Deidre Sanders
Emotional Literacy in The Sun Readers

Discussion of how we can best encourage emotional intelligence among those who are never likely to seek counselling.

Deidre trained in counselling and sex therapy and has been problem-page editor of The Sun since 1980, and her ‘agony’ column has been published since 1987. She is a trustee of the National Parenting and Family Institute, an associate of the Royal Society of Medicine, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and patron of the National Association of People Abused in Childhood.

Before her advice column in The Sun, Deidre was nominated for a lifetime achievement press award in 2000 and as editor of the ‘At your Service’ column for Woman’s Own she was Consumer Journalist of the Year and awarded a Jubilee medal.

Author of Kitchen Sink or Swim? Woman and Depression and 101 Questions about Sex, among others, Deidre has also produced advice booklets as part of her television and newspaper follow-up advice service. Her advice lines receive nearly half a million calls a year.

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Noreen Tehrani
Institutionalised Bullying

Can organisations create an environment that makes bullying and other bad behaviours more likely? This important issue will be explored in this workshop on Institutionalised Bullying. Participants will be invited to look at a number of organisational structures and cultures and identify which aspects of the organisation are most likely to lead to bullying and victimisation.

Finally, the workshop will examine ways in which organisations can begin to create environments that respect and value their workers and help to eliminate bullying.

Noreen is a chartered occupational, counselling and health psychologist. She formed her own organisation in 1997 to assist organisations and employees to maximise their effectiveness and efficiency through the identification of the blocks to achievement and the development of support which is tailored to the needs of the organisation and the individual. Noreen has had a varied career working as the Head of the Post Office’s Employee Support Service, a medical researcher in the NHS, in industry as an operations manager and as the director of an Employee Assistance Programme. Noreen has combined her commercial, psychological and counselling knowledge and experience to develop an approach to support employees, which meets the needs of both the organisation and the employees. Noreen has a special interest in working with organisations to reduce the incidence of workplace bullying. Her work has involved dealing with the causes and impact of bullying behaviours on individual workers. Noreen has developed counselling and behavioural modification programmes to address the causes and the effects of bullying. Noreen is internationally recognised for her work and has presented papers at conferences in the UK, Europe and Australia.

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Olive Harrison
Emotional Intelligence in Schools

The Oaks caters for primary-age children who are experiencing behavioural, emotional and social difficulties within their mainstream school setting to the extent that they are subject to fixed-term exclusions or are at risk of permanent exclusion.

The key role of the Unit is to help children to handle their difficulties, to own the impact of their behaviour and to develop strategies to cope within their mainstream setting.

The Oaks uses an innovative approach tailored to the individual needs of children and their families, using group settings to establish a framework within which children and families can develop ‘strategies for coping’ and establish support for one another to move forward.

The development of emotional literacy is key to the work undertaken through curriculum input, play and group discussion.

Success of the Unit demands that the children no longer see themselves as failures, achieving success relative to their abilities and seeing education as a positive experience. The impact of the work at The Oaks hopefully rolls over into their world outside school and allows the child to make appropriate life choices.

Workshop sessions will explore the role of Emotional Intelligence in supporting difficult children and enabling them to access learning.

Key to success at The Oaks is the availability of a multi-skilled team with a wide spectrum of experience in general education and in working with children who are experiencing behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.

The Team Leader, Olive Harrison, has 20 years teaching experience, 15 of which have involved developing the work at The Oaks. Colleagues bring a range of experience from early years through to upper primary/secondary transition. In addition they bring expertise in psychology, counselling and emotional factors in learning and teaching.

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Phillip Hodson
Managing Change with Intelligence

There is an interesting cliché – we either manage change or change manages us. This workshop will explore the difference between the two.

Phillip Hodson is a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Chair of the Impotence Association, a UKRC registered Independent Counsellor and member of the British Association of Sexual and Marital Therapy. Phillip has scripted, presented and co-produced several award-winning management training films on the use of counselling techniques in industry. Phillip is a visiting lecturer at Cranfield University.

