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Be a Family Therapist

Become certified in family therapy through the Graduate Certification of Family Therapy programme.

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Introduction

The programme will provide you with a solid understanding of how you can work systemically and collaboratively with families and the wider system surrounding families to support them in healing themselves.

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Who is this for?

The certification programme in family therapy is suitable for clinical psychologists, social workers, and counsellors who are currently practising counselling/therapy and have the interest to cultivate skills in working with families. This program is also suitable for final-year, counselling and psychology masters students.

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More about the programme

The certification programme is conducted through Zoom and encompasses:

Theory

12 weeks,

5 hours per week

Group Supervision

8 sessions,

2 hours per session

With decades of experience working with families, your facilitator, David Hong will share his extensive knowledge, experience, and reflections to demystify the complexity around working with families.

 

As a skills-based programme that is focused on developing your knowledge and skills when working with families, you will be guided and asked to demonstrate mastery as the programme progresses. In the end, you will have built competence and confidence, and you will be effective and comfortable when working with families.

 

Students will have the opportunity to learn through interactive lectures, by observing videos of master family therapists in action, through structured skill-based activities, and through the provision of relevant literature, case studies, experiential learning and supervision. Though this sounds like a lot, the programme will incrementally build students' knowledge, skills, and competence using family therapy ideas.

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Meet Your Facilitator

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David is a practising Family & Couple Therapist with over 40 years of experience in mental health services. He is the founding director of The Delta Clinic since 2010, a private "one-stop therapy centre" specializing in Child & Adolescent Mental Health in Sydney, Australia.

 

Since 2013 David has conducted numerous parenting seminars and workshops and has organised 5 symposiums in Penang, Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur. David launched the inaugural Graduate Certificate of Family Therapy Program in 2015. To date, he has trained over 100 health professionals in family therapy. In early 2021, David and his associates set up the Andolfi Family Therapy Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Professor Maurizio Andolfi is the Honorary Consultant to the centre.

 

David has over 30 years of clinical experience working with children and adolescents with serious emotional, behavioural, and mental health problems along with their families. He was the senior nursing manager of Redbank House, a specialist mental health tertiary service for children & adolescents in Western Sydney. He has worked for 15 years in the Catholic school system as an outreach family therapist and school counsellor. David has a special interest in working with ADHD and family systems, and also school refusal and school systems. In his role as a clinical nurse consultant and family therapist in a major teaching hospital, he has developed an innovative and systemic approach when working with suicidal, depressed adolescents who have attempted suicide at a time of crisis. David has presented at local, national and international conferences. In May 2021, David was an invited keynote speaker on the topic of school refusal at the NSW Australian Independent Christian School for School Counsellors in Sydney, Australia.

 

David was a subcontracted lecturer & clinical supervisor with the NSW Institute of Psychiatry, a prestigious training organisation under the Department of Health, NSW, Australia for over 3 years. He has also provided family therapy as an elective for the Master of Counselling Program at Excelsia University in Sydney. He is a clinical member & accredited clinical supervisor with the Australian Association of Family Therapy.

 

David has had supervision with Professor Bryanne Barnett, Infant, Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist who is an authority on attachment for the last 10 years. Since 2005, David has been having ongoing advanced training and supervision under the guidance of Professor Maurizio Andolfi, master family therapist and trained child psychiatrist. He has attended the Intensive Experiential Clinical Practicum and “the use of self of the therapist” in therapy at the prestigious Accademia di Psicoterapia Familiare in Rome, Italy. In 2016, David was invited to attend the Supa-meta Praticum in Todi, Umbria, Italy with 18 family therapists from around the world and in 2020 was invited as part of the supervision group with European Family Therapist for one year.

 

David, together with Professor Maurizio Andolfi launched the inaugural Graduate Diploma in Multi-generational Family Therapy at Delta Clinic, Sydney, Australia in 2017 and in March 2020 in Malaysia.

Programme Outline

Week 1 to Week 4

Introduce students to the underpinnings of systems theory and its influence on working with families. It builds participants' knowledge of how the family and the broader context influence family life and dynamics. It will offer students the opportunity to develop a new way of conceptualising and understanding family difficulties and the broader context. The topic areas include:

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  1. Foundations of systems theory

  2. Capturing the family picture – using genograms

  3. Family life cycle / developmental framework

  4. The self of the therapist

  5. Cultural context

Week 5 to Week 8

Introduces students to the various family therapy approaches, providing an overview of the core principles and practice of each approach. It will highlight key concepts and how they are applied to family work. The topic areas include:

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  1. Structural & Strategic Family Therapy

  2. Bowen System Theory

  3. Milan/Post Milan Family Therapy

  4. Solution Focused Therapy

  5. Narrative Therapy

  6. Multigenerational Family Therapy, Andolfi’s Approach

  7. Sculpture in Family Therapy

Week 9 to Week 12

Provides participants with skills and techniques of how to work with families – initial session, assessing, engaging, formulating a hypothesis & conceptualising and planning therapeutic interventions. It is expected that students will begin to consolidate their knowledge and application of theory into practice. The topic areas include:

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  1. The initial family interview, engaging the family, and assessment

  2. Formulating, conceptualising and intervening in family difficulties

  3. Engaging family in change & termination

  4. The use of live consultation in family therapy

  5. Special topics – school refusal, ADHD & OCD in family therapy

  6. Home-based and school-based intervention

  7. Evaluation

  8. Assignment task 1500 words & Reflections

Group supervision following the completion of the theoretical component of the program

  1. Monthly X 8 sessions of 2 hours duration

  2. Dates to be decided

Cost Structure

RM4,500 all-in (Early bird pricing till 5th Mar 2024), RM5,000 standard pricing

Before being introduced to the Graduate Certification of Family Therapy programme, I did not have much exposure to family therapy in Malaysia. Dealing with families of patients can be a daunting task, but yet so pertinent, more so in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry. The certification programme was indeed an eye-opener to the various theories and modalities in family therapy, and how it is so much needed in Malaysia. Besides giving an overview as well as in-depth information about different schools of family therapy, topics which were commonly encountered such as suicidality and school refusal were included in discussions as well. It was like being given a toolbox, equipped with tools and techniques; such as using the genogram, sculpting and relational questioning just to name a few. The case supervision gave us an opportunity to discuss complicated cases and to put on our thinking caps, while David gave practical insights on how to think systemically. I now have more confidence in dealing with families and it definitely prepared me to embark on the Graduate Diploma Course. It is not only useful for those in the field of mental health, it would also be highly recommended for professionals dealing with children, young people and families in any settings like schools, clinics or hospitals.

Joni Teoh

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