‘What children and teenagers need to know about life in order to live well’ Conference 15 June 2019, The Child Centre for Mental Health London

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Published on Saturday, 27 April 2019 11:10

Last Updated on 26 April 2019

Monica Costa

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The emotional brain of children and teenagers, why love hurts, the pain of sexual jealousy, rejection, hopelessness, blocked trust, why people want to live and why they want to die, are all topics which will be addressed at the conference ‘What children and teenagers need to know about life in order to live well’ taking place on Saturday 15 June 2019 at The Child Centre for Mental Health (CCMH) London. 

Through fascinating film footage and deeply moving case material, teachers and parents can learn how to present science and psychology-informed key information to young people on vital topics such as living with your emotional brain, why love hurts, how to make up after a row and knowing your brain chemicals so you can calm down effectively after stressful emotions instead of self-harming or turning to drink or drugs.

Other topics to be covered include what drugs do to your brain, the key causes of depression and anxiety, how to prevent mental illness, how to keep going when you want to give up, why people want to die and why they want to live, what you need to know about sexuality and gender, how to manage friendships well and how to be a great parent.

In a nutshell:

What:       Conference: What children and teenagers need to know about life in order to live well – The emotional brain of children and teenagers, why love hurts, the pain of sexual jealousy, rejection, hopelessness, blocked trust, why people want to live and why they want to die

Where:          The Centre for Child Mental Health (CCMH), The Manor Hall, The London Art House, 2-18 Britannia Row Islington: London, N1 8PA

When:            Saturday 15 June, 2019

Time:            10:00 -17:00

Speakers

o   Dr Margot Sunderland – eminent psychologist and neuroscientist

o   Clare Williams – Trauma informed practice and emotional health trainer

o   Bob Withers – psychotherapist and transgender specialist

The aim of the conference is to help delegates understand who should impart this knowledge to young people (do-able training implications for non-psychologists) and how to move from the anxiety of ‘pseudo-competency’ to complete competence in delivering psychological and neuroscience-based PSHE-based mental health education in schools.

They will also learn what aspects of prevention and alleviation of human suffering cannot be addressed effectively through didactic learning (providing students with the required theoretical knowledge) and require instead relational change through individual face-to-face contact time with an emotionally-available adult in the school or home environment.

Presenters at the conference will highlight the need for mental health programmes in schools to draw on 50 years of peer-reviewed psychological studies about the human condition and over 30 years of research in affective neuroscience (the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion) if we are to see an improvement in the mental wellbeing of young people and PSHE in today’s schools.

To download a booking form, please register online here or follow the link: booking form. The cost per delegate is £183.

 

Fast facts about the issues to be discussed:

• Every year 70 million people take anti-depressants (there are only 65 million people in the UK: discrepancy due to repeat prescriptions) (NHS Digital: Prescriptions Dispensed in the Community – Statistics for England, 2006-2016)
• The biggest cause of death for males under 50 is suicide (Office for National Statistics (2015) Suicides in the United Kingdom)
• 70 percent of unmarried couples with children break up within the first year. 42 percent of marriages end in divorce.
• One in two teenagers experience their parents splitting up. Without psychological help, they are then 75 percent more likely than those whose parents stay together, to fail at school, end up without qualifications, claim benefits, have mental health problems (often more complex) than losing a parent to bereavement). (Centre for Social Justice, Fractured Families)
• One woman dies every three days due to domestic abuse. Two million people suffer domestic abuse every year (Crime Survey for England and Wales, 2017)
• Without psychological help, a child who has had several bad things happen to her/him, is highly vulnerable to mental health issues, physical ill-health and early death (Ashton et al (2016) Adverse childhood experiences and their association with health-harming behaviours and mental wellbeing in the Welsh adult population: a national cross-sectional survey. The Lancet (Originally 17,000 people study))

 

Dr Margot Sunderland is Director of Education and Training at The Centre for Child Mental Health, London Co- Director of Trauma Informed Schools UK a Senior Associate Member of The Royal College of Medicine and a Child Psychotherapist with over 30 years’ experience of working with children and teenagers. Margot is also the author of over 20 books in the field of child mental health. Her book What Every Parent Needs to Know (Dorling Kindersley) won First Prize in the British Medical Association Medical Book Awards 2007 (Popular Medicine section). She is also the originator of ‘Helping Where it Hurts’, a therapy programme for troubled children in North London schools. For more details about Dr Margot Sunderland: www.margotsunderland.org

Clare Williams is an Educational Psychotherapist (MA in Therapeutic Education) Caspari and a Senior Trauma Informed Trainer for Trauma Informed Schools UK. Prior to this, Clare was a Mental Health Practitioner for CAMHS, leading a programme of training across Dorset on emotional well being, attachment and mental health and a Consultant for Dorset’s Primary Strategy Team responsible for coordinating the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) programme. She also led a number of LA and multi-agency initiatives and has written and created PSHE materials for schools.

Robert Withers is a psychotherapist, Jungian analyst and a training analyst and lecturer at the Society of Analytical Psychology. He practices at the Rock Clinic in Brighton, which he co-founded. He is also visiting Senior Lecturer in mind body medicine at Inter-university College for Health and Development Graz. His 2015 paper The Seventh Penis, which described some of the difficulties of working psychotherapeutically with people who identify as transgender, jointly won the Michael Fordham Prize for that year. Other publications on the subject include his chapter The View from the Consulting Room in the 2018 book ‘Transgender Children and Young People; Born in Your Own Body’ and Robert Withers: Clinical Commentary in the Journal of Child Psychotherapy Jan 2018. Robert’s talk will be based on his latest paper Be Careful What You Wish For; trans-identification and the evasion of psychological distress.