Berry Street – Holding Hope in Disability & Child and Family Services
May 1 @ 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
$260.00Online
Delivered by Josie van der Wal, Professional Lead, Specialist Behaviour Support & Psychology at Berry Street Yooralla, Holding Hope is a 4-hour webinar designed for practitioners in disability and child/family services who want practical tools to strengthen their work with families.
Grounded in evidence that shows outcomes improve when we build on protective factors, the session invites participants to pause, reflect, and rediscover what sustains families — and themselves — in complex systems.
The session integrates evidence-based frameworks, theory and validated assessment tools for protective factors and hope, and demonstrates how to adapt these into creative, strengths-based practices. Participants will leave with creative strategies they can apply immediately, along with decision-making guides for when and how to use these approaches. Through creative reflection, discussion, and practical activities, participants will explore how to translate theory into every day, culturally safe practices that build protective factors, nurture connection, and sustain professional hope.
Learning Outcomes
- Explain the core concepts of hope, resilience, and protective factors, and how these shape outcomes for children, families, and practitioners.
- Understand evidence-informed approaches and tools that help recognise and build protective factors in disability and child/family contexts.
- Apply a protective-factor lens to everyday work, using creative, strength-based practices, and relational methods that make assessment and planning more strengths-based and culturally safe.
- Reflect on barriers and opportunities for embedding hope-focused and strengths-based approaches within complex service systems.
- Practitioners reconnect with their own sense of professional hope, anchor self-care and purpose to sustain reflective, compassionate practice.
Who Should Attend?
- Disability practitioners (therapists, behaviour support practitioners, support coordinators, allied health staff).
- Child and family service practitioners (case workers, family support, OOHC/child protection staff, early intervention).
- Leaders, supervisors, and team managers seeking frameworks to support staff resilience and strengths-based practice.
- Community service workers who engage directly with families under pressure.
- Policy, program, and quality staff interested in embedding protective factor and hope-based approaches in systems and service design.