Professional development courses
This page lists professional development courses, training and workshops that are often attended by career practitioners and counsellors to enhance and develop practice.
Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT)
Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) is an internationally recognised approach that research has shown to be particularly successful in work with children and young people.
SFBT focuses on the present and future, rather than the past, and seeks to address what the client wants to achieve, rather than the issues that made them seek help. By focusing on how change happens and constructing solutions rather than concentrating solely on the historical details of how a problem developed, SFBT therapists help their clients to construct a "preferred future" for themselves.
SFBT teaches people to utilise their existing strengths and redirect their focus towards how they want things to be, and what it will take to make it happen.
Compass offers a range of nationwide seminars for professionals working with children and young people – seminar topics include SFBT.
Interactive drawing therapy (IDT)
Interactive drawing therapy (IDT) uses drawing and writing techniques to complement and extend the more common talking and cognitive processes.
The aim of this therapy is to help integrate right and left-brain functioning, allowing people to access new parts of the unconscious and facilitate personal growth and healing.
IDT was developed in the early 1990s by New Zealander Russell Withers after observing clients who were given the opportunity to draw and write during therapy sessions.
Interactive Drawing Therapy offers skills-based training in IDT for counsellors, social workers, and associated professionals.
Motivational interviewing (MI)
Motivational interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based, clinical method for helping people change behaviour. It combines the client-centred approach with semi-directive methods to help people reduce ambivalence and strengthen commitment to carry through behaviour changes.
Pacific Centre for Motivation and Change offers training in motivational interviewing.
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) was developed in the 1970s by Richard Bandler, a mathematician, and John Grinder, a linguist.
NLP was intended to represent a whole mind-body system, with connections between neurological processes ("neuro"), language ("linguistic") and learned behavioural strategies ("programming"). It was originally developed as a means of understanding how people process information, construct meaning and schemas, and perform skills to achieve results. NLP modelling helps to understand the patterns of one’s own behaviours in order to model the more successful parts of oneself.
The New Zealand Association of Neuro Linguistic Programming offers training in NLP.
Career Theory 101
Jane Stella, a career consultant at Career Services rapuara, has developed a one-day workshop (called Career Theory 101) to help career practitioners discover the origins of career theory and the beating heart behind the ever-changing concept of career development.
Jane has developed a best practice model that utilises the most valuable components of career theories since the 1900s.
- Contact Jane through careers@careers.govt.nz.
Career Practitioners Association of New Zealand (CPANZ)
Careers and Transition Education Aotearoa (NZ) (CATE)
CATE regularly offers professional development and workshops. See what is happening in your area.
New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC)
NZAC runs and facilitates a range of training workshops throughout the year.
