WORKSHOPS & RETREATS
Wellness Retreats
Come join our intentional communities of healing and care, you (all of the parts of you) are welcome here.
September 16-20, 2024
Hockley, Ontario
Ecological Retreat Centre
Psychedelic Healing Retreat
for Healthcare Professionals
Your days are spent caring for others, this time is just for you.
Join us for a week of returning to and reclaiming your core compassion, curiosity and clarity. Supported by a team of psychotherapists and medical professionals you will have an opportunity to tune in to the wisdom of your body, bring your awareness to parts of yourself needing your care, and reorient towards your own unique path to meaning.
Space is limited to 14 participants. Sign up for our mailing list to receive more details and to be the first to know when registration opens up in the spring of 2024.
February 15-19, 2025
Bracebridge, Ontario
(2.5 hours north of Toronto)
Venue TBD
Our therapuetic retreats are creatively and intentionally designed to offer you opportunities for sustainable healing and growth by:
Tuning into the wisdom of your body
Exploring your own personal path to meaning and purpose
Connecting with a supportive community
Reflecting on your past and how it has shaped your present
Reclaiming your preferred identities and authenticity
Orienting towards your core compassion, curiosity and courage
Legacy Healing Retreat
Have you ever wondered if some of the burdens you carry are not your own? Are you aware of intergenerational and cultural legacies of trauma and pain that you’ve inherited? What if you could release these burdens and heal your lineage?
Kay Gardner is a lead trainer with Internal Family Systems Therapy Institute who is a renowned facilitator of intergenerational healing. Join us for this intimate opportunity to experience her facilitation of this profound internal process.
Space is limited to 25 participants. This retreat is expected to fill up fast, sign up for our mailing list to be the first to know when registration opens.
Intersectional workshops for intersectional therapists.
These aren’t your traditional professional development events. We’re committed to helping therapists adopt a trauma-informed, anti-racist, anti-colonial, neurodiversity-affirming, transgender affirming, queer affirming, fat-acceptance and anti-capitalist approach to their work. Our workshops centre lived experience, encourage brave conversations, facilitate both learning and unlearning, and aim to highlight intersectional perspectives.
Join us as we build a collective of mental health professionals committed to anti-oppressive work.
New trainings are in the works but there’s nothing scheduled just yet.
Contact us to enquire about a custom training for your group or organization. We’re able to offer workshops or consultation on:
Trans and LGBQ+ Affirming Mental Health Care
Supporting Trans and Non-binary Adolescents or Youth
ADHD & Autistic Affirming Counselling Practices
Decolonizing Psychotherapy
Spiritual Trauma and Institutional Betrayal
Harm Reduction in Psychotherapy
Internal Family Systems Therapy
Critical Perspectives in Social Work & Psychotherapy
Stepping Up into IFS Program
Join the "Stepping Up into IFS Program" by IFSCA & Blueprint Counselling: a 56-hour hybrid course in London, Ontario, led by Derek Scott, empowering mental health professionals with in-depth IFS expertise.
Navigating Autistic Adulthood: Providing Neurodiversity Affirming Care
Join us to improve your capacity to provide neurodiversity affirming mental health care to autistic adults and their families.
AAutism and nuerodiversity pose a number of challenges for navigating environments that are designed for and reward neurotypical or allistic ways of being. Historically, this has extended into health and mental health care. But a growing number of clinicians, informed by the autistic community, are learning what it means to affirm and embrace neurodiversity in how we approach, support and collaborate with autistic clients.
Join us for a day of expanding your neurodiversity affirming tool kit.
Elsbeth Dodman, is Autistic and engages in Autism education and activism. Elsbeth has a BA in Fine Art History and Anthropology as well as a post graduate certificate in Autism Behavioural Sciences. Elsbeth has been giving presentations on Autism since she was 18. Elsbeth has worked with the Ontario Child Advocate's office on their We Have Something to Say project as well as an Autism Mental Health Toolkit with York University. Elsbeth lives at home with her parents and two cats.
Wendy McGuire, will follow Elsbeth and discuss how we can apply this new understanding of autistic experience with practical tools to support neurodiverse-affirming care. Wendy McGuire’s counselling and consulting practice is committed to providing neurodiverse and LGBTQ2S-affirming individual, couple, family, and group counselling, and organizational training in health, education, and social services. Using a variety of therapeutic modalities, she supports newly, self, and late-diagnosed individuals in exploring their neurodivergence to increase self-awareness and self-acceptance. With ten years experience teaching in universities, Wendy also promotes skill-building in executive function, attention, time management, and goal setting. In 2021, she founded the Canadian Neurodiversity-Affirming Therapists Network to build capacity for neurodiversity-affirming services and support for neurodivergent therapists. Wendy is committed to co-creating new narratives about and new experiences of neurodiversity in a world that embraces all forms of diversity.
We'll conclude the day with a panel discussion on supporting autistic young adults as they navigate transitions in education, career, living situations, relationships and care providers.
Julie Knights Thomson will join Wendy and Elsbeth for the panel discussion. Julie is a post-secondary accessibility counsellor, supporting the educational experience of many students, including those with a diagnosis of autism. More notably though, Julie is the mom of a wonderful young man who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2, and who recently transitioned to post-secondary education and independent living. Julie has a passion for learning about autism and neurodiversity, is an ally to the autistic community, and is grateful to have self-advocates as her best teachers.
Join us as we work to become neurodiversity affirming in our approach to care.
A recording of the sessions will be provided to registrants and available for 2 weeks following the session.