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The Western Canadian Mental Health & Education Summit | Day One [Edmonton, AB]

$229.00

6 Hours  |   Pre-approved for CEU’s

Presenter
Presented by Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D., and Krista Helman, MSW
Date and Format
December 7, 2026
Categories: , , ,
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LIVE STREAM: December 7, 2026 from  8:30am – 4:00pm (Edmonton, AB) Please adjust your start time according to your specific time zone. 

ON-DEMAND: Recorded footage & course content (certificate, videos, quiz) will be available until January 17, 2027. Please allow 3 – 10 business days for footage to be processed. Extensions cannot be granted under any circumstances.

Day One – December 7, 2026

1. Moving Beyond Behaviour Management in Complex Kids: Supporting Resilience and Growth Through a Developmental and Relational Lens
Presented by Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D.

8:30am – 4:00pm   December 7, 2026

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

Children’s behaviour is often approached through the lenses of compliance, symptom management, behavioural intervention, or diagnosis. Yet many of the children we struggle most to help are not simply behaving badly — they are alarmed, developmentally stuck, emotionally defended, disconnected, overwhelmed, or adapting to conditions that have interfered with healthy growth.

Without understanding the roots beneath the behaviour, interventions can become reactive, fragmented, or focused only on managing symptoms rather than supporting long-term development and well-being.

This practical and clinically focused full-day presentation offers educators, counsellors, mental health professionals, youth workers, and helping professionals a deeper framework for understanding complex children and youth through a developmental and relational lens. Grounded in attachment theory, developmental science, emotional health, and relational practice, participants will learn how to move beyond surface behaviours to better understand the child underneath.

The workshop will explore three foundational developmental domains that shape children’s functioning and behaviour:

  • attachment and relationship
  • emotional health and emotional defenses
  • maturation and developmental readiness

Together, these domains provide a developmental snapshot that helps reveal whether a child is growing well, adapting under stress, developmentally delayed, emotionally defended, alarmed, or struggling to mature.

Participants will learn how to use this developmental-relational framework to better understand common challenges including aggression, anxiety, attention difficulties, emotional dysregulation, shutdown, opposition, peer problems, school struggles, and relational resistance. Rather than asking, “How do we stop the behaviour?”, this approach asks deeper questions:

  • What is the behaviour communicating?
  • What developmental needs are driving the problem?
  • What emotions are shaping the child’s functioning?
  • Is development unfolding naturally, or has it become disrupted or stuck?
  • What conditions are needed to support growth and change?

This highly applied workshop bridges theory and practice through real-life examples, guided reflection, practical application, and a live case consultation demonstrating how developmental-relational understanding can be translated into meaningful intervention and support planning across educational, counselling, caregiving, and mental health settings.

Participants will leave with greater confidence in understanding complex children from the inside out and in applying developmental and relational principles to everyday practice with the children and youth in their care.

2. Trauma & Grief 101: What Every Helping Professional Needs to Know
Presented by Krista Helman, MSW

8:30am – 4:00pm   December 7, 2026

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

Children and youth encounter trauma and grief in many forms, yet these experiences do not always look the way we expect. Rather than expressing distress through words, children often communicate through their behaviour, emotions, relationships, learning, and physical symptoms. Without a trauma- and grief-informed understanding, these responses can easily be misunderstood or misinterpreted.

Designed for educators, school-based professionals, healthcare providers, mental health clinicians, and other helping professionals who support children and youth, this engaging and practical workshop provides a strong foundation for understanding how trauma and grief influence development, behaviour, learning, and emotional well-being.

Participants will explore the differences between trauma, grief, loss, and bereavement while examining how developmental stage shapes a child’s understanding of adversity, relationships, and death. Through an accessible overview of the developing brain and nervous system, participants will gain insight into why children and youth respond the way they do and how these responses often represent adaptive survival strategies rather than intentional misbehaviour.

Using research-informed content, real-life examples, case studies, demonstrations, humour, and interactive discussion, participants will learn to recognize common trauma and grief responses across developmental stages and apply practical strategies that foster safety, connection, co-regulation, emotional regulation, and resilience in everyday interactions.

Participants will leave with greater confidence in responding compassionately and effectively to children and youth experiencing trauma or grief, while understanding the importance of working within their professional role and recognizing when additional supports or referrals may be needed. The workshop also highlights practical strategies for maintaining personal well-being and reducing the impact of compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and burnout, empowering helping professionals to continue supporting others with confidence, empathy, and resilience.

  • Understand the foundations of a developmental and relational approach to working with children and youth
  • Recognize how attachment, emotion, alarm, and maturation shape behaviour and functioning
  • Move beyond symptom-focused and behavioural interpretations toward deeper developmental understanding
  • Identify signs of developmental stuckness, emotional defenses, alarm, and relational distress
  • Understand how behaviour often reflects adaptation, unmet developmental needs, or developmental immaturity
  • Learn how to assess children through three foundational domains: attachment, emotional functioning, and maturation
  • Develop greater skill in developmental-relational case conceptualization
  • Explore practical implications for intervention, caregiving, counselling, education, and support planning
  • Apply developmental-relational principles to real-life practice situations and case examples
  • Observe how insight-based approaches can be translated into meaningful action through a live case consultation
  • Gain greater confidence in supporting complex, vulnerable, and hard-to-reach children and youth
  • Understand how creating the right relational and developmental conditions supports resilience, growth, and full human potential
  • Differentiate between trauma, grief, loss, and bereavement and recognize how these experiences may overlap in the lives of children and youth.
  • Explain how trauma and grief influence the developing brain, nervous system, emotions, behaviour, learning, relationships, and daily functioning.
  • Recognize how developmental stage influences children’s and youths’ trauma and grief responses, including behaviours that are frequently misunderstood.
  • Apply practical trauma-informed and grief-informed strategies that foster safety, connection, co-regulation, emotional regulation, and resilience.
  • Respond with greater confidence and compassion to children, youth, and families while recognizing scope of practice and when additional supports or referrals are appropriate.
  • Identify practical strategies that promote resilience and reduce the impact of compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and burnout.

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 to parents, child care providers, educators, and mental health professionals. She is also the author of the best-selling book Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (Or Anyone Who Acts Like One), which provides a 360-degree developmental walk around the young child, and The Sorry Plane, a children’s picture book. Her new book, Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring for our Kids (and everyone else we love), will be released September 19, 2023. Deborah resides in Vancouver, Canada with her husband and two children.

Krista Helman, MSW is a Registered Social Worker in Ontario and a Registered Clinical Social Worker in British Columbia. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Trauma & Grief Institute, an author, international speaker, and clinical educator specializing in trauma, grief, EMDR therapy, nervous system regulation, and resilience. Her work focuses on translating trauma-informed care, grief research, and clinical experience into practical, compassionate learning that helps others better support children, youth, adults, families, and communities.

Education and Clinical Professionals: All education and mental health or healthcare professionals who work with children or youth including, but not limited to K–12 Classroom Teachers, School Counsellors, Learning Assistance/Resource Teachers, School Administrators, School Paraprofessionals including Special Education Assistants, Classroom Assistants and Childcare Workers • All other professionals who support behavioural challenges and complex learning needs 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 and Community Police Officers.

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