This course has been designed to be taken at your own pace, with resources that will be yours forever.

Throughout this course, we provide examples of working for children and their families from a Response-Based Framework, where above all else, our goal is to uphold the dignity of all people.

  • Learn the core tenets of Response-Based Practice, and how this framework guides a specialized approach to working for children and families

  • Demonstration video and online workbook included

  • A downloadable resource library

  • Receive a certificate of completion

Instructors

Dr. Dean, Dr. Ricardson & Dr. Wade have been working together for more than 15 years through the Centre for Response-Based Practice. This is the course that we wished for in the early part of our careers, in our work with children, youth and their families. We hope you'll find it useful in yours.

Dr. Shelly Dean

Shelly Dean (Bonnah), Ph.D., is a family therapist, clinical supervisor and organizational consultant from Kamloops, BC., Canada. As a therapist, Shelly works with children, youth and adults who have experienced violence and other forms of adversity, with a special interest in victims of institutionalized violence. Her doctoral research focused on children’s responses and resistance to violence--specifically understanding their behaviour in context, the nature of social interactions with young people, the connection between violence and mutualizing language, and the social responses that they receive. Prior to opening the Centre for the Centre for Response-Based Practice in the Interior of BC, Shelly was the Chief Operating Officer of a multi-service, non-profit organization. In this setting, Shelly applied the principles of Reponses-Based ideas in leadership and other organizational priorities such as policies and human relations challenges. Shelly was also a foster parent for just over 15 years. Currently, she works with other professionals who are interested in Response-Based Practice as a clinical supervisor and an organizational consultant. She has also taught in the Master of Counselling programs through City University of Seattle and the Master of Education program at Thompson Rivers University.

Dr. Allan Wade

Allan Wade Ph.D. lives on the unceded land of the Quw’utsun and Malahat First Nations, on southern Vancouver Island, Canada. Allan works as a family therapist, independent scholar, and consultant with a primary interest in promoting socially just and effective responses in cases of violence and other forms adversity. Allan is pre-occupied with the question of how humans preserve dignity – in the full contextual sense of the term - in response to humiliation. In this respect, Allan is the grateful student of Kaska Dena elders living on Kaska homeland on north-western Turtle Island. Allan and his partner Cathy are the parents of five adults, grand-parents of six truly grand-children, and spiritual kin to two golden Labrador retrievers. Allan and his colleagues (Nick Todd, Shelly Dean, Cathy Richardson, Linda Coates . . . and many others) are best known for developing Response-Based Practice, a method of individual and family therapy, a framework for research and analysis, and a guide for practice across the institutions that respond in cases of violence, broadly defined. Allan provides training and consultation in Canada and abroad. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on research and practice, including the far too expensive, Response-Based Approaches to Interpersonal Violence (2016), co-edited with Margareta Hyden and David Gadd (Palgrave MacMillan).

Dr. Cathy Richardson

Cathy Richardson/Kineweskwêw, Ph.D., is a Métis/Cree therapist and professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Turtle Island/Canada. She specializes in violence prevention and recovery and has a Response-Based counselling practice. She is an advocate for police and child protection reform to end racial profiling and mother-blaming in social services, and consultant to the Royal Commission and TRC, making several recommendations for structural and systemic change. She is interested in the intersections between violence towards Indigenous women and girls, and the treatment of the Earth. Cathy is also an author, researcher, counsellor, supervisor, cancer survivor and mama.

Course curriculum

    1. Introduction of Instructors

    2. Questions addressed in this Chapter

    3. The History of Response-Based Practice

    4. Children as Social Actors: powerpoint

    5. Response-Based Practice Contextual Analysis

    6. Quiz

    7. Module 1 Workbook

    1. Questions addressed in this Chapter

    2. Description of experiences from foster care

    3. Children's responses to, and resistance against, violence (audio file)

    4. Definitions: The Opposite of Violence is Dignity

    5. Clayton Thomas Müller

    6. "I said I had a bad dream"

    7. Quiz

    8. Module 2 Workbook

    1. Questions addressed in this Chapter:

    2. Sensitive Content Handling

    3. Case Study: Rhiannon

    4. demonstration session 1: Rhiannon

    5. Reflection Questions (Space provided to respond in Workbook)

    6. Demonstration session 2: Rhiannon

    7. Reflection Questions (Space provided to respond in Workbook)

    8. Analysis of Interview with Rhiannon

    9. Positive Social Responses to Children

    10. 3 Houses and a Shed

    11. Ideas for Service Providers

    12. Quiz

    13. Feedback Survey

    14. Module 3 Workbook

    1. Copy of Alexander, K. I wish I'd asked better questions.

    2. Copy of Overlien, C. Letter to the Editor: Research on Children Experiencing Domestic Violence

    3. Copy of Richardson, C. & Dean, S.: Taking Children's Resistance Seriously

    4. Copy of Coates, L., Richardson, C. & Dean, S. The Beauty and the Beast

    5. Copy of Bluebond-Lagner: Challenges and Opportunities in the Anthropologies of Childhoods

    6. Clark, N.: Red Intersectionality

    7. Ullman, S. Aspects of Selective Sexual Assault Disclosure.

    8. Wade, A., Coates,L., Richardson, C. & Dean, S. Response-Based Contextual Analysis (2014)

    9. 10 Myths About Porn

About this course

  • 38 lessons
  • 1.5 hours of video content
  • Complete in your own time
  • Peer reviewed/Youth reviewed

Pricing options

We have pricing options to accomodate a variety of circumstances.

FAQ

  • Who is this course designed for?

    This is a course that has been designed for anyone working in the lives of children and their families. For example, counsellors, psychologists, social workers, foster parents, shelter workers, lawyers, teachers, police officers, judges and mediators.

  • What can I expect the Outcomes of this course to be?

    1. Understanding some of the was that children and youth might respond to and resist violence and other forms of adversity along with what they do to maximize their safety and the safety of those around them. 2. Improve your responses and support for young victims of violence (broadly defined). 3. Increase your knowledge of creating responsive and secure environments through dignified interactions. 4. Create predictable and dignified responses to children and youth.

  • Can I print materials from this course?

    This course includes an online workbook, which you can download at the end of the course. There is also a resource library with related articles, which are available for download.

  • Is this a certificate course?

    Yes, you will be able to download a 'certificate of completion' at the end of the course, which will include your full name and the date.

It Takes a Village, as the story goes...

When we work for children, we are also working for their mothers, fathers, grandparents, and larger communities. When we work in adult-serving programs, we are always working for children and former children. As professionals, the way that we think and talk about children, and their suffering, matters.

Enroll today