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Workshop by Chelsea Luker: Supporting Neurodivergent Parents and Babies: Practical Tools, Clinical Adaptations and Real-World Strategies

Fri, Nov 27, 2026 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

This interactive workshop expands on the concepts introduced in the keynote and focuses on practical strategies clinicians can immediately apply in their work with Neurodivergent parents and infants.

Together we will explore real-world experiences across pregnancy, labour and birth, feeding, sleep, bonding, emotional wellbeing, and early parenting. Drawing on lived experience, clinical practice, case examples, and current evidence, we will examine how sensory needs, communication differences, executive functioning challenges, masking, burnout, trauma, and systemic barriers can influence the perinatal journey.

Participants will have opportunities to reflect on clinical dilemmas, discuss challenges encountered in practice, and identify practical adaptations that support engagement, reduce distress, and strengthen therapeutic relationships. The workshop will also include a range of resources, tools, and recommendations that attendees can utilise within their own services.

I would like to attend the workshop facilitated by Chelsea Luker

Workshop by Gerry Byrne: Attunement, Epistemic Trust and the Alien Self Engaging hard-to-reach clients in perinatal, infant-parent and trauma-informed practice. A workshop for clinicians working with complexity, mistrust and relational trauma utilising key ideas from the Lighthouse MBT-Parenting Programme (LPP)

Fri, Nov 27, 2026 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Overview
How do we establish therapeutic contact with clients who have good reason not to trust us?
This workshop explores the quality of attunement in therapeutic relationships, with particular attention to its role in engaging parents and families in contexts shaped by relational trauma, child protection concerns, epistemic mistrust and complex presentations.
Drawing on ideas from Goal Corrected Empathic Attunement — GCEA, developed by Una McCluskey, alongside Sara Ruddick’s concept of maternal thinking, the workshop will consider how therapists and practitioners can cultivate forms of attention, responsiveness and disciplined care that support genuine engagement.
The workshop will also explore key ideas from the Lighthouse MBT-Parenting programme, currently running in specialist perinatal and infant-parent mental health services in the NHS. Particular focus will be given to the role of epistemic trust, agency, and alien self phenomena in understanding why some clients may experience professional help as intrusive, threatening, shaming or irrelevant.

Key themes will include
• The quality of attunement in therapeutic and helping relationships
• Goal Corrected Empathic Attunement and its relevance to clinical practice
• Maternal thinking, disciplined care and therapeutic responsiveness
• Epistemic mistrust in clients with relational and complex trauma histories
• Establishing epistemic trust in hostile, wary or hard-to-reach clients
• Agentive- and alien-self phenomena and their relevance to MBT-informed work
• Practical skills for working with rupture, suspicion, shame and defensive hostility

Workshop format
The workshop will combine theoretical reflection with live clinical exploration and skills-based learning.
There will be opportunities for discussion, reflection and practice, including the possibility of a “goldfish bowl” real-play*, where a small number of participants join the facilitator to explore the concepts of agentive and alien self in relation to their own personal and professional selves. This will allow participants to observe and reflect on the use of attunement, mentalizing and engagement skills in real time.
There will also be an opportunity for a participant to bring a difficult clinical encounter or “stuck” client situation for live exploration through role play and consultation.

Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is suitable for psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, parent-infant practitioners, social workers, perinatal and infant mental health clinicians, family workers and other professionals working with parents, infants and families where trauma, mistrust, risk or child protection concerns are present.

I would like to attend the workshop facilitated by Gerry Byrne

PAYMENT:

Payment of earlybird registration fees are required by the earlybird date deadline to qualify for that rate. After the earlybird date deadline, all unpaid earlybird registrations will automatically roll over to the regular rate and delegates will be charged at the regular rate.

Payment for all registrations and related functions must be paid in full prior to the commencement of the conference. If full payment is not received, admission to the conference may be refused.

Payment Methods Available:

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MasterCard, Visa and American Express payments accepted and processed through a secure payment gateway. Please also note that debits to your credit card will appear as ‘Premier Event Concepts’ on your statement.
Please do not navigate away from the credit card payment page until the last thank you page appears to ensure all information is fully submitted.

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Account Name – Premier Event Concepts
BSB Number – 067873
Account Number – 17140134
Bank - Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Swift Code (for international payments) – CTBAAU2S
(To allow us to identify your EFT payment, please enter your SURNAME as the statement reference).

THANK YOU

Please click the 'continue' button at the bottom of the page and a confirmation letter and Invoice / receipt will be emailed to you within 24 hours.

If you have selected to pay by EFT, please follow the payment instructions highlighted on the Invoice. Please note that payment for all registrations must be paid in full prior to the commencement of the conference. If full payment is not received, admission to the conference will be refused.

We very much look forward to welcoming you to the conference, and appreciate your support and participation.

Yours sincerely,

Shanna Sheldrick
Managing Director, Premier Event Concepts
On behalf of the Conference Organising Committee
M: +61 437 377 107

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Workshop by Chelsea Luker: Supporting Neurodivergent Parents and Babies: Practical Tools, Clinical Adaptations and Real-World Strategies

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