Working with Complexity associated with Borderline Personality Disorder

This is a free event designed for members of the public clinical mental health workforce in Victoria, (staff employed at Area Mental Health Services, Forensicare or mental health staff from RCH). For example, a social worker working in mental health at Austin Health. Staff from MHCSSs, ACCHOs, AOD or other partner organisations may also attend. Please note, if you do register for this event and it is not clear you are part of the intended audience, your registration will be confirmed two weeks prior to the event start date, or earlier.

Note: Spectrum has a lived experience panel that meet monthly and a part-time carer consultant. Members of the lived experience panel and the carer consultant are consulted in the development of Spectrum training materials.

This training involves a combination of didactic, dialogical and experiential training styles and activities, highlighting the following practice issues for effective support of people with a BPD diagnosis: the DSM-V and ICD-11 diagnoses, a developmental understanding of BPD including attachment, sense of self and trauma, the complexities entailed by working effectively within and between teams and services that support people with BPD, the interactions between co-existing conditions with BPD, maintaining a recovery, client-focused approach when working with severe risk, common treatment principles and skills, creating a therapeutic frame and continuous reflective practice.

Pre-Requisites: Some awareness of experience in working with people with BPD is preferred – this is not for beginners

Delivery Mode – Full Day Virtual Training Session

This course is delivered online. Sessions are hosted via Zoom.

There will be experiential activities, role plays and group discussions in addition to dialogical lecture-style delivering

Presenter:

Spectrum Personality Disorder Service

Peter Smith is an accredited mental health social worker in private practice who also has many years’ experience in a variety of contexts including: rights advocacy, policy and governance for a student union and housing/accommodation for homeless people with mental health concerns. More recently and extensively he’s worked in public mental health outpatient clinics in a variety of roles, including as a case manager, in outreach mental health support for homeless people and in crisis assessment and intervention including PACER. He now works for Spectrum as a therapist, community educator and engages in secondary consultation in the Personality Disorder Initiative.

Marianne Weddell is a Clinical Psychologist with 20 years experience in public and private setting treating a wide range of disorders, managing teams, training staff and supervising/mentoring clinicians. She has a special interest and significant experience with borderline personality disorder, in particular developing service and family systems to work effectively in this space. She believes in therapy as a tool to help people understand themselves, their passions and build a life worth living.