-party websites in many instances the reservations booked cannot be cancelled.
When booking hotel rooms, ask for the Jack Hirose and Associates corporate rate. To receive our corporate rate, rooms must be booked one month prior to the workshop date. Please keep in mind hotel rates may fluctuate.
Continuing Education Credits
This workshop has been formally approved by the following associations:
- Canadian College of Professional Counsellors and Psychotherapists (CCPCP)
- Canadian Professional Counsellors Association (CPCA)
- Canadian Psychological Association (CPA)
Jack Hirose & Associates is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. Jack Hirose & Associates maintains responsibility for the program.
† The Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW) and the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Social Workers (NLASW) accept CPA-approved CEUs.
* Participants will receive a certificate of completion after every workshop. Workshops are pre-approved for 5.5 or 6 credits per day unless otherwise specified.
Please check back closer to the conference date for more information.
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