Description
LIVE STREAM: December 2 – 4, 2026 from 8:30am – 4:00pm (Winnipeg, MB) 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 11, 2027. Please allow 3 – 10 business days for footage to be processed. Extensions cannot be granted under any circumstances.
Day One | December 2, 2026
Emotional Regulation: Understanding Triggers and Responding to Behaviours Across Educational and Clinical Settings
Presented by Tracy Whittaker-Taggart, M.A.
8:30am – 4:00pm December 2, 2026
Children and youth experience the world in different ways, and those differences influence how they respond to stress, relationships, learning, and everyday challenges. Whether you are a teacher, counsellor, psychologist, therapist, educational assistant, administrator, or another helping professional, understanding emotional regulation is essential to supporting children and youth effectively.
Through a psychological and developmental lens, this workshop explores the factors that influence emotional regulation and the relationship between triggers and behaviour. Together, we’ll examine an important question: What is this behaviour communicating, and what does this child or youth need right now? Participants will be introduced to evidence-informed strategies and frameworks for understanding and responding to behaviour, while also considering how our own experiences, assumptions, and reactions can shape interactions. Throughout the session, there will be opportunities to share experiences, discuss challenges, and collaboratively generate practical ideas and strategies that can be applied immediately in educational, clinical, and community settings.
This workshop emphasizes creating environments where children feel safe, connected, and ready to learn. Participants will leave with practical tools and strategies that can be implemented immediately to support children with a wide range of emotional and behavioural needs.
Day Two | December 3, 2026
Working with Children and Youth who are High-Risk, Marginalized and Engage in Self-Harming Behaviour
Presented by Caroline Buzanko, Ph.D., R. Psych
8:30am – 4:00pm December 3, 2026
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
For anyone who know that “safety contracts” don’t work and want to know what does. Self-harm among youth isn’t rising because young people are more fragile. It’s rising because the conditions they’re navigating create psychological states where harming one’s own body makes functional sense. This intensive 6-hour workshop is designed for anyone who work with the youth carrying the heaviest burdens: those at the intersection of marginalization, trauma, and self-injury.
You’ll move beyond risk management checklists to understand the why beneath the behaviour. Drawing on the established theories and evidence-based interventions for self-harm, this training provides the clinical precision needed when the stakes are highest.
This workshop addresses the reality that therapy fails when it replicates the same power dynamics that harm youth in the first place. You’ll learn how to structure engagement that honours adolescent autonomy, conduct chain analyses that reveal intervention points invisible in standard assessments, and teach physiological regulation skills that work when cognitive strategies fail. We’ll tackle the specific dialectical dilemmas of adolescent treatment: how to involve parents without breaking confidentiality, how to validate pain without reinforcing dysfunction, and how to adapt evidence-based protocols for youth who experience standard therapeutic language as minimizing and unhelpful.
You’ll also confront the parts of this work that textbooks skip: how to stay regulated when a 14-year-old shows you fresh burns, how to respond when a family’s exhaustion manifests as rage, and how to maintain therapeutic boundaries while practicing the “moral courage” required to witness historical trauma.
This workshop is key to develop enough technical skill and relational capacity that young people choose to stay alive long enough to discover they want to.
Day Three | December 4, 2026
Reclaiming Childhood and Adolescence in a Technology-Saturated World: Indigenous Perspectives on Development, Connection, Community, and Resilience
Presented by Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, Ph.D.
8:30am – 4:00pm December 4, 2026
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Children today are growing up in a rapidly changing world where technology, artificial intelligence, social media, and digital entertainment have become central parts of daily life. While these advancements offer many opportunities, they have also raised important questions about their impact on child development, social connection, emotional well-being, and overall health.
Many children now spend significantly less time outdoors, have fewer opportunities for face-to-face social interaction, and are increasingly exposed to online influences, violence, and digital content that may shape their perceptions of themselves and the world around them. Families, educators, and communities are witnessing growing concerns related to social isolation, emotional dysregulation, attention difficulties, anxiety, and challenges in developing empathy, compassion, and meaningful relationships.
This workshop will explore the influence of technology, artificial intelligence, social media, and violence on the healthy development of children and youth. Participants will examine whether modern technology contributes to impaired neurodevelopment and how increasing screen use may affect emotional, cognitive, social, and relational development.
Drawing upon Indigenous perspectives, participants will explore the importance of connection, compassion, empathy, community, culture, and relationships in supporting healthy development. The workshop will highlight the value of land-based learning and experiences in nature as important protective factors that promote resilience, belonging, identity, emotional well-being, and healthy growth.
Participants will be encouraged to critically examine the role technology plays in children’s lives while exploring practical ways to restore balance through relationships, community engagement, cultural connection, outdoor experiences, and opportunities for meaningful human interaction.
Through discussion, reflection, storytelling, and shared learning, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how Indigenous teachings and community-centered approaches can help support children and youth in an increasingly digital world.
