More on online education

This week I want to talk some more on my favorite topic. Education for counsellors. If you read my post regularly, you will already know how important that is to me. That is the reason I qualified myself as an online counsellor next to my f2f diploma's in counselling and coaching. For those who want to train for online counsellling this course is starting next week.

But being a counsellor means you keep learning, I think curiosity is a great trait to have for a therapist. This week I am attending a counseling conference that takes place in Second Life. [it will be on until saturday so you can  still catch some of it. This is the 3rd year the virtual conference for counsellors is being held in Second Life. [if you don't feel secure enough in Second Life onlinevents is streaming it live from their website and you can still participate in the chat!] It is an excellent oppertunity to network, learn more about what is going on in the world of online counselling, new technologies and learning a lot more about virtual worlds and their possibilities. The starting day yesterday already had some very interesting topics. Most interesting yesterday was a discussion by Kate Anthony and DeeAnna Marz Nagel with the director of an upcoming documentary login2life. This documentary focusses on the positive sides of Second Life, how virtual worlds can be a haven a support for people with dissabilities. I can't wait to see the whole documentary!

I want to mention another online conference as well. Normally I do not go for paid conferences , but for this one I am making an exeption. The practice building conference is organised by Casey Truffo. Her book " How to be a wealthy therapist" is like a bible to me. A lot of therapists have problems with charging money for what we do and this book has helped me see that I am worth it! Marketing a practice is strangely enough not a part of most therapy training programs. That is were books and conference like this one come in. You gain so much knowledge and it is also such a great oppertunity to network and get to know other therapists. This alone can lead to business oppertunities somewhere in the future.

Online Conference Part II

Today I am going to continue my report on the Insight, Impacts and Innovation Conference hosted by Simpson house and streamed live by onlinevents.


The afternoon started with a short presentation stressing the importance of training. But most of the afternoon would be taken up with workshops. There were 3 workshops at the same time and the delegates in the room could chose which to attend. For the online delegates it was the workshop that takes place in the main conference room. It takes a long time to set up the camera's and the rest of the equipment but this was a good deal, the workhops I saw were interesting.


Workshop 1 was all about understanding addiction. Thanks to John Wilson from Onlinevents who typed the questions into the chatroom we could fully participate. And soon we were listing what we depended on: chocolate, nature, music etc. A very confronting question was, would you give up what you depend on if it became illegal tomorrow? I think almost everybody said or typed no! Everybody depends on something to get them through hard days. Not all these dependencies are harmful. But I must say that this workshop did help me to look at dependencies and addiction in another light and created more understanding for 'addicts'. Lots of food for thought, this one.


The second workshop was about a local Edinburgh innitiative: Make it happen. [see screenshot] This project works with young people who are at risk of offending. The recent riots in Britain clearly show the need for such programs and the fact that more funding is needed, not less! 

The important facts that I took away from this workshop are:

• Almost all the coverage about young people at the moment is negative
• It is important for young people to have role models and attainable goals
• Respect goes both ways! Older people demand respect from young people, but that respect should be earned.

After this the day drew a close and I turned my computer off feeling very satisfied and stuffed with new information.

Online conference Part I

In my profession you are not finished learning when you receive your diploma. I would even state that the day you have your diploma in your hands is the day that your learning really start. Every day you learn about life from your clients. And you owe it to them to stay up to date about what is going on in the world and in the field of counselling and coaching.

Yesterday I had such an oppertunity. The good part, I did not even have to leave my house to do so. Thanks to onlinevents I was able to watch a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland online. It was called Insight, Impacts and Innovation Conference. It was organised by Simpson house an organisation based in Edinburgh. And the topics of the day was mostly working: with children with addicted parents, working with at risk children and working in a prison setting.


I have attended online conferences through onlinevents before and it is always excellent quality. On their webpage you can watch the conference and even better there is a chatscreen that let's you chat with othe online attendee's. The great team keep an eye on the chat room and will pose your questions to the lecturers in the venue. It is really worth giving it a try.


I will make a start with giving you my impressions of the conference, which I will continue next week.


