About the Children & Focusing Advisory Group
The Children & Focusing Advisory Group was founded by the International Focusing Institute in Spring 2018. The founding members were Joke Van Hoeck (Belgium), René Veugelers (the Netherlands), and Laura Bavalics (Hungary).
Purpose of the group
The function of the Children & Focusing Advisory Group (CFAG) is to explore goals and directions in Children & Focusing (CF). The group’s role is to facilitate conversations, communication, and create platforms by organizing events which will support Children & Focusing, and the community of teachers and practitioners. As a committee of The International Focusing Institute (TIFI), we also help to communicate between the wider Children and Focusing community and the Institute.
Membership in the advisory group
The advisory group values diversity and inclusion as a developing committee of TIFI. The CFAG consists of 3 to 4 members who are actively involved in the Children & Focusing community.
In 2023, at the Online Children & Focusing Conference, it was announced that Harriet Teeuw (the Netherlands) had joined the CFAG.
Responsibilities of the Children & Focusing Advisory Group
- Organize regular monthly CFAG meetings to discuss topics regarding Children and Focusing and the CF community. The meetings are often accompanied by Catherine Torpey, the Executive Director of TIFI and Elizabeth Cantor, the Administrator of TIFI.
- Organize regular Children & Focusing Roundtable events
- Organize regular International Children & Focusing Conferences
- Update the CF section of the TIFI website as needed
- Keep in touch with the CF community, organize online meetings, events as needed
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for the CFAG, you can contact them any time at [email protected].
Members of the Children's and Focusing Advisory Group
Laura Bavalics |
Harriet Teeuw |
Joke Van Hoeck |
René Veugelers |
Harriët Teeuw is a Focusing Coordinator and Art Therapist, working in her own practice with children and adults in The Netherlands. Teaching “Dynamic Expressive Focusing” and Focusing International Online Certification Program for Focusing Practitioners https://www.childrenfocusing.org/ https://www.deruimte-info.nl/
Laura Bavalics is an early childhood educator, play mentor, and drama teacher. She is a Certified Focusing Professional and a Focusing-oriented educator, who has been working with young children, parents, and professionals for over twenty-five years. She is a professional director of the Pendula inclusive kindergarten program for children in foster care and with special needs at the Világszép Foundation in Hungary. She is also teaching at ELTE University, Hungary, in their College of Education. Laura is a member of the International Leadership Council and the Children's Focusing Advisory Board.
René Veugelers is an international Children Focusing Coordinator, Focusing-Oriented Therapist (FOT), Art Therapist, Psychiatric Nurse and group social worker, trained in Emerging Body Language (EBL). He lives in the Netherlands, where he works with parents, toddlers, children and adolescents, emphasizing the non-verbal world and inner child experiences and is teaching Children Focusing (CF) all over the world. https://www.childrenfocusing.org/
Joke Van Hoeck has been a child psychologist and psychotherapist for more than 18 years. A mother of three children (ages 3, 13 and 16), she can’t imagine a life without Focusing. She is a certified Focusing Professional and Focusing oriented therapist. Joke lives and works in Belgium and has a special interest in bringing Focusing to parents who are looking for a new way of dealing with the daily life struggles in raising children.