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Supporting Defended and Disconnected Children and Youth: Reducing Alarm and Building Connection to Foster Resilience, Growth and Emotional Healing

$169.00

6 Hours  |   Pre-approved for CEU’s

Presenter
Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D.
Date
October 30, 2026
Categories: , , ,
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LIVE STREAM: October 30, 2026 from  8:30am – 4:00pm (Victoria, BC) Please adjust your start time according to your specific time zone. 

ON-DEMAND: Recorded footage & course content (certificate, videos, quiz) will be available until December 7, 2026. Please allow 3 – 10 business days for footage to be processed. Extensions cannot be granted under any circumstances.

Day Three – October 30, 2026

Supporting Defended and Disconnected Children and Youth: Reducing Alarm and Building Connection to Foster Resilience, Growth and Emotional Healing

Presented by Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D.

 Some children and youth seem impossible to reach. They resist help, reject relationship, avoid vulnerability, push adults away, or appear emotionally shut down altogether. Traditional behavioural approaches often fail to make headway because the issue is not simply behaviour — it is alarm, adaptation, defended attachment, and much more.

Many of our most vulnerable children have experienced too much separation, instability, stress, disconnection, or emotional pain. Others may have received care but struggle to trust, depend, or receive it. In these contexts, relationship itself can become defended against.

This presentation moves beyond surface-level behaviour management — and even beyond conventional trauma-informed approaches — to explore the developmental and relational roots of disconnection, alarm, and emotional defenses. Participants will gain insight into why some children resist closeness, why caring adults can feel shut out, and how alarm and attachment dynamics shape behaviour, learning, and emotional well-being.

Grounded in developmental science, attachment theory, and practical relational experience, this seminar will explore how educators, counsellors, youth workers, and helping professionals can make meaningful headway with hard-to-reach children and youth. Participants will learn how to reduce alarm, work with — rather than against — defenses, build trust and connection over time, and create the conditions where growth, learning, and emotional healing can unfold.

This highly practical workshop will integrate real-life examples, guided reflection, and case-based application to help participants translate developmental-relational understanding into meaningful action within their own settings and with the children and youth in their care.

 

  • Traumatized or marginalized youth.
  • Oppositional or resistant behaviour.
  • Emotional shutdown or detachment.
  • Anxiety and alarm-based behaviours.
  • Peer-oriented youth.
  • High-risk or highly defended children.
  • School refusal, disengagement, or chronic relational struggles.

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.

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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