Walking the line – A workshop on professional boundaries

Date: Tuesday, 22nd July 2025 9:30 AM – 1:00 PM

Location: Online

Description:

This half-day workshop will build and strengthen core knowledge and skills in understanding and maintaining professional boundaries, specifically when working with clients with alcohol and other drug issues. This will include:

  • Understanding professional boundaries
  • Strategies to prevent and respond to boundary challenges
  • Consideration of specific boundary issues to different AOD treatment roles, including lived experience roles
  • The use of technology
  • Selfcare

This workshop will use case based discussion throughout to ensure knowledge and skills taught are relevant to the AOD workforce.

Key learning outcomes:

  • Understand professional boundaries and their maintenance
  • Recognise and respond to boundary challenges
  • Build your own toolkit of practitioner specific boundary maintenance strategies, including managing technology
  • Recognise your own and your colleagues’ warning signs and challenging client presentations
  • Enhance your self care skills and know when to debrief and access further support

 

Eligibility Criteria

This training has been funded for workers employed under the AOD Traineeship Program.

Who is not eligible?

Anyