All Webinars

This webinar offers opportunities for social workers to enhance knowledge and skills of suicide postvention. Through story, song, lived experience, and theory, the presenter will review the complicated nature of suicide and share how Narrative practices may be applied to help survivors of suicide loss (SoSL) focus on the lives lived rather than the cause of death.

The webinar objectives are:

• To examine the complicated nature of suicide loss  
• To enhance understanding of appropriate language related to suicide postvention
• To foster curiosity and desire to apply Narrative Theory and Practices to suicide postvention
• To enrich social workers’ postvention toolkit with a repertoire of questions to explore in therapy;  guidelines for practice; and healing ideas for work with SoSL
• To hear inspirational stories of how SoSL in NL are creating legacy and changing the way we look at suicide loss

This purpose of this webinar is to provide social workers, who are relatively new to group facilitation, with some ways to think about their groups regardless of the issue bringing people together. The first half of the session will look at the key considerations for group facilitation relevant for both face-to-face and online service delivery. The concept of mutual aid in groups, the role of purpose, the stages groups move through, the development of norms and the concept of universality will be reviewed. The second half of the webinar will focus specifically on the benefits and challenges of moving our groups to an online platform. While social work has used technology in the past for group work purposes, the ability to use Zoom as a means of providing group work services is relatively new. Its use has escalated due to COVID-19 and our resultant need to socially distance. This means of delivering group services may continue to remain a viable option, even after the pandemic restrictions are lifted. Ideas for creating connection, for establishing group norms within the virtual environment, and general lessons learned from facilitating groups via Zoom, will be shared.

Webinar Key Objectives: 

• To explore the concept of mutual aid in groups 
• To review basic group processes
• To explore the benefits and challenges of facilitating online groups via Zoom
• To provide resources for social workers facilitating groups

·  To understand how individuals and organizations can support child welfare worker resilience and wellness
·  To become familiar with current research on PTSD and vicarious trauma for child welfare workers
·  To learn about holistic wellness from an Indigenous perspective

The Youth in Care Chronicles is about the lived experiences of former youth in care, now as resilient adults, who want their voices to be heard. Youth in care are often represented in poorer health outcomes, homelessness, suicide, trafficking, and poorer educational outcomes. However, the narratives included in this book from 18 former youth in care provide a fresh look at moving beyond growing up in the child welfare system. The Youth in Care Chronicles shares experiences of pain and trauma faced by those in the child welfare system yet and towards the future with boundless hope and resilience. This webinar will focus on the implications for social workers to positively and actively impact the lives of youth in system care. A critical element of this book is a learning guide co-written by the editorial team which includes social workers, a child and youth care worker, a social work professor, a writer, and key messages from former youth in care themselves.  

Webinar Objectives

• History of the Youth in Care Chronicles book
• A brief description of the social issues that youth in care face
• Overview of the themes in the former youths’ stories that impact professional social work practice through the book’s learning guide
• Lessons learned along the way about community organizing and grassroots publishing
• Discussion and questions

Indigenous and Black people in Canada are disproportionately targeted and killed by police.  They are also disproportionately involved in systems of child welfare.  The Canadian state, it seems, insists on supporting Indigenous and Black families - even as it insists on taking Indigenous and Black life.  This apparent paradox is resolved by the reality that both practices, ultimately, secure the subordination of those disadvantaged by the racialized settler-colonial project.  ‘Hate’ and ‘love’ are not only compatible but collaborative.    

As those in the profession of administering care, social workers are a ‘benevolent’ cog in the machinery of White supremacy.  This presentation dissects the operations of this cog in relation to LGBTQ+ asylum seekers/refugees – a group of displaced people both produced by White supremacy, and exploited to perpetuate it.  It reflects on racism as more than interpersonal violence but structural denial, and situates the role of care work in facilitating, legitimating, obscuring, and erasing this. 

Webinar Objectives 

-          Recognize the role of ‘benevolence’ in the perpetuation of White supremacy

-          Recognize the continuities between social work’s past and present, in the perpetuation of White supremacy

-          Recognize the racialized origins and racializing effects of refugee practice and discourse 

-          Recognize mental health knowledge as a system of power, towards the perpetuation of White supremacy

-          Recognize ‘cultural’ knowledge as a system of power, towards the perpetuation of White supremacy

-          Recognize mainstream sexual and gender discourse as particular rather than universal 

On June 21, 2019 Parliament made changes to the Divorce Act that affect family dispute resolution. ‘Family dispute resolution process’ is a new term in the Divorce Act. It is used to describe a number of out-of-court processes families can use to solve issues such as parenting, child support, and for some families, property issues. This webinar will overview the changes in early dispute resolution process prior to being able to proceed with a court application in the Family Law Division of the Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatchewan. The first implementation of the mandatory provisions has begun in Prince Albert and will slowly be implemented across the province.  Social workers need to understand the impact these new laws could have upon their clients who may be struggling with separation and/or divorce.   This webinar will highlight the new laws and explain the process options from which clients will need to choose and is applicable to social workers across Canada

