Courses

Not a day passes without a traumatic event – an event that involves a threat to one’s own life or body, or involves witnessing a life threatening event that someone else faces.  Such an event is way beyond the range of usual human experience; an event which would be markedly distressing to almost anyone. The critical factor seems to be the person’s cognitive construction of what has happened to them. Typically the reaction is one of fear helplessness or horror.

This course equips you with the specialised counselling skills necessary for trauma counselling.

How often have you wished you could really help someone in crisis, instead of offering well-meant, but ultimately useless advice? With a little basic training, you can learn to listen, provide support and offer real guidance to people in need.

Whether you apply the skills learnt in your home community, at work, through your church or simply within your social circle, you can offer a valuable, supportive service that makes a positive contribution towards helping individuals overcome emotional hardship and issues.

This course will equip you with the skills you need to help make a difference in people’s lives.

Our ability to talk is one of the things that makes us unique as a species, and most people say their first words when they are barely a year old. Why then, when talking is something we’ve been doing since infancy, do we so often fail to communicate effectively as adults?

The truth is, while talking may come naturally, actual communication is a skill which we need to learn in order to do it properly.

Conflict in itself is not bad. Knowing how to deal with it, is what counts. If we know how to cope with conflict, we will learn to be less fearful of it, and so not try to avoid it. This creates healthier, more harmonious relationships.

This course teaches you the fundamental skills and attitudes you need to deal with conflict and understand that, contrary to popular belief, dealing with disagreement or conflict is far more important to a relationship than not having disagreement or conflict at all.

Many people suppress their own feelings, needs and wants because they’re not sure how to go about expressing them without upsetting others. Some people express them too forcefully. The outcome in both cases is always unsatisfactory to one, if not both, parties.

It is possible to ask for what you want, let people know how you feel, and say no if necessary without being pushy or aggressive. The key is learning to be assertive.

Assertive people communicate in a way that is clear, open and respectful of other people, ensuring they enjoy healthy, positive relationships - both at work and at home.

This course teaches you the fundamental skills and attitudes you need to enjoy the many benefits of being more assertive.

We would be lost without our phones and yet most of us do not use them effectively or efficiently. When leaving a message most people are not clear and succinct. They often don’t even mention important information such as their name!  When speaking to the person they called, they do not introduce themselves properly and do not get to the point of the call, wasting the recipient’s time and causing frustration and irritation. Often they do not even realise the poor impression they are creating.

In this course you will learn how to use the phone with finesse and create a positive impression of yourself and/or your organisation or company.

Think of the last time you were criticised … you may have done many things well, but the criticiser chose to pick on the one area where you made a mistake, ignoring your good actions or behaviour. This is upsetting, difficult to hear and hard to act upon. How often have you been the one that gives that sort of criticism? The one who breaks down, instead of builds up.

This course explains the difference between negative and positive criticism and provides guidelines for giving and receiving constructive feedback so that you can build relationships - and in the workplace, increase productivity.

Whether you are at a formal function or an informal gathering you will be called upon to make conversation with others. Mastering this skill - either one-on-one or conversations in small groups - is thus an important life skill as it will give you the confidence you need to handle both business and social events.

This practical course covers the fundamentals of conversation such as how to start a conversation with someone you don’t know; effective introductions to ease the way for others; how to be interesting rather than boring and how to include everyone in the conversation. We also touch on non-verbal (body) language.

Presence is that enigmatic, “can’t-quite-put-my-finger-on-it” quality that some people simply have. They walk into a room and immediately command attention – without saying anything!

Presence is made up of a number of things – the most important of which is confidence. The funny thing about confidence is that, even if you don’t feel it, you can pretend to feel it, and by pretending to feel confident, you actually start to feel confident. I call this “fake it ‘til you make it!” And the best way to fake it is with your non-verbal behaviour - how you use your voice and your body language.

Anyone can learn to use both their verbal and non-verbal language to cultivate presence and appear confident. This course will show you how.