Make a Difference to the Lives of Children
Improve your skillset so that you can offer the best counselling service to children that they could hope for. Learn new ways to help children overcome difficult times in their lives.
Helping Children
Children face mental health problems and difficulties in their lives which require help from counsellors, psychologists and other therapists. However, helping children with these problems usually requires a different approach to helping adults. You have to be mindful of legal issues, ethical issues, their level of emotional and cognitive development, and what is going to be meaningful to them in the context of their lives.
In order to counsel children effectively a therapist needs to understand the types of problems that can affect children and how they might have evolved.
Like disorders of adulthood, childhood disorders can, and usually do, have more than one cause. Also, like adults, these causes may be of genetic or environmental origin. With children though, we must also consider developmental causes since childhood is a time when children are continually developing: intellectually, socially, emotionally and, of course, physically.
Take this course to find out more about what influences childhood mental health, the unique problems involved with interviewing and assessing children, and some different strategies for helping children with different types of mental health issues.
Become more sensitive to the needs of children, and more capable of interacting in a positive way with children during counselling.
Lesson Structure
There are 9 lessons in this course:
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Introduction to Types & Causes of Childhood Problems
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Introduction
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Types Of Childhood Problems
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Causes Of Childhood Problems
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Genetic Risks
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Temperament
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Environmental Influences
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Divorce
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Death Of a Parent
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Maternal Deprivation
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Schooling
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Location
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Brain Disorder
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Resilience & Vulnerability
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Assessment of Childhood Problems
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Introduction
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A Developmental Approach
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Understanding Normal Development
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Infancy
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Years 2 To 5
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Years 6 To 11
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Adolescence
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Assessing Children
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Difficulties Assessing Children
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Interviewing Children
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Interviewing Parents
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Family Interviews
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Making Observations
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Rating Scales & Psychometric Testing
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Significance Of Prevalence
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Ethical And Legal Considerations
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Legal Issues
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Insurance
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Parental Involvement in Diagnosis
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Psychological Assessments and Tests
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Counselling for Internalising Problems & Disorders I: Anxiety
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Introduction
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Types Of Anxiety
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Other Types of Anxiety
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Social Anxiety
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School-Based Anxiety
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Symptoms Of Anxiety in Adults and Children
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Anxiety In Children
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Why Do Some Children Experience Anxiety More Than Others?
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Genes And Personality
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Stressful Environment
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Getting Help
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Types Of Treatment for Anxiety in Children
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Counselling
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CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)
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Medication
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Parental Help
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Counselling for Internalising Problems & Disorders II: Depression
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Introduction
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Depressive Disorders in Children
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Signs Of Depression in Children
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Bipolar Depression in Children – Signs and Symptoms
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Causes Of Depression
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Getting Help
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Parental Help
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Medical Services
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Medication
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Hospital
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Counselling Treatments for Depression
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Interpersonal Therapy
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CBT And Depression in Children
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Counselling for Externalising Problems & Disorders III: Eating Disorders
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What Are Eating Disorders?
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Causes Of Eating Disorders
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Anorexia Nervosa
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Bulimia Nervosa
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Binge Eating Disorder
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Signs And Symptoms
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Diagnosis
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Getting Help
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Parental Support
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Professional Help
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Case Study
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Counselling for Externalising Problems & Disorders IV: Conduct Disorders
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Introduction
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Subtypes Of Conduct Disorder
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Symptoms Of Conduct Disorder
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Causes Of Conduct Disorder
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Diagnosis
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Treatment Of Conduct Disorder
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Case Study
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Parental Involvement
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More On Medication
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Counselling for Other Problems & Disorders
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Introduction
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Bedwetting
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Counselling For Bedwetting
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Cultural Differences
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Cross Cultural Counselling
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Bullying And Cyberbullying
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Counselling
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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
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Treatment For ASD
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Counselling For ASD
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ADHD
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Medication
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Counselling
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Other Counselling Approaches
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Introduction
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Medication
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Virtual Reality
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MST
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Art Therapy
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Lego Therapy
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Play Therapy
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Special Project - Problem-based learning
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims
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Explain broad groups of psychological disorders in children and possible causes of problems.
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Understand the significance of development and differences to adults in the assessment of child mental health.
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Understand childhood anxiety and possible counselling approaches to treatment.
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Understand childhood depression and possible counselling approaches to treatment.
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Understand childhood eating and feeding disorders and possible counselling approaches to treatment.
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Understand childhood anxiety and possible counselling approaches to treatment.
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Explain a range of other problems and disorders affecting children; and compare alternative response strategies.
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Explain a range of different counselling strategies and possible outcomes that are appropriate to use when dealing with children.
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Investigate a child in need of counselling and develop a treatment plan for that child.
Before you can begin to offer counselling, you need to gain a full picture of the child's problems. The assessment of childhood disorders and problems involves considering information from different sources. The more information you have, the clearer idea you will have of what is wrong with the child and how you can help them.
A Developmental Approach
In order to develop a measured assessment, it is vital to view the child in terms of where they are at developmentally. That is, you need to be aware of behaviour relative to the child's age. For instance, a 16-year-old child who wets the bed is likely to have a different clinical profile and be treated differently to a 3 year old with the same problem. Furthermore, children of different ages react differently to different life events e.g. divorce of parents may have a greater disruptive impact on a 5-year-old than a 15 year old. Also, the presentation of many disorders is often different with age. For example, childhood anxiety disorders often improve as the child matures.
Cultural and ethnic differences can also affect development. It may be that a child is not expected to reach certain developmental stages in some cultures by a particular age, but they are in others. Similarly, in some cultures children may be expected to grow up quickly and adopt behaviours ordinarily associated with older children or parents. Whilst in some cases they may take this on board and develop a sense of independence, other children may feel burdened and develop behavioural problems.
How This Course Can Help You
This course is intended to help counsellors and other therapists to expand their skills and learn more about how to counsel children. Traditional counselling microskills are not always useful when working with children and especially younger ones. Often counselling techniques have to be modified to account for childhood differences.
Take this course to develop your understanding of childhood mental health further and to broaden your knowledge of counselling approaches for children.
The course is aimed at people working in, or aspiring to work in the following fields:
Youth work
Child and adolescent counselling
School counselling
Child psychology
Caring roles
Health care roles
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