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Anne Munro
Emotional Intelligence when Selecting Candidates

Strenuous attempts have been made in the last 10 years to eradicate bias from the recruitment process, to the extent that many people who interview candidates feel so defensive in their practices that they are unable to justify or crystallise their judgements about candidates‘ ‘emotional intelligence’ without feeling that they may be introducing an unfair process fraught with personal prejudice. Despite the fact that EQ is acknowledged as the crucial success factor in leadership positions and with those posts offering a direct service to people, it remains a challenge to assess with legitimacy.

There is much muddled thinking about whether we are putting together a specification for a post (relatively easy) a specification for a person (more difficult) or a specification for an organisation/team – which requires a selection based on ‘fit’ and EQ.

This workshop seeks to explore our thinking and experiences of this process and looks at the key emotional competencies required by organisations. We will examine our own performance and behaviours within processes in which we have been involved, and explore the means by which we can develop an equitable context within which we can assess these.

Anne has worked as a practising psychotherapist for the past 20 years with families facing loss and bereavement in both hospital and hospice settings, where she has also carried out research on quality of life and communication issues.

She has also been trustee, chair and director of several charities supporting bereaved parents and offering counselling services to children. During the past eight years she has worked as a consultant/interim manager with not-for-profit organisations with children/health-related issues and for the NHS.

Latterly she has developed her coaching work with senior professionals and runs the careers counselling service through Charity People (a recruitment agency) where she is also project director of the senior appointment team.

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James Park
Emotional Intelligence in Schools and in the Workplace

Emotional Literacy in Schools: Drawing on Antidote’s pioneering work in primary and secondary schools, we will look at how managers, teachers and students can work together in developing an emotional literacy strategy that will enhance well-being and achievement.

Emotional Literacy in the Workplace: We will explore the challenges in the way of creating workplace environments where people’s actions are informed by an understanding of their own and other’s emotions, and how these can be overcome.

Previously an author and film journalist, James Park is founder director of Antidote. He is a UKCP-registered psychotherapist with the Centre for Attachment-based Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy.

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Monika Jephcott
Developing Emotional Literacy through
Therapeutic Play

Therapeutic play and play therapy are innovative approaches to developing emotional literacy in children and adults. Their adoption are growing rapidly in many countries. Counsellors are finding that a non-verbal intervention is essential for working with younger children and a viable alternative for adults who respond slowly to talking therapies. The workshop will start with a recapitulation of the importance of play in the development of emotional literacy, introduce the therapeutic play continuum as a working framework for counsellors and briefly review the informing theories.

The main part of the workshop will include demonstrations, case histories and experimental exercises to illustrate therapeutic play and play therapy interventions that are used to develop emotional literacy.

In the final part, practice-based evidence will be presented showing the effectiveness of play and creative arts therapies together with a professional structure model that will enable delegates to identify their training/CPD needs if they so wish, to work with children or families. The workshop will conclude with a look at the future for therapeutic play in society.

Monika Jephcott is Professor of Play and Child Psychotherapy, recipient of the 2001 International Play Therapy Award for contributions to play therapy, BA Hons, BACP-Accredited Counsellor and Supervisor, President of PTI and PTUK.

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Dr Joanna Kozubska
Emotional Intelligence and Health – Where it fits into the NHS

Joanna will explore ‘emotional intelligence’, what it means, where the term came from and its relevance to health and healthcare professionals. The workshop will be highly interactive and will give participants the opportunity to explore the term in relation to themselves, their environment and the way in which they work.

Joanna began her career as a teacher and spent two years in Tanzania. On her return to the UK she joined the Prison Service as an assistant governor and served in a variety of establishments including HMP Holloway. She then joined Social Services as the first Head of the Special Unit for disturbed and disordered children at Aycliffe. In 1982 she changed tack and joined the International Management Centres, spending the next eight years working at postgraduate level with blue chip companies. During her time with IMC, other assignments included the Director of Studies role for in-company MBA programmes and Head of the School of Professional Services. In 1990 she joined J Group International as principal consultant offering consultancy and management development activities to a range of organisations including BUPA, Royal & Sun Alliance, the St Helier Hospital Trust and Shell. Joanna still works as an independent consultant; current clients include BMI Health Care and the Faculty of Medicine at Southampton University where she is responsible for the Senior Leadership Programme.

She published her first book, The Keys of Charisma, in 1997 and is currently working on her second.

N.B. This workshop will be available at the Thursday pm and Friday am sessions only.

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