The morning part started with a talk on the importance of attachment. It is something we all remember from our training and yet we don't use it enough. When children and young people show agressive behaviour it is so important to understand were they are coming from, where the anxiety come from. Did they ever have a secure base at home? Do they feel secure and safe now? Giving them that feeling of safety is a basis to really start work. She also stressed the need for art and music therapy, areas that suffer so heavily from the recent government cutbacks.


The next brief talk was on outcomes of a study on if counselling is succesfull for addicted people. The outcomes were amazing. Almost all of those in the trial had not believed counselling would help at the outset, and most had changed their mind and found it very useful in the end. What was mostly mentioned was that it helped them feel less isolated and helped them relearn social skills. it also gave them more insight on why they used drugs.


The next pat consisted of 3 short case studies and a talk about working in the prison system. This section could have been a bit longer. The ten minutes talks were too short to really do the speakers justice I thought. But still it was very impressive. Especially the case study of "Jake" a prisoner. It showed him as a person with feelings and fears and not an outcast in a prison.

The last part of the morning was a talk by Kate Anthony on social media & technology. As always this was very informative and offered a lot of information for those who are not used to working online. She is always an advocate on working ethically online and stressing the importance of training when working online. [Training online is offered for example by the online therapy instute and online training for counsellors.]



I will cover the afternoon part of the day next week.




Some websites for you to look at:
http://www.simpson-house.org/sunflowergarden.htm
http://www.mihedinburgh.org/welcome.htm 
http://www.simpson-house.org/home.htm
http://www.onlinevents.co.uk/
http://www.onlinetherapyinstitute.com/
http://www.onlinetrainingforcounsellors.co.uk/

 

OCTIA conference on online counselling

I am back from the OCTIA conference in Bristol, England. It was everything I had hoped for and I can recommend it to everyone.

The atmosphere at the conference is relaxed and respectful towards everyone as well as a delegate at the location or if you are following online through onlinevents.

The day started off with a lecture on websites and marketing by Gill Jones. It was very interesting for those who have not thought much about marketing yet and it gave me some great new tips to try out as well. And it was a very good start to the day.


It was followed by a lecture by Tim Bond on ethical and legal issues for Online Counsellors. This is an issue that I take very seriously, clients need to know that we work with high standards and working with us is safe. The lecture was very informative and again for me made clear that as a European Union we have to work closer and standardise things like the data protection act. So that there is one entry point in Europe were you can get this code and it is valid for clients from the whole European Union. I am sure we will get there one day. Right now I do inform my clients through my website and contract that I am very careful with their data and it is stored on a password protected hard disc stored in a locked cupboard.


After lunch there was a mindblowing lecture by Kate Anthony on the future developments in Online Counselling. Through examples [videos]  she showed how virtual reality is already used in therapy and might be used even more in the future. I am interested in this but right now the technology is a bit beyond me. I just manage to get my avatar dressed in Second Life. Yet I do see the huge advantage of this kind of therapy. You can meet with the client in any kind of environment, a place they want to show you or somewhere they feel safe. Who knows in 10 years time we might be using holographic therapy, I do feel like the sky is the limit here.


The following presentation was very close to my heart. Chloe Morton and Jessica Shaw talked about cybermentors for children. They train children to mentor others and kids with all kinds of problems can find help online. Of course there are adult volunteer staff as well. So many young children are online these days but do not know how to protect themselves online and that way can get into huge problems. Projects like this are much needed.


Already it was time for the last lecture by Stephanie Palin on understanding online sex addiction. Again lots of new information delivered with passion. I now have a much better idea about when watching porn becomes an addiction and to understand there is much more behind it than just wanting to watch porn. 

We had one extra. A video about psychological counselling online in Lithuania. Vilma Kurzieme talked about her work in Lithuania in a pre-recorded message. It is great to hear about their work and I know how passionate she is about it! And it shows online counselling is growing fast throughout the whole of the European union.


Too soon it was time to leave. It had been a great day with lots of new information and meeting great people. Many I had already met online but it is so great to meet in person as well. And to make new friends. Already looking forward to next year!

There is still time to get tickets to OCTIA online counselling conference

If you would like to know more about online counselling there is a great event taking place this saturday at the watershed in Bristol, United Kingdom. Octia 2011 [The reason my blog post is early this week, I am flying out later in the week!]


