Overview

The Victorian Section of the College of Clinical Psychologists and the Ballarat Branch of the Australian Psychological Society, are delighted to invite you to a rejuvenating and enriching professional development weekend retreat in Daylesford, Victoria.

Now in its third consecutive year, this retreat offers more than an opportunity to escape the city - it provides a rare chance to step back from the demands of clinical work, reconnect with your professional purpose, and invest in your own wellbeing.

Across the weekend, participants will engage in a thoughtfully curated blend of high‑quality professional development, restorative practices, and collegial connection. The retreat is designed to support reflection, learning, and renewal within a relaxed and supportive environment, alongside peers and fellow professionals.

Through a curated program of evidence-based workshops, essential information and well-being activities, participants will explore contemporary issues in psychological practice, enhance clinical skills, and foster resilience and well-being.

Key themes include:

• Navigating Difficult Conversations with Confidence and Compassion Building skills to engage meaningfully with others - even in high‑conflict or emotionally charged situations.
• Understanding and Responding to Children’s Resistance in Family Systems Deepening insight into children who resist or refuse contact, with psychologically informed and ethical approaches.
• Restoring Balance Through Gentle, Embodied Self‑Care Practices Using gentle movement and mindfulness to support wellbeing, regulation, and presence.
• Strengthening Clinician Self‑Care and Professional Resilience.
• Fostering sustainable practice through strategies that protect mental health, prevent burnout, and enhance resilience

Whether you're looking to sharpen your practice, connect with like-minded peers, or simply take time to reflect, this retreat offers the space and support to do so.

Retreat Schedule:

Workshop 1: Difficult Conversations-How to Talk to Almost Anyone About Almost Anything

Difficult conversations are unavoidable in professional settings, yet many people feel underprepared or anxious when they arise. This practical, skills-based workshop is designed for anyone who needs to navigate challenging conversations with clients, colleagues, students, or stakeholders - particularly when emotions are high, perspectives differ, or the stakes feel significant. In this workshop, participants will learn clear, adaptable frameworks and language strategies that increase confidence, reduce defensiveness, and support constructive outcomes, even in complex or sensitive situations.

What the Workshop Covers

This workshop, informed by the research of conversation analyst Elizabeth Stokoe and her colleagues, will include real-world examples, and guided practice to explore:

• Structuring a difficult conversation
  • Clarifying your intention and defining a positive, shared purpose
  • Preparing emotionally and practically
  • Opening a conversation in a way that encourages co-operation rather than resistance
• Empathy
  • When to use it and when not to.
  • Responding to emotion without losing focus
• Keeping the conversation on track.
  • Managing emotional escalation
  • Refocusing on what matters when conversations drift
• Using language that does not create resistance
  • Using neutral, respectful, and outcome-focused language
• Knowing when not to have a difficult conversation
  • Recognising unproductive or unsafe situations
  • How to pause, redirect, or finish a conversation respectfully.
  • Gaining agreement where possible.
• Making a plan for the future
  • Agreeing on next steps, responsibilities, and boundaries
  • Documenting outcomes where appropriate

Workshop 2: Children Who Resist or Refuse Contact in Family Law Matters: A Guide for Psychologists

Psychologists are frequently asked to work with separated families where a child resists or refuses contact with a parent. This is a clinically complex and legally sensitive area of practice, particularly when matters are concurrently before the Family Court. Well intentioned practitioners can find themselves inadvertently drawn into ethical, professional, or legal difficulties, especially when asked to provide opinions, reports, or advocacy style views in support of clients.

This workshop is designed for psychologists who are unfamiliar with, or have limited experience in, the workings of the Family Court and the family law system. Drawing on more than 35 years of specialist practice within the family law jurisdiction, the presenter will provide a practical and nuanced overview of this complex phenomenon and how these matters are understood by the Court, the role of psychological evidence, and the common pitfalls that clinicians encounter.

The workshop will focus on children who resist or refuse contact with a parent - an issue of significant national and international concern - exploring how psychological concepts are applied, misapplied, and scrutinised within legal proceedings. This will be considered within the framework of existing psychological knowledge and that the presentation will use video and case studies to illustrate the challenges in working with these complex case. Participants will gain clearer insight into the expectations placed on psychologists, the limits of therapeutic and expert roles, and how to practice ethically and safely when family law matters are live before the Court.

