Training & Capacity

Our training and professional development courses are designed to build awareness, knowledge and capacity of mental health sector organisations to deliver culturally responsive support services to the Muslim community; and enhance service providers access to and inclusion of the Muslim community at an organisational level.

The aims of the training and capacity building service are to:
  1. Build awareness, knowledge and capacity of mental health service providers to deliver culturally responsive clinical support services to the Muslim community; and
  2. Enhance service providers access to and inclusion of the Muslim community at an organisational leve
There are two components to this service:

Clinical capacity building – CMW will develop training modules, educational materials and resources for service providers on culturally responsive service delivery in the Muslim context.

Organisational capacity building – Provision of training and resources on Muslim wellbeing for partners to include on their website and share through various communication channels to improve inclusion, reach and access to the Muslim community.

Current Training Opportunities

This 2 Day training program will use the Cultural intelligence (CQ) model to explore culturally intelligent mental health care with Muslim clients

  • Why do we need to attend to our client’s culture and our own cultural background in mental health practice?
  • How do the concepts of mental ill-health and wellbeing differ among people from different cultural backgrounds?
  • How does therapist racial awareness and cultural competence influence the success of therapy for the clients we work with?
  • How do Muslims conceptualise symptoms of mental ill-health and what types of help-seeking and coping behaviours might they draw on?

About the workshops:

This 12 module series aims to improve Mental health practitioner cultural responsiveness to work more effectively with Australian Muslim clients. It has been split into Level 1 and Level 2 with each course consisting of 6 modules. 

This is a wonderful opportunity for mental health practitioners to engage in some reflective cultural self-awareness to improve therapeutic outcomes with Muslim clients.

Participants will receive soft copies of resources developed in the project and receive a certificate of completion (CQ1 or 2) upon attendance of all sessions.

Learning outcomes:

  1. Recognise the role of culture and counsellor cultural responsiveness as an ethical obligation.
  2. Understand and apply the Cultural Intelligence (CQ) model as a framework to work effectively with clients in mental health contexts
  3. Analyse cultural value dimensions and how they may be used to guide counselling assessment and practice ;
  4. Understand sociolinguistics in the counselling room to improve counsellor-client rapport and relationship
  5. Apply critical reflection and awareness of self-identity with a view to how that identity can impact one’s counselling practice.
  6. Analyse the advantages and limitations of using psychological assessment in a multicultural context
  7. Develop an in depth understanding of working effectively with Muslim clients

Target Audience:

Mental heath practitioners, psychologists, clinical social workers, counsellors who work in mental health and wellbeing

This course will cover:

CQ Level 1 

Module 1: Culture and cultural intelligence in mental health care
Module 2: Working effectively with Muslim clients
Module 3: Cultural values in the counselling room (Part A)
Module 4: Cultural values in the counselling room (Part B)
Module 5: Cross cultural communication in the counselling room
Module 6: Assessment tools to harness culture in the counselling room

CQ Level 2

Module 1: Reviewing the CQ model in the Mental health care of Australian Muslims
Module 2: Understanding psycho-social-spiritual coping mechanisms drawn on by Muslims to deal with distress and foster wellbeing. (Part A)
Module 3: Understanding psycho-social-spiritual coping mechanisms drawn on by Muslims to deal with distress and foster wellbeing. (Part B)
Module 4: Empathic confrontation: Challenging cultural scripts for change
Module 5: The psychological impact of Racism, Islamophobia, and stereotypes on Muslim mental health.
Module 6: Culturally intelligent Mental health promotion. Strategies to engage Muslim communities and clients in mental health care.

Duration & Delivery: This workshop can be run online over zoom or in-person. Please check upcoming workshops below for future sessions. It will cover 6 modules of CQ Level 1 or 2 over 2 days (3 modules per day)

Upcoming workshops: 

CQ Level 1 (In-Person)

15th and 16th of April (10am – 3:30pm)

Jack Dyer Pavilion, Jack Dyer Community Room Highett Street Richmond, VIC 3121

This 6 module program aims to improve Mental health practitioner cultural responsiveness to work more effectively with Australian Muslim clients. This is a wonderful opportunity for mental health practitioners to engage in some reflective cultural self-awareness to improve therapeutic outcomes with Muslim clients. Participants will receive soft copies of resources developed in the project and receive a certificate of completion (CQ1) upon attendance of all sessions.

This course will cover:

Module 1: Culture and cultural intelligence in mental health care
Module 2: Working effectively with Muslim clients
Module 3: Cultural values in the counselling room (Part A)
Module 4: Cultural values in the counselling room (Part B)
Module 5: Cross cultural communication in the counselling room
Module 6: Assessment tools to harness culture in the counselling room

Cost:

Early-Bird: $200 (Pre April 8th, 2024)

Regular $300 (Post April 8th, 2024)

Dates, Duration & Delivery: This workshop is run in-person over 2 days and will cover 6 modules of CQ Level 1 over 2 days (3 modules per day):

15th of April, 2024: 10am – 3:30pm

16th of April, 2024: 10am – 3:30pm

Registrations:

Registrations close 14th of April 2024. Registrations are essential

Registration Link: Click here to register

About the program:

This is an invitation for women in the Muslim community to apply for a scholarship to participate in a 4-month leadership development program. The program is designed to support Muslim women wanting to cultivate greater levels of confidence and wellbeing as empowered leaders in their communities, families and workplaces.