Have a look at the programme to see all that will be covered. You can see that online therapists take their work very seriously and we continue to educate ourselves and talk amongst ourselves how we can work ethically online. It is a great way to meet new people and see each other in the flesh as most of our work is done online from home.

If you are thinking about attending there are two ways you can do so. Come to Bristol in person or if you are unable to come you can attend the conference online.That is what I did last year. Onlinevents record the conference as it is taking place and the realy cool thing is the chatscreen where you can interact with other people attending online. This chat screen is projected on the wall of the venue and makes you feel as if you are really part of the conference. Your questions are seen by the speakers and replied to. Well worth to try out. So you can feel part of Octia wherever you are in the world.

Here you can see me talking about my online experience of  last year's conference.

I will share more next week when I get back from my short break in Britain. 

2nd Virtual Conference on Counseling

One of the great things of the internet, you can attend a conference without leaving your own home. Last week there was a virtual conference taking place in second life, organised by counselor education in second life. I had been in there once before, but to say that I know a lot about it would be an overstatement. That is why I took some time during the days before to make a new avatar and to make sure that I at least had the skills to make her sit down. But in case I totally sucked I had the backup of onlineventswho were going to show the whole conference few of charge. The great thing was also that their chatroom was integrated into the chatroom of the conference.

Let me give an overview of some of the lectures I attended, it will give you a bit of an idea of what was discussed.

Wednesday:
I attended the opening session and I must say I was very busy watching what other avatars looked like etc and amazed at the technology of second life.

Keynote session: sexualized Role Play in Second Lie and Beyond. 
I was a bit surprised that the conference opened with a discussion on a topic like this. But soon I was watching and found myself imagining the benefits this might have for counsellors working with sexual issues in clients. So much is possible in SL. You can make your avatar very life like. :) And to use this in issues, make it vivid so to speak, yes I can see the benefits in that.

Counseling in Genderland
As this is still a controversial topic, I was very interrested to hear this lecture. I have not worked with Transgendered clients myself, but I firmly believe that there are people who were born in the 'wrong' body. And that they are entitled to care and the possibility to change bodies. SL can help in this process. Before trying to live as the other gender in real life, they could safely practice the other gender role in SL and get a feel for it already.

Demonstrating Cyberculture through Film: Life 2.0. 
We started with watching the trailer for this movie. It does show some of the drawbacks of SL. The people who get into it too much and forget their first life. How healthy is it to be in SL more than 18 hours a day? Is it adultery to have a cyber affair on SL? all interresting questions for a counsellor. The cases of internet addictions will only grow in the future and how many of us are prepared for that? Do we run the risk of addiction ourselves when we work on the computer and also do our research there? How would you help couples with relationship issues if you don't know about cyberculture? So much to think about.

On thursday morning there would be a tai-chi session, I was interresting to watch that, as I did not think my avatar could manage it. But I could not find the location. Instead I did find the meditation area and tried a little bit of that.


Competencies in Addressing the Christian Client's Worldview.
This morning there were some technological problems. It wasn't until halfway through the lecturetime that the sound came back. That shows that even with many experts in one room, technology can still let us down. That is why it is important to have backups when working online with clients. Make sure there is an emergency telephone number you can reach each other on, so one of you is not left hanging and waiting what is going on.
The lecture had to be cut very short and it lost some because of that.

CACREP goes international with IRCEP: the international registry of counselor education programs. 
Very interresting to hear that there is now some movement to come to international counselling standarts. IRCEP will try to do that and counselling institutions from all over the world can apply. Right now there is such a difference between counselling education all over the world, in some countries it means a masters degree, in other countries you can call yourself a counsellor without any training again. Which makes it important for the client to check a counsellor's education before starting work with them.

So the conference gave me a lot to think about. I like the medium that Second Life is. I can see a lot of possibilities to use it in counselling. But before I could ever contemplate that I would have to get a lot more familiar with it. And find out how secure it is. Can it be encrypted so the client's anonymity can be guaranteed.


I would love to get feedback about what other people think about SL and counselling.