Working with Resistance: Trauma-Informed Engagement with Parents and Carers
A practical workshop for professionals navigating hard-to-reach or hard-to-engage families
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Location
Online
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Highlights
- 3 hours
- Online
Refund Policy
About this event
A practical, reflective workshop for professionals navigating complex family dynamics
“They don’t engage.”“They’re defensive.”“We’ve tried everything.”
When working with parents and carers under stress — whether in the context of domestic abuse, safeguarding concerns, school issues or support services — it’s easy to feel stuck. But what if ‘resistance’ isn’t refusal? What if it’s protection, fear, or exhaustion?
This training challenges traditional labels and offers a fresh, compassionate lens on how to engage parents and carers who may appear shut down, hostile, or unwilling to cooperate. Drawing on trauma-informed practice and Solution Focused Brief Therapy, we explore how to build connection without confrontation, and how to create the conditions where trust and collaboration can begin.
This workshop will help you:
- Understand the roots of resistance — what sits beneath avoidance, anger, or silence
- Spot the difference between non-engagement and trauma responses
- Use language that reduces shame and opens up dialogue
- Reframe the “hard to reach” narrative to one of “hard to trust”
- Hold empathy and professional authority at the same time
- Stay calm and curious in difficult conversations
- Learn practical strategies to move relationships forward, not push them further away
- Reflect on your own reactions and triggers in challenging family work
Who is this for?
This training is ideal for professionals working with families in:
- Schools and education support
- Early help and social care
- Domestic abuse and mental health services
- Youth offending, family intervention, and safeguarding teams
- Housing and community outreach roles
- Parenting programmes and multi-agency networks
Whether you're early in your career or deeply experienced, this session will offer fresh insight, renewed confidence, and practical strategies grounded in real-world practice.
About the facilitators
Ayse Adil and Joe Lettieri are the co-founders of Family Based Solutions, a specialist organisation supporting families affected by domestic abuse and relational trauma. With over a decade of hands-on experience, they bring a blend of solution-focused practice, systemic thinking, and trauma-informed care to every session — making theory feel useful, accessible, and human.
Frequently asked questions
This workshop is ideal for anyone working with parents or carers in education, social care, early help, domestic abuse services, youth work, mental health, or housing. Whether you’re a frontline worker or in a leadership role, the tools and insights will be relevant and applicable.
In this context, resistance refers to behaviours such as avoidance, aggression, silence, or non-engagement that can make building relationships difficult. Rather than seeing these as defiance or disinterest, we explore them as possible responses to trauma, fear, or mistrust.
The session combines trauma-informed practice with Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). This means focusing on safety, collaboration, and what’s possible — rather than blame, confrontation, or fixing.
Yes. The session is grounded in over a decade of frontline experience and includes case examples, reflective questions, and practical strategies you can use straight away.
Yes. The session includes space for discussion, reflection, and application — but you’ll never be put on the spot. We create a safe, respectful environment where learning is supportive, not performative.
No previous formal training is required, though some familiarity may help. The workshop is accessible, practical, and designed to meet you where you are.
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