This leadership development program is being facilitated by Dr. Rachel Wheeler and Dr. Tracey Hunter – psychologists and co-founders of The Wellbeing Codes and supported by Dr. Senem Eren. The program will include cutting edge methods to address the limiting beliefs that are commonly experienced by Muslim women who have a desire to play a leadership role in their communities, families and workplaces. There will be opportunities to explore the unhelpful patterns – “schemas” – that can create fear and doubt in people as they pursue a leadership path and step into the arena. This program is aimed at shifting these schemas and tapping into more empowered aspects of the self that can support sustainable leaders who are confident in their ability to have influence in their leadership roles – whether that is with their family members at home, or in the wider community including their spiritual practice and at work.

The program includes both an online live training and coaching component, as well as a 2-day live event in Melbourne to consolidate the learnings from the online program as well as develop a sense of community and shared experience within the community.

The group coaching program will include fortnightly Zoom calls over 4 months – alternating between a live training and Q&A session, as well as group coaching call on the alternate fortnight.

Topics:

The topics covered in the live online training sessions are as follows:

1. Identity and sense of self
2. Failure and success: mindsets and myths
3. How to work with gender and cultural barriers
4. The importance of community and belonging

https://fb.watch/lRF4ZQgsv8/

Key Dates: 

The online training and group coaching calls will occur on a fortnightly basis at 7pm Wednesday evenings, starting from 2nd August.2023 . The live event will take place in late November (24-25 November – TBC) in Melbourne. 

Scholarship Value: 

The scholarships are valued at $3000 per person and this program has been generously subsidised thanks to funding from the depratment of social services.

Who Can Apply?

This leadership program is open to Muslim women who:

  • Reside in Victoria
  • Actively engage in the Muslim community
  • Are over the age of 18

How to Apply? 

Click on the following link to apply now.

Terms and Conditions: 

To participate in this program it is mandatory to attend all online session’s (on the following dates: 02/08/23, 16/08/2023, 30/08/2023, 13/09/2023, 27/09/2023, 11/10/2023, 25/10/2034 and 08/11/2023) and the full 2 day in-person program in Melbourne. By submitting an application for these scholarships, you acknowledge that you will be available to attend all scheduled components of this program, including the 8 online sessions and 2 day in person event.

Facilitator Information: 

Dr. Tracey Hunter

Tracey is a psychologist and mentor based on the Gold Coast, Australia. Tracey has a PhD in Clinical Psychology with over 20 years’ experience in the field of psychotherapy, training and clinical supervision. Tracey is an advanced trainer and supervisor in Schema Therapy with the ISST, and completed her training in New York in 2011. 

Over the past 15 years, Tracey has run training and professional development workshops across Australia for other practitioners interested in using schema healing in their work and personal lives. 

Tracey works with clients who want to cultivate their own individual wellbeing by embracing self-empowerment, confidence, joy, love, inner peace and relationship harmony in their lives. She is especially passionate about helping burnt-out professional women to make radical changes to how they approach their career, and embrace a life of balance, abundance and joy. Tracey provides mentoring in leadership and business coaching to heart-centred professionals who are looking to face their fears of being seen or stepping into the unknown.  

Dr. Rachel Wheeler

Rachel is a psychologist who has worked in coaching and mentoring on the Gold Coast and in London. Over the past 25 years, Rachel’s intuitive coaching has positively influenced human and organisational behaviour and thinking. She is passionate about helping her clients make lasting change by understanding and healing the core or root of the problem, (which is known as a schema). Rachel works from this framework to help clients heal the conditioning and unconscious programming they received during childhood and adolescents, so that we don’t keep perpetuating these patterns into our adult life, or keeps holding them back from reaching their full potential in life.

Rachel works in the Wellbeing and leadership space helping women to heal the life patterns and conditioning that are blocking their confidence and autonomy and capacity to thrive. So many women stay small because they have been conditioned not to understand or step into their own sense of purpose. I love helping women understand this and connect to their purpose, sense of self and personal power.

She also works with clients who find it hard to create balance in their life, or who may have NEVER had balance in their life, due to having high expectations of themselves or beliefs that they have to put the need of others before their own, (even at the determent to their own health). She is excited to help women find balance and connect them to their own inner wisdom.

Dr. Senem Eren

Dr. Senem Eren is a Psychologist and Researcher with over 16 years of experience as a clinician working across private practice, hospital settings and schools.
She is particularly passionate about supporting and empowering driven women to succeed in their entrepreneurial goals without sacrificing their health, wellbeing and happiness. She is a sought after public speaker and has delivered training to over 300 organizations globally in the fields of mental health and wellbeing.

She has previously served on the boards of Care With Me (Foster Care) and the Moonee Valley Interfaith Network and is also the founding member of Green Crescent Australia, a not-for-profit organization that provides culturally intelligent education and awareness programs for substance and behavioural addictions in CALD communities.

She is currently a lecturer at Ibn Haldun University in Turkey where she teaches positive psychology and cross-cultural counselling to postgraduate psychology students.

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