This is your opportunity to learn to administer the Adult Attachment Interview!. AAI Institutes are offered several times a year in various world-wide locations for participants who wish to learn to classify transcripts of the Adult Attachment Interview. Current certified trainers and the upcoming Institutes they are offering are posted as they become available on the website ‘attachment-training.com’. The AAI Institute in Vancouver will be co-facilitated by two certified AAI trainers, Dr. Naomi Gribneau Bahm (Berkeley, CA) and Dr. Sonya Vellet (Vancouver, BC). AAI Institute General Info_Vancouver_July_2017_Feb16_2017...

PRESENTATION: The complexities of working with refugee families in Canada: understanding the difficult life experiences of refugee parents and their young children with a focus on understanding the impact on parenting and children’s mental health.   Paula and Aline will explore questions of central interest to those seeking to understand the impact of refugee experiences on parents and their young children and allow time for a meaningful discussion about these important questions. For example, what does parenting look like in other cultures? What does “keeping your child safe” mean to you? What does it mean for someone who has experienced the catastrophe of war, flood, or famine to find safety for their children? How does generational camp life affect parenting? What does it mean if you are illiterate in your own language? What does it mean if you have no control over your reproductive health? How has the Syrian crisis changed our community….why is it different from other refugee experiences? What kinds of supports and interventions help such parents and young children? What does not help?   SPEAKERS: Paula Church is the Program Manager of the First Steps Early Years Refugee Settlement and Coordinator of the Newton Early Years Centre Program in Surrey BC., affiliated with the Provincial Office of the Early Years. Her formal training is in Early Childhood Education, but she has expanded her knowledge and experience with an extensive work history serving young children and parents/families. She has twenty-two years front-line work experience at one largest service agencies in the province, and within the fastest growing cities of the province (e.g., Surrey). She spent 14 years working for a young parent program connecting teen mothers and their infant children, followed by working one-to-one in an outreach capacity to families with children 0-6 YO. She has delivered multiple parenting groups including Nobody’s Perfect Parenting and Systematic Effective Parent Training and coordinated a family resource program in Cloverdale.   Aline Mananda is an Early Childhood settlement worker for First Steps and works for another program within same organization (Options) that helps support families in need in Surrey area as an outreach worker. She is originally from Rwanda (Africa) and came to Canada as a refugee herself. She has worked in the past for UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) in her home country. In that role she had the opportunity to work with refugees who were returning home after the Rwandan genocide and also new refugees fleeing from neighboring countries due to war and unrest in their country of origin. She is an Early Childhood Educator by training and worked as a preschool teacher at one of the largest French schools in Surrey for many years. She...