Key Topics:

1. An overview of the Family Court system and the role of psychologists within it
2. Understanding children who resist or refuse contact: clinical complexity and legal context
3. The distinction between therapeutic, forensic, and expert roles
4. Common risks and pitfalls for psychologists working alongside family law proceedings
5. The use and misuse of psychological concepts in family law matters
6. Ethical considerations, boundaries, and professional responsibilities
7. How psychologists can contribute effectively without compromising their role

Workshop 3: Reclaiming Balance: Self-Care Through Gentle Movement

In this 45-minute session, psychologists are invited to step away from the demands of holding space for others and reconnect with themselves through gentle, restorative movement. Blending the mindful flow of yoga with the grounding energy of Qi Gong, this session is designed to calm the nervous system, release accumulated tension, and support emotional regulation.

You’ll be guided through accessible practices that include breathwork, progressive muscle relaxation, and slow, intentional movement - no prior experience necessary. The emphasis is on embodied living: shifting out of the head and into the body to cultivate presence, awareness, and genuine self-compassion.

This is a space to feel rather than do, and to explore simple ways to return to yourself, moment by moment. Come as you are. Leave feeling more centred, resourced, and connected.

Workshop 4: Self-care and Resilience for Clinicians

Psychology is a deeply meaningful but demanding profession. Ongoing exposure to traumatic material, high levels of professional responsibility, time pressure, emotional labour, ethical complexity, and system constraints place even highly capable and experienced clinicians at risk of burnout, moral distress, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. Over time, this cumulative strain can affect personal wellbeing, relationships, clinical judgement, and the capacity to remain present, ethical, and engaged in therapeutic work.

In many clinical environments, professional culture implicitly discourages vulnerability, emotional disclosure, or acknowledgement of struggle. As a result, clinicians may delay seeking support, normalise unsustainable workloads, or rely on coping strategies that are ineffective or costly in the long term.

This workshop provides a reflective, skills-based space for clinicians to strengthen resilience and psychological flexibility while acknowledging the realities of contemporary clinical practice. Drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and EMDR‑informed approaches, participants will learn practical strategies for emotional regulation, stress management, and values‑aligned professional sustainability.

The workshop also invites clinicians to examine how personal history, cultural expectations, values, and belief systems intersect with professional roles, responsibility, and self‑care. Importantly, the training recognises that resilience is not solely an individual responsibility. The workshop will explore the impact of organisational and system‑level constraints on wellbeing, and support participants to identify ways of working ethically, compassionately, and sustainably within these realities.

What the Workshop Covers

This workshop integrates theory, guided reflection, and practical tools, including:

• Understanding clinician wellbeing risks
  • Burnout, moral distress, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma
  • Early warning signs and cumulative impact over time
  • Differentiating individual stress from system‑driven strain
• Emotion regulation and nervous system support
  • Practical tools for regulating affect in high‑acuity clinical settings
  • EMDR‑informed strategies for grounding, stabilisation, and containment
  • Supporting recovery after emotionally demanding sessions
  • ACT‑informed approaches to resilience
• Enhancing psychological flexibility under pressure
  • Responding skillfully to self‑criticism, perfectionism, and responsibility anxiety
  • Clarifying values to guide ethical and sustainable clinical decision‑making
• Professional boundaries and responsibility
  • Re‑examining beliefs about care, sacrifice, and “doing enough”
  • Boundary setting with clients, organisations, and oneself
  • Navigating moral distress and ethical complexity without disengagement
• Culture, identity, and belief systems
  • How upbringing, training culture, and professional identity shape coping
  • The impact of implicit rules about vulnerability, strength, and competence
  • Creating permission for sustainability rather than endurance
• Working well within system constraints
  • Recognising systemic contributors to stress and burnout
  • Identifying what can - and cannot - be changed
  • Developing realistic, values‑aligned strategies for practice within constraints

Learning Outcomes

Workshop 1:

By the end of this workshop, participants will have:

• Developed their confidence and skill in preparing for difficult conversations, including clarifying purpose, managing emotions, and anticipating challenges
• Extended their knowledge of how to structure difficult conversations in a way that increases safety, clarity, and effectiveness
• Expanded their ability to use language that reduces resistance, promotes collaboration, and supports constructive discussion.
• Strengthened their capacity to adapt their approach to the needs, emotional state, and readiness of the other party or parties
• Improved their ability to remain flexible when conversations become emotionally charged or unpredictable Tailoring and Applications

The workshop will be (is) highly adaptable and can be tailored to the specific context, roles, and challenges of the group. Scenarios and practice activities may include:

• Delivering difficult or unwelcome news
• Supporting distressed and/or angry individuals
• Conducting performance or feedback conversations
• Addressing workplace conflict, tension, or relationship breakdowns
• Responding effectively to challenging or disruptive behaviour
• Managing conversations involving power imbalances or competing priorities

Workshop 4:

By the end of this workshop, participants will have:

