Saturday Breakout 2 

Option 4 

Nozomu Ozaki

Inviting meaningful, empowering conversation with parents/caretakers of the children who are identified clients

This workshop focuses on how to engage parents /caretakers in a meaningful conversation in such a way to shift the pattern of their interaction with their child, who is the identified client. Using IPscope (Tomm et al., 2014) framework, I will describe some of socially and/or cultural discourses that inform and are reflexibly supported by parents/caretakers’ interaction with their child. I will suggest some ways of inviting a conversation with the parents/caretakers that is respectful of their preferences and values, which can lead to transforming their interactional patterns toward patterns of healing. 

I will share a case study where I invited a parent to a conversation to reflect on their current relationship to their child and relevant discourses they are enacting in their relationship, and to explore alternative idea or practice of parenting that support a renewed relationship. At the heart of this type of conversation is witnessing the parents’ grieving of what the parents/caretakers have hoped for in relation to their children

Bio:

Native to Kyoto, Japan, I have made home with my wife and children in the Niagara region of Canada. Being a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario, and a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist - Supervisor Qualifying with the Canadian Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, I have worked with children and their parents/caretakers in a brief therapy service at a publicly funded children's mental health agency in the Niagara region. I also enjoy and am challenged by teaching a course for University of Calgary's Certificate in Couple and Family Therapy. Being heart-ached by the events and movements around the world, I am searching for and exploring ways of collecting witnessing and reckoning for social change.