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A collaboration of spirits
A Recovery
Focused Psycho Educational Program
For Parents,
Carers, Consumers,
And Service
Providers.
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EFP
Empowering Families Program
My name is
Sue Koningen and I submit for your consideration my Empowering
Families Program researched and developed from the ‘lived
experience’ to support people in recovery, and their parents to find
comfort ‘in their own skin’ and from the ‘inside out’.
The Program
was specifically designed to support people (families and consumers)
to develop self-confidence; self-belief and self-determination which
are key factors in facilitating and maintaining many recovery
journeys.
The Program
involves a reframing of one’s self-perception and a shedding of
factors that promote negative identity.
‘Inside Out’
refers to one’s capacity to build and strengthen healthy
relationships, be less reactive to challenges and develop emotional
awareness of triggers that can often result in relapse.
It’s all
about relationships: With self and others.
Having
worked in this field for the past 2 decades, my results have proven
that re-finding and re-defining one’s sense of self is as important
to recovery as symptom alleviation.
The Program
has successfully been presented to Consumers, Carers as well as a
personal development training program for service providers to
assist better delivery of ‘person focused care’.
Attached is
my workshop flyer for 2017.
I do hope
you can join me at the next series which starts on Thursday the 23rd
of February at the Nerang Bicentennial Community Centre, Room 3,
from 6.30 – 8pm.
Transform
your relationships within
an empathetic learning environment to
absorb new skills and develop new networks of support.
I look
forward to working with you.
Yours
sincerely,
Sue Koningen
Family
Interventionist
Peer Support
Specialist.
Mobile: 0412
732 717
suekoningen@gmail.com
www.susankoningen.com.au
Introduction.
Those with
mental health or substance use conditions often find themselves
isolated from their families or in ongoing conflict with family
members and may experience feelings of abandonment, anxiety, fear,
anger, concern, embarrassment, or guilt. Family members often do not
understand these conditions and the changes that have occurred in
their family. They also may not understand the dynamics of recovery
and the changes that recovery brings.
Family-centred-
education is a newly evolving approach to addressing the behaviours,
emotional needs and relationship challenges that impact a consumer’s
life and their family unit when experiencing such conditions. Psycho
education can transform consumers and families’ lives as their
behaviours and relationships return to balance, to happier, healthy,
and functioning entities that can support and nurture the wellbeing
of each member in spite of
continuing challenges. This self efficacy and greater resiliency
enables the unit to grow as a whole.
Brief Overview of the Empowering
Families Program
There is an art
to maintaining meaningful relationships in our lives.
As Consumers, Parents and
Carers every day we make choices to do or not do many things in our
attempts to find balance and meaning within those relationships.
These choices may range from profound to trivial yet each one has an
effect that can makes our lives more fulfilling or frustrating, more
balanced or more chaotic, unite us or drive us apart.
It’s
at times like this that we struggle desperately to find the way to
remain connected, yet most of our choices seem to achieve the
opposite and we find ourselves struggling through our fear and
frustrations to understand what is actually happening and how we can
break down the huge barriers that are developing between us and
together, work towards our recovery.
We
long for:
·
Connection
·
To communicate more
effectively
·
For the pain to go away
·
And our lives return to
‘normal’
The Empowering
Families Program has been developed from the trenches so to speak,
and it has taken the courage of many families (1000) to identify,
research and develop a program that is skills and strategies based,
to break down those barriers and reconnect in more meaningful ways.
Many participants were themselves in recovery from these same
conditions.
This program provides innovative and
powerful training for consumers, parents and family members.
The Empowering Families Program focuses on how we interpret and react to the world
we live in and how that can impact on our ability to effectively and
emotionally live life and support a person in care. Framed
in the spirit of promoting positive change the Program seeks to
develop
a new ‘toolbox’ for consumers, families and service providers as they
support the transition from an Illness Focused Model to a Holistic
Model of Care, recovery focused and family inclusive.
Program
Objectives:
·
To deliver cutting edge life skills
training
·
To identify our automatic patterns of negative thoughts and
reactions.
·
To support a greater understanding of our underlying core beliefs.
·
To
replace distorted thinking with a more positive approach to
problematic behaviour
·
To become
empowered.
This is facilitated through workshops and
psycho educational support group sessions which offer participants
an empathetic learning environment to absorb new skills and develop
new networks of support.
Learning Objectives:
·
Reduce symptoms of stress and anxiety
·
Enhance self awareness and self-esteem
·
Develop strategies to identify problematic behaviour
·
Identify ‘triggers’ and challenges
·
Increase communication and boundary setting skills.
·
Promote greater capacity to problem solve
·
Become more responsible for your health and wellbeing.
Documented Outcomes
of Participants compiled
over a 6 year period:
·
93.8%
Decreased stress
·
88.8%
Decreased anxiety
·
98.6%
Improved ability to communicate
·
92.6%
Improved capacity to cope with relationship issues
·
96,2%
Felt supported
·
100%
Felt listened to
·
91.2%
Felt less isolated
Source: Mirikai – Gold
Coast Drug Council
Relational outcomes
include improvements in parenting, family functioning, families
reunified or remaining intact and improved communication. On a
community and societal level, family psycho education offers the
opportunity for families to transform from being heavy users of
services and resources to being productive, contributing community
members. As families transform, parenting improves, resulting in
further improvements in child well-being; communication improves,
family norms shift, and economic and social well-being can increase.
That’s recovery.
