Children & Focusing Roundtable Series - The Beauty of Working with Groups: Let our inner butterflies free and give them the opportunity to meet each other

Tuesday, May 14, 2024  1:00-3:00 pm NY Time
7:00-9:00 pm Central European Time

Times worldwide: convert to your time zone

After the last children focusing conference, Bettina and Mia contacted each other because they wanted to exchange ideas about working with groups. They felt a wish to connect more and to invite others to exchange their experience with the wider Focusing community.

Mia’s Felt Sense of children Focusing in group feels like inner butterflies having fun and in the field of connection with the children, something wonderful opens up.

For Bettina, working with groups of children feels like surfing the sea of energy and emotions. The children bring in their energy and then something magical happens together. Both enjoy the playful lightness and 'butterfly' energy when working with groups.

During this RT we will explore everyone’s experience and formats in working with groups. What exercises are supportive at each stage of the process? We will do a group exercise and create a space of sharing and gathering your experience and wisdom on working with groups. This meeting could be the start of regular dialogue.

Questions and themes we might explore together are:

• What is your experience in working with groups?
• What are good structures and exercises for Focusing groups with children?
• How can people who work with groups have a lively exchange; what possibilities are there for this?

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable?

Any Focusing-oriented professional who is or has the opportunity to work with children in a group setting. Also those working with children, or with the grown-ups (parents, teachers,psychologists, caregivers, etc.) around children. Or anyone who is exploring Focusing with the children around them. 

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

What to expect from Focusing Roundtables: Each Focusing Roundtable is designed to promote informal peer-to-peer conversation. Rather than acting as expert presenters, the Hosts will serve as conversation moderators to encourage sharing and exploration of the topics from the participants’ own perspectives.  All participants’ sharings are welcome and valuable, no matter what level of experience or knowledge you have on the topic. To preserve the nature of informal conversation, the program will be offered live only and no recordings will be available. Registration is limited and on a first-come, first served basis. Participants are encouraged to create follow up opportunities for connection among themselves after the Roundtable.

The TIFI Membership Committee is pleased to offer this series of Focusing Roundtables designed especially for members of the Institute. If you are not a member, please join at http://www.focusing.org/membership, then return to this page to register. This program will afford members a valuable opportunity to engage in casual peer-to-peer conversation with other members who share Focusing-related interests.

Your hosts are members of the Children & Focusing Advisory Group

Hosts for this Roundtable - Mia Maes and Bettina Galerina

Mia Maes is a psychologist and experiential psychotherapist. She has her own private practice for psychotherapy in Belgium. Since 2022, she's a certified Focusing trainer and Focusing Oriented Therapist for children and adults. Working with Children Focusing in groups is one of her passions. www.psycholoog.be/miamaes/

Bettina Markones has been active with child Focusing for 23 years. She prefers to work preventatively with school classes. She is a Special Education Teacher, Focusing therapist, Children Focusing Trainer and Trainer in the DFI for Children Focusing.

Hosts are supported by Rene Veugelers and the Children and Focusing Advisory Group.

Additional members of the Children & Focusing advisory group:

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 a Coordinator specializing in Children’s Focusing, with an emphasis on the non-verbal world. René teaches parents, therapists, teachers and others how to be with children in a Focusing way, how to (re)connect to their own inner child experiences and how to integrate creativity and flexibility into their life and work. His work and experiences as a psychiatric nurse and as an art therapist with children, of any age, embraces an expanded richness of creative elements and supports a natural unfolding of creative process. René lives and works in the Netherlands, where he teaches Children Focusing and specializes in working with children with ADHD, ADD, trauma and attachment disorder.

Joke Van Hoeck has been a child psychologist and psychotherapist for more than 18 years. A  mother of three children, 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.

Harriet Teeuw is a Focusing Coordinator and Focusing Oriented Art Therapist, working in her own practice with children and adults in The Netherlands. Teaching “Dynamic Expressive Focusing” and Focusing International Online (Dream) Workshops and Certification Program for Focusing Practitioners. https://www.childrenfocusing.org/; www.deruimte-info.nl;  [email protected]