This webinar features a screening of the film (Dis)placed: Indigenous Youth and the Child Welfare System and a presentation related to the accompanying Learning Guide. The film features the voices of Indigenous youth as they reflect on their prior involvement with the child welfare system and their multiple strategies of resistance to assimilation. The Learning Guide provides the historical and contemporary contexts for the overwhelming number of Indigenous children in the child welfare system, and encourages professionals to identify actions they can take to help end the inequities and ongoing discrimination, and contribute to the thriving of Indigenous children and youth. After a screening of the film, panel members with professional experience in child welfare, post-secondary education and working with Indigenous people directly impacted by the child welfare system will describe how they use the film and learning guide in their practice, and participants will be invited to submit questions to contribute to the discussion. 

Participants: please download a copy of the learning guide prior to the webinar: 

●       Learning Guide for Professionals

https://fncaringsociety.com/sites/default/files/displaced_learning_guide_for_professionals_-_online.pdf

●       Link to film’s website:

http://www.kingcripproductions.com/displaced.html

Webinar Key Objectives: 

●       To gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of Indigenous children and youth in the child welfare system 

●       To examine the role of the child welfare system in ongoing colonialism and assimilation, and learn how professionals working in system can become part of the solution

●       To introduce a learning guide for professionals working with Indigenous children and youth

●       To provide participants with ideas about how to use the film and learning guide in their own practice

This webinar features a screening of the film (Dis)placed: Indigenous Youth and the Child Welfare System and a presentation related to the accompanying Learning Guide. The film features the voices of Indigenous youth as they reflect on their prior involvement with the child welfare system and their multiple strategies of resistance to assimilation. The Learning Guide provides the historical and contemporary contexts for the overwhelming number of Indigenous children in the child welfare system, and encourages professionals to identify actions they can take to help end the inequities and ongoing discrimination, and contribute to the thriving of Indigenous children and youth. After a screening of the film, panel members with professional experience in child welfare, post-secondary education and working with Indigenous people directly impacted by the child welfare system will describe how they use the film and learning guide in their practice, and participants will be invited to submit questions to contribute to the discussion. 

Participants: please download a copy of the learning guide prior to the webinar: 

●       Learning Guide for Professionals

https://fncaringsociety.com/files/displaced_learning_guide_for_professio...

●       Link to film’s website:

http://www.kingcripproductions.com/displaced.html

Webinar Key Objectives: 

●       To gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of Indigenous children and youth in the child welfare system 

●       To examine the role of the child welfare system in ongoing colonialism and assimilation, and learn how professionals working in system can become part of the solution

●       To introduce a learning guide for professionals working with Indigenous children and youth

●       To provide participants with ideas about how to use the film and learning guide in their own practice

In partnership with the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health, the Child Welfare League of Canada and the Canadian Association of Social Workers, Wisdom2Action is thrilled to present a new webinar on an implementation-based approach to 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion in community, health and social services. 

Despite significant efforts to build 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion within community, health and social services over the past decade, 2SLGBTQ+ community members continue to face stigma, discrimination and ignorance when accessing care. Organizations have traditionally relied on one-off 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion workshops that, despite the best of intentions, are not sufficient to truly create 2SLGBTQ+ inclusive spaces and services. 

This webinar will provide an alternative approach that moves away from one-off workshops and towards an implementation-based process to effectively change organizational cultures and services. Through an implementation-based approach, organizations can develop and implement effective strategies to move 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion forward by building relationships with local 2SLGBTQ+ communities and intentionally strengthening service provider competencies working with 2SLGBTQ+ service users and introducing necessary policies and procedures to raise the bar on 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion.

Building on two ground-breaking new resources to help the youth-serving sector take action on 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion, co-created with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Planned Parenthood Toronto, the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health, the Canadian Teachers Federation, the Child Welfare League of Canada and Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, this webinar will provide participants with strategies and tools to improve 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion within their organizations. 

In this session individuals will discuss and unpack mental health challenges emerging in elementary aged youth. After reviewing startling facts and statistics, we will engage in meaningful discussion regarding the reasons for this rise, how this may manifest itself in the child, the implications on the individual’s mental health as they grow older, and how we as teachers, counsellors and concerned communities can defeat this trend. We will uncover the effectiveness of such ideas as play therapy, relationship building, emotional control and the effect of the information highway on brains still in development. When we leave this session we will have some practical ideas on how to assist younger individuals and their families with increasing their positive mental health.