• Learned practical emotion regulation and stress management tools suitable for high‑acuity clinical environments
• Applied ACT‑informed strategies to address burnout, moral distress, and enhance psychological flexibility
• Reflected critically on professional boundaries, responsibility, and ethical decision‑making, including the impact of personal values and beliefs
• Developed a personalised resilience and professional sustainability (self‑care) plan that is realistic, values‑aligned, and responsive to system constraints

Presenter(s)

About the presenter(s)

Mr. David Cherry is a Clinical and Forensic Psychologist with 45 years of experience. David runs training for staff in the health, welfare, education, aged care, disability and, and homelessness sectors on: difficult conversations; Handle with Care ™-staff safety and defusing situations where individuals may be aggressive; preparing to work in difficult environments; The Occasional Counsellor ™ which is for staff who are not employed in a counselling role but are called upon to give others emotional support; managing vicarious trauma and; interviewing clients in relation to difficult events, among many other topics.
David also provides training for staff in local, state, and commonwealth government.

Ms. Vincent Papaleo is the founding Director and Clinical Psychologist at Papaleo Associates, and is internationally recognised for his expertise in Family Law psychology. He has been a member of the APS since July 1989, began his career at the Department of Child Psychiatry at the Austin Hospital, before establishing his private practice dedicated to supporting separated and high conflict families.

With over 30 years of experience in the Family Court, Mr. Papaleo has provided expert testimony in hundreds of family and children’s law cases, authored countless single expert and family law reports, and has delivered presentations and professional development sessions across Australia and overseas.

As the senior clinician at Papaleo Associates, he specialises in developmentally-informed approaches, behaviour management, and alternative dispute resolution in cases involving separation, conflict, and child well being.

Mr Papaleo’s practice  is distinguished by its emphasis on clarity, depth, and supportiveness, a cornerstone in helping courts, legal professionals, and families make informed decisions in the best interests of children. He contributes regularly to the professional development of Australian Family Lawyers, has presented his work extensively throughout Australia and Internationally to the Family Law community and supports other mental health professionals in this complex area of psychological intervention.

Ms. Jacqui White is a registered Psychologist and qualified Yoga Teacher with over 20 years of experience supporting mental health and wellbeing. She is passionate about helping other psychologists reconnect with their own inner resources through meaningful self-care practices. At the heart of Jacqui’s work is the belief that caring for ourselves is not optional - it is essential, especially for those in helping professions.

Blending evidence-based psychological approaches with the wisdom of yoga and mindfulness, Jacqui brings a grounded, compassionate lens to the conversation around burnout, compassion fatigue, and sustainable practice. Since completing her yoga teacher training in Brazil in 2018, she has offered trauma-aware yoga classes and integrated breathwork, somatic awareness, and gentle movement into her therapeutic approach.

At this retreat, Jacqui offers both clinical insight and lived experience to help psychologists move beyond intellectual understanding into embodied self-care. She understands the emotional toll of holding space for others and is committed to fostering spaces where practitioners can slow down, soften, and reconnect with what nourishes them - professionally and personally. This is a space to feel rather than do, and to explore simple ways to return to yourself, moment by moment. Come as you are. Leave feeling more centred, resourced, and connected.

Dr. Alice Morgan is a clinical psychologist and director of Starling Health Collective - a private practice offering training retreats, supervision and group consultation to health professionals. She has 20 years of clinical, research and leadership experience in clinical psychology and holds a Masters of Public Health, which gives her trainings both a clinical and system lens. She was previously the Head of Clinical Psychology at the Royal Children's Hospital and now consults for organisations including the WHO, MCRI, and the University of Melbourne.

Notes

Registration includes lunch, morning and afternoon tea and tea and coffee both days.

Target Audience

This activity is aimed at psychologists who wish to develop their skills in the areas targetted by the presentations.

Please note:

• This is a Member Groups event. All communication will be sent to the registrants’ registered email address. This includes event reminders with details (such as the venue details) and any pre-event or post-event resources, if provided by the facilitators.
• A post-event email will be sent within two weeks of the event’s completion to each registrant’s registered email address. This email will include the CPD certificate, and any additional resources shared during the session.

Duration of Access

This event will not be recorded.

CPD

It is up to attendees to assess and determine how learning from this event aligns with the requirements of their learning plan. The providers accordingly do not make any representation that the event counts towards attendees’ CPD learning requirements. If an attendee determines themselves that the learning they complete aligns to their learning plan, then they can decide to count those hours towards their CPD requirements for the registration cycle.

The information in this presentation has been prepared in good faith and for educational purposes only. Therefore, the information is general in nature and should not be relied upon in the treatment of any condition and you should seek your own independent professional and/or legal advice concerning any specific issue. The APS accepts no responsibility for any errors, omissions or decisions relating to the information. The content should not be reproduced without permission or unless permitted by law.

If you are experiencing registration difficulties please contact APS Events Support.