Jon Blend: Working with Young People, 2024 Intensive
Working with Young People: Gestalt Arts Intensive
London, W5
with Jon Blend MA Dip Child, Dip Psych
Approved Oaklander Trainer
Director: Gazebo Training School, London
Learn to incorporate the following arts modalities in therapy:
Drawing & painting; sculpture/ clay; sandtray; haiku, lyric writing; musical improvisation, sound healing; movement; drama & voicework; puppetry.
This year-long 2024 course draws inspiration from the pioneering work of Gestalt Therapists Violet Oaklander and Mark McConville whose approaches put the relationship between therapist and young person at the heart of the therapeutic process.
Children and adolescents use their ‘contact skills’ as relational tools; troubled young people struggle to make good contact; many also have a poor sense of self. Therapy facilitates exploration of emotional blockages, helps children and young people reconnect with emotions, body, intellect and imagination, finding competence and resilience.
This workshop caters for counsellors, psychotherapists, teachers and other professionals who are working directly with children and young people in a therapeutic /pastoral capacity. It is likely to interest practitioners familiar with Gestalt therapy principles, also those wishing to explore their own relationship with creativity and play.
Training methods
Includes demonstrations, theory, vignettes, experiential exercises, role play, journaling, group work, discussion and (optional) practicum.
Objectives:
Participants will learn to:
Weave arts methods into an experiential framework
Explore and use images, metaphor, movement and play
Understand how the relational self emerges and develops uniquely in childhood and adolescence
Engage young people in an exploration of troublesome thoughts and feelings using expressive arts
Utilise a variety of safe, practical skills and techniques suited to therapeutic work with young people (including young adults).
Course Tutor
Jon Blend is a joint UKCP registered (adult and child) gestalt psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and trainer with forty years experience working in adult and child mental health settings. Nowadays he sees adults, children and families for psychotherapy in private practice and teaches internationally. Jon has written several articles; he also has a chapter on adolescence in Relational Child, Relational Brain (Harris & Lee eds.) and another in press. He is also a performing musician with London Playback Theatre Company. www.gacp.co.uk
Course Information
Jan 24 & Jan 25; Feb 23; Mar 28 ; Apr 25; May 23; Jun 27; Jul 27; Sept 5; Oct 26; Nov 21*
Hours: 10am-5pm throughout (66 hours cpd over 11 days)
Venue: Friends Meeting House, Ealing, London W5.
*on 21/11 group meets in Acton, W3
Good transport links (Elizabeth line); local accommodation: Ealing Travelodge & Ealing Premier Inn.
Fee: £1,050 includes materials, worksheets, attendance certificate*, refreshments.
Further Information: https://www.gestaltartscounsellingandpsychotherapy.co.uk/working-with-young-people-a-year-long-gestalt-arts-intensive-2024/
Booking and enquiries: jon.blend335@gmail.com
An attendance certificate is awarded on completion of the course. Hours also count toward the Oaklander Foundation’s certification programme.
About Gazebo Training School:
Jon founded GTSL to further the pioneering Gestalt psychotherapy work with children and adolescents undertaken by Violet Oaklander. Building on over twenty years of working with the Oaklander projective arts based approach Jon has incorporated ideas into his practice from leading theorists, therapists and researchers in the field of working with young people, including adults- in-transition and families. This approach, together with Jon’s forty years’ experience of working with individuals and families in various mental health settings, utilises clear, relational principles that help facilitate emotional expression across cultures, creeds and continents.
About Jon:
Jon has delivered Oaklander-inspired trainings to therapy institutes in UK, Georgia and Poland, and given keynote addresses and workshops in Canada, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine and the USA. During the pandemic he established Gazebo Training School as a London base after purchasing a ‘pop up’ gazebo and working creatively ‘al fresco’ with clients in natural surroundings. Jon runs annual trainings in the Oaklander approach, working ‘under cover’ and outdoors, weather permitting.
