Description
LIVE STREAM: June 1 – 3, 2026 from 8:30am – 4:00pm (Halifax, NS) Please adjust your start time according to your specific time zone.
ON-DEMAND: Recorded footage & course content (certificate, videos, quiz) will be available until July 13, 2026. Please allow 3 – 10 business days for footage to be processed. Extensions cannot be granted under any circumstances.
June 1, 2026 | Day One
Effective Strategies for Managing Challenging Behaviours in Autism and Social Communication Differences
Presented by Cara Daily, Ph.D.
Join us for an engaging and informative workshop designed to empower parents, caregivers, educators, and professionals with effective strategies for managing challenging behaviors associated with autism and social communication disorder (SCD). Participants will gain insight into the core challenges faced by individuals with autism and SCD, including difficulties with social interaction, understanding social cues, and maintaining conversations. The workshop will also cover diagnostic criteria and assessment tools for both disorders, helping attendees to navigate the complexities of development and behaviour.
Through hands-on activities, service providers will leave with a toolbox of behavioral and cognitive-behavioral interventions aimed at reducing challenging behaviors, teaching new skills, and promoting self-regulation. Specific social communication strategies will be highlighted, including techniques for facilitating back-and-forth conversations with individuals on the spectrum or with a social communication disorder.
Additionally, we will discuss how to modify the environments—home, classroom, and community—to improve behaviors and support independent living skills as participants transition to adulthood.
Join us for this lively, educational, and experiential workshop that will transform your approach to supporting individuals with autism and social communication disorder.
June 2, 2026 | Day Two
Practical Solutions to Address Anxiety Disorders with Children and Adolescents
Presented by Carissa Muth, Psy.D., CCC, R.Psych
8:30am – 11:45am
As high as 20% of children in Canada will experience an anxiety disorder before reaching adulthood. For many of these children, symptoms of anxiety will impede their life and development to a degree that will create impairments into adulthood. Developmental vulnerabilities place children and adolescents at unique risk and also in need of specialized knowledge regarding the assessment and treatment of their anxiety symptoms. In this workshop, Dr. Muth will ground the assessment and treatment of anxiety for children and adolescent in a neurological understanding of human development. Presenting developmentally appropriate CBT and play therapy interventions, Dr. Muth will provide practical tools for working with children and adolescents with anxiety. Participants will walk away with the ability to identify anxiety symptoms and apply immediate interventions to address psychological symptoms and reduce the likelihood of continuation of issues into adulthood.
Why Attend?
- Practical Application: CBT is widely evidenced as the most effective method for treatment for anxiety for children and adolescents yet commonly misunderstood in application. This workshop will provide practical guidance for applying developmentally appropriate interventions for the cognitive (e.g. thought reframing) behavioural (e.g. imaginal and in vivo exposure) and physiological (e.g. addressing autonomic arousal) aspects of CBT.
- Expanded Toolbox: While protocoled therapies are often more widely studied and, as such, evidenced, alternative methods have also demonstrated efficacy in addressing anxiety in children. This workshop will present an overview and easy to apply play therapy interventions to equip participants to utilize a myriad of interventions to meet a variety of client needs.
Executive Functioning Skills for Children and Adolescents
12:45pm – 4:00pm
Planning, organizing, and emotionally regulating all are executive functioning that, when impaired, can significantly impact activities of daily living. In childhood this can range in presentation from the ability to complete homework, to the ability to refrain from anger outbursts. While executive functioning never fully develops until young adulthood, certain children are at risk for lifetime impairments. Risk factors include trauma, low socioeconomic status, stress or neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD or ASD. In this workshop, Dr. Muth will present tools that can be implemented in the therapeutic setting and have been evidenced to have a lasting impact on children with low executive functioning. Many skills have been suggested by professionals, such as exercise, computer games, music, but only a few have been found to have a lasting impact once the intervention ceases. For children with low executive functioning, particular nontypically developing children (including children with neurodevelopmental disorders or behaviour problems), improving skills in these areas can significantly improve their ability to flourish throughout their life.
Why Attend?
- Adopt Effective Interventions: Research has indicated that while many interventions temporarily improve executive functioning skills, not all techniques have lasting impact or allow children to apply skills to a variety of situations. This workshop will provide participants with practical interventions that have been evidenced to have lasting impacts.
- Increase Toolbox: Given the vast range of risk factors for impairment in executive functioning development, many children attending therapy would benefit from interventions, whether or not they have a neurodevelopmental disorder. As such, developing skills to address executive functioning deficits will be helpful for anyone working with children or adolescents.
June 3, 2026 | Day Three
Addressing the Root Causes of Anxiety in Children
Presented by Eva de Gosztonyi, M.A.
8:30am – 11:45am
When children or teens become anxious, we are quick to search for ways to deal with their symptoms. However, the symptoms just let us know that the child is facing more alarm than he or she can handle. This presentation will elaborate on the concepts of alarm and anxiety. It will shed light on what alarms our children and teens the most. The focus of this presentation will be on what adults can do to help children cope with alarm, not on what children can do for themselves. When children can find rest in their attachment relationships, growth will happen, allowing them to develop to their full potential.
An Attachment-Based Relational Perspective on Aggression and Resistance with Children and Adolescents
12:45pm – 4:00pm
Schools are increasingly challenged by students who display aggression, explosive outbursts, resistance, and oppositional behaviour. These behaviours often lead to power struggles, reactive discipline, and ineffective interventions that unintentionally escalate the problem.
Grounded in attachment-based developmental theory and the work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld, this workshop reframes aggression, meltdowns, resistance, and defiance not as learned behaviours or deliberate misconduct, but as natural responses to frustration and developmental dynamics such as Counterwill. Participants will explore the emotional and neurological roots of these behaviours and gain a deeper understanding of why conventional behaviour management approaches frequently backfire.
Through a relational, neuroscience-informed lens, this session will equip educators and school-based professionals with practical strategies to reduce power struggles, support emotional regulation, and create conditions that foster cooperation, resilience, and healthy adaptation. Emphasis will be placed on school-based interventions that address both explosive and oppositional behaviours while preserving connection and dignity.
