Past events

This course will provide an overview of Pasefika cultures and histories – from the great oceanic waves of migration to 20th and 21st century diaspora in the Western world, the challenges faced by Pasefika communities in Australia, and how to effectively engage with Pasefika communities.

This half day workshop will allow participants to explore how our own attitudes and values influence perceptions, assumptions and behaviours within the workplace, raise participants' knowledge about the diversity of cultural experiences, explain what a culturally safe workplace looks like and how to plan towards a culturally safe workplace. 

This workshop will provide an overview of attachment theory in the context of attachment based therapy. It will explore the unconscious defense mechanisms of suppression, avoidance or amplification and overemphasis in response to early attachment experience. It will look at early attachment and later development, as well as the lifespan perspective on attachment. It will also focus on interventions and approaches based on attachment theory.

This is most suited for therapeutic counsellors.

Learn negotiation techniques and apply them in conversations with creditors. Understand how debt buyers think, what they want and how to use that knowledge to the advantage on behalf of clients.

CPD points available: 3

This event is hosted by FCVic and registration will require logging onto their webpage.

Ben Riley from Flinders University will present a gap analysis from reviewing the current literature on gambling behaviour, attitudes and associated risk factors for gambling and problem gambling among adolescents and young adults. This presentation will also cover a case report of a parent-delivered contingency management intervention for a treatment-refusing young adult with a gaming disorder.

This advanced course builds on the expertise required to work with interpreters in a highly effective way to maximise practitioner-client communication and manage complex conversations.

CPD points available: 3

This event is hosted by FCVic and registration will require logging onto their webpage.

This workshop seeks to provide to provide an overview of early life interrelational trauma and explore this from an object relations perspective. It will also explore how it affects regulation, mentalisation and the development of self, including the lifespan perspective of early life interrelational trauma.

This is most suited for therapeutic counsellors.

This forum will give financial counsellors the opportunity to broaden peer-to-peer sharing beyond your own agency and in a structured manner. The session will cover a variety of topics, including the use of existing legislation and codes when advocating for clients, practicing new tools and tips from others, and strategies to deal with disappointing client outcomes.

CPD points available: 3

This event is hosted by FCVic and registration will require logging onto their webpage.

In the webinar, Dr Freund will present a brief overview of the 2017 Australian School Students Alcohol and Drug (ASSAD) Survey. She will present on the research methods, summarise the findings of the final report, and provide a preview of additional analyses that have now been completed. The ASSAD is a triennial national cross-sectional survey of Victoria and Queensland students’ use of licit and illicit substances. A total of 4269 students in Victoria from 58 schools took part in the survey. The webinar will cover the prevalence, type, modalities of gambling and problem gambling overall, and by age and gender. It will also include environmental factors that may influence adolescent gambling including exposure to peer and family gambling and exposure to gambling promotions.

This session will provide an overview of attachment theory in the context of children and adults, and explore how object relations, the internal working model and attachment theory intersect. Adult attachment Interview (AAI) questions will be worked through in a practical workshop, understanding AAI protocols and introducing AAI into your practice.

This session is most suited for therapeutic counsellors.

This session will go through a novel approach in research to show how gambling expenditure and harm can be objectively measured in bank data. Electronically-recorded gambling expenditure (e.g., in online and mobile gambling) can be retrieved from bank data, as well as relevant harm outcomes across financial (e.g., payday loans), social (e.g., spend on social activities) and health (e.g., spend on prescriptions, mortality) domains to provide information and knowledge. Dr Phillip Newall is one of the authors of this research.

Learn how to detect early warning signs of an escalating situation, strategies to avoid escalation triggers and understand the human behaviour when angry, and how to implement de-escalation skills in this training session.

CPD points available: 6

This event is hosted by FCVic and registration will require logging onto their webpage.

This two-hour workshop faciliated by The Black Dog Institute will help participants to understand how to manage stress and change in the workplace. It will unpack what stress is, knowing your stress signatures and how to manage it, dealing with change and uncertainty, and tools and techniques to practice mindfulness to improve wellbeing in the workplace.

This webinar will present findings from a Foundation-led research project which gathered detailed information from Gambler’s Help counselling staff about their experiences, and that of their clients, on telehealth counselling during COVID-19. Presented by Dr Gabi Bryne, the session will cover topics such as the identified benefits and challenges of telehealth counselling, telehealth versus in-person counselling, and the way forward.

This online training session will provide an overview of the key functions of the GH Connect system, specifically related to therapeutic counsellors, financial counsellors and practitioners (CALD services).

Please note: This training is more suited for new starters. Experienced staff who have questions or want to refresh their existing knowledge are welcome to attend, but are also warmly encouraged to contact IT Support with their specific queries.

This presentation will outline evidence on how common loot boxes are in popular video games in Australia and examine survey research on the relationships between loot box use, gambling problems and harm.

The presentation will provide an update of the Australian Communications and Media Authority's (ACMA) activities to disrupt illegal offshore gambling - highlighting some of the new enforcement actions they have undertaken, such as website blocking, as well as the campaigns they have rolled out to influence consumer choices. It will also look at the results from the monitoring of the restrictions on gambling advertising in live sport as well as touching on where things are at with the implementation of the National Self-Exclusion Register.

Professional video gaming competitions, known as esports, are becoming increasingly popular worldwide and are particularly attractive to children, adolescents, and young adults. As with traditional sports, opportunities to gamble on esports have emerged over the last decade. This presentation will provide an overview of esports, how it converges with gambling, research findings to date on esports betting and related video game-related gambling projects, and the potential impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on esports betting.

Hosted by VACCHO, this cultural safety training program aims to enhance an organisation’s engagement with Aboriginal communities and their staff members, through building on employee’s cultural knowledge to improve the capacity of their work and its delivery to Aboriginal people. Participants will develop the knowledge and skills necessary to improve engagement with and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Through developing a greater understanding of Aboriginal health and wellbeing perspectives, participants will begin the process of critical self-reflection and are able to embed and apply learnings throughout their professional careers and personal lives.

The state-wide Alfred Mental Health and Gambling Harm Service is committed to providing a space and opportunity for Gambler’s Help staff to come together and support each other in a four-session video conference peer consultation series.

This series hopes to provide a forum for people to share collective knowledge, reflect on their work, gather ideas and support colleagues across Victoria.

These sessions will be conducted monthly in the last Thursday morning of each month, and commenced in August 2020. It is beneficial to register for this block of sessions planned for 27 August, 24 September, 29 October and 26 November.