Sue Koningen’s background is as vast and varied as the people who attend her
Empowering Families Program. She has managed her own real estate
office, successfully coordinated a youth training program for young
adults with dual diagnosis to become job ready to enter the
workforce and spent many years as Team Leader of a Domestic Violence
Refuge where her duties included: intake assessment, case
management, risk management, staff selection and supervision. She
has worked in collaboration with many Gold Coast Services to provide
the wrap around support women and children need when fleeing from an
abuser. Sue brings 20 years ‘lived experience’ to the research and
development of her Program.
Now semi retired, Sue continues to facilitate her Empowering
Families Program to Parents, Families, Specialist Services, and
consumers, as a wellness, life skills and strategies coach. The
Program is innovative, cutting edge and a life changing training
program.
Sue Holds a Diploma of Community Services and a current Youth
Mental Health First Aid Certificate.
References:
Mirikai:
Mary Alcorn
Julie Lance QIDDI Gold Coast Drug Council
Sheryn O’Grady
Senior Supports Facilitator
Mental Health Respite Program & Young Carers Program
Commonwealth Respite & Carelink Centre Brisbane.
The Program
The Empowering Families Program is an evidence based series of
workshops designed to deliver cutting edge life skills and
strategies training to the people who care for and about others:
whether that is a child, partner, friend, parent or client - to
maximise their capacity to support the people in their care.
This Program was developed from the lived experience and identifies
supports and even creates new underlying principles for the
transformation of Care. It has been specifically designed to
increase ‘person centred care’ support through developing greater
emotional self-awareness of the people who seek to provide their
best Care to others - weather that is instrumental support,
financial assistance, advocacy or housing - as Carers, or through
‘Case Management’ for those in Support Worker roles.
Program Goals:
The main goal is to empower Families, Carers and Carer Support
Workers to seek a greater understanding of their behaviours and
underlying core beliefs which influence how they interpret and react
to their world so that new sources of power can emerge that support
the transition from an illness focused model of care to a more
holistic care model.
Another goal is to identify triggers and automatic negative thoughts
and reactions. These automatic ways of thinking and reacting are
often misaligned with reality and impact on our emotional capacity
to effectively support the people in our care.
The aim of this program is to
replace these distortions with more realistic views, skills,
and problem solving strategies.
Presented by way of group therapy, the program offers participants a
supportive learning environment to absorb new skills and establish
new networks of support. It has proven to be a positive and cost
effective alternative to individual training/therapy.
It’s a simple program that has achieved some
powerfully huge outcomes.
Some
of the topics covered throughout my workshop series include:
The Role of a Carer –
Let’s define our own job description!
If you are anything like I was in my Carer role,
that description included 24/7 of worrying, being fearful and trying
to set in concrete how things should work. It took me years to
discover how much time I wasted holding on to this belief and how it
can lead to burnout or even alienate so many wonderful loving family
members. Let’s take a realistic view of our key support role of
‘Caring’.
Family Systems Theory
– where do you fit in?
Every family has a system – their
way of doing things, the pecking order, who is responsible for
making people happy or administering law and order etc., The system
we grew up in and the behaviours we developed there stay with us
until they are challenged – divorce, loss of income or illness are
just a few of the life changing events that can become catalysts for
changes in our behaviours. This information will enable you to
develop a framework for understanding how your family system works –
and how you developed your behavioural and belief systems.
Boundaries and
Communication – the keys to healthy relationships
I am convinced that some of our
frustration and confusion as Carers can stem primarily from our
attempts to control the reality of other people and from letting
their reality control us. Wow that’s a big statement! This workshop
is all about us: what we do; why we do it; and how we can do it
better so that we can grow our relationships in productive,
responsible and respectful ways through learning new skills and
strategies that empower and promote healthy relationships.
Person Centred Care –
what is it and how does it work?
Person Centred Care encourages
Carers and Support Workers to see the world through the eyes of the
person for whom they provide care. It’s a dramatic change from the
old philosophy of ‘we are in charge of your condition and we know,
or think we know what’s best for you’. The care provided is more of
a support role, a partnership, and is person centred and directed
towards their wellness. To fully engage in this process it is vital
that we gain a better understanding of our own behaviours and
beliefs which are often the barriers that can restrict us from fully
engaging in this new process. This workshop identifies how our
thinking habits and behaviours can impede our capacity to deliver
this level of care as together we develop an understanding of and
framework to – guide us towards the provision of Person Centred
Care.
Learning Outcomes
·
Development of skills and strategies that build self awareness and self esteem.
·
Enhanced communication and relationship building skills.
·
Identification of negative behaviours that destroy relationships.
·
Increased capacity to form relationships based on respect and trust.
·
Increased knowledge of boundaries and expectations.
·
Greater capacity to set limits and say ‘no’.
·
Increased ability to identify current behaviours and beliefs.
·
Increased awareness and understanding of ‘triggers’.
· Increased capacity to understand and deliver Person Centred Care.
·
Increased knowledge to gain control of your life and fears.
·
Increased empowerment.
Click below for the next term:
Mental
Health
Who can attend?
The Program has successfully been delivered to the following groups:
· Families of consumers with mental health and substance abuse
conditions.
· Consumers in recovery from mental health and substance abuse
conditions
·
Survivors of Sexual Abuse
·
Women experiencing domestic violence
·
Clinicians and staff working in support services
How else can the program be presented?
The Empowering Families Program can be presented in
several forms;
·
As a once off or series of Workshops
·
Lectures
·
1 on 1 consultations
HOW TO BOOK
If you would like to attend my workshop series please
email me:
or
Telephone Susan on : 0412 732 717
Perhaps your organisation is looking for a guest
speaker to address your group or you may be interested in
brokering my services to deliver a two hour presentation or a 1
day workshop or series of workshops that can be designed around
your organisational needs.
I would love to hear from you to discuss your
requirements.
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