Creating Metaphors that Offer Hope, Healing and
Transformation for Children and Families affected by the War in Ukraine
A 10-hour online training with Susan Perrow
AMURTEL Romania is excited to offer a 5-day workshop with Susan Perrow (M.ED). She is an internationally recognized expert in therapeutic stories. She is the published author of four resource books, a storyteller, parent educator, and teacher trainer, with twenty years of teaching experience in Australia and Africa.
This is a unique opportunity to receive direct training and personalized guidance from Susan. The workshop is designed to help those of us fleeing the war in Ukraine with our children to design our own metaphoric stories. Using the medium of stories is a way to address some of the new challenges and problems our children are facing such as: being new in an unfamiliar foreign land, missing friends and family, wanting to go back home, learning a new language, making new friends, regressing in development, being fearful or clingy, being more aggressive than usual, and many other challenges or behaviours specific to our children.
TOPICS COVERED IN 10-HOUR ONLINE TRAINING
In this 10-hour training, Susan will share examples, ideas, and techniques for writing healing (‘medicinal’) stories, and explore together the therapeutic use of metaphor. With the support of a story-making framework, the participants will be guided to create their own stories addressing a range of challenging behaviors & situations …. stories to soothe, help, motivate, give hope, and build resilience (with children, teens & adults). Susan will then give her professional feedback on the stories. The best stories from the workshop will then be published in a collection of therapeutic stories on AMURTEL’s website.
- Opening session – Welcome and Introductions / Expectations and
Guidelines - History and cultural value of storytelling
- Imagination as a ‘way of knowing’
- Introducing therapeutic (healing) stories
- Definition and story-making framework
- Share and deconstruct examples
- Helping and obstacle metaphors
- ‘Movement’ in Story Journeys
- Group work: deconstruct a sample story
- Group work: At the end of session three, each participant will be asked to identify a challenging behaviour/situation for a therapeutic story and then work in a small group as homework. The groups will work together to write a therapeutic story for a chosen theme, then will need to email this to Susan at least 48 hours before the fourth session so she has time to read it before the group discussion.
AMURTEL is offering this exclusive opportunity to those who actively seek to integrate therapeutic stories into their work with children. The workshop is offered for free as part of the project “Rays of Light After the Storm” to provide Ukrainians displaced by the war with innovative ways to build resiliency, thanks to funding from CARE-SERA-FONPC.
About the Training
- 10 hours Online Training – 5 x 2-hour sessions via Zoom at 9:00-11:00
- Introductory one-hour online talk (mandatory to listen to before the training) You will receive the Ukrainian translation of the transcript when you apply for the course)
- Required pre-reading: 24-page workbook with theory notes and story examples
Small group work using break-out rooms - Q & A – both direct and using interactive chat discussions and a whiteboard
Language:
Susan will speak in English but simultaneous translation will be provided in Ukrainian.
Watch the introductory video here (in English):
Mandatory reading before the course:
Those accepted into the course will be sent an introductory manual that must be read before the course begins.
Dates & Time:
April 10,11, and 12 (Learning the basics of therapeutic stories and creating a story) and
April 24 and 25 (personalized feedback and perfecting student work into
therapeutic stories)
Every day from 9:00-11:00
More about Susan Perrow:
In 2000 Susan Perrow developed the first course on Storytelling for an Australian University (S.C.U.). and completed her Masters Research on Storytelling in a cross-cultural situation (post-apartheid South Africa). Today her time is spent writing, consulting with teachers, parents, and therapists, and running seminars on story therapy. She travels nationally and internationally, plus offers different forms of online training. Susan has four resource books, ‘Healing Stories for Challenging Behaviour’, ‘Therapeutic Storytelling’, ‘An A-Z Collection of Behaviour Tales’ and ‘Stories to Light the Night: A Grief and Loss Collection for Children, Families, and Communities’. All published by Hawthorn Press, UK, these have since been translated into many languages. For testimonials and book information, refer to www.susanperrow.com.
How to apply:
In order to attend the workshop, you have to fill out an application form and commit to attending all five workshops. In order to have a creative group dynamic to be able to write stories together, the places are limited to a maximum of 20 participants. Priority will be given to those who are working in programs for Ukrainian children in Romania or who demonstrate experience in storytelling or writing. The last day for enrolling is April 4, 2023. The results of the application will be available on April 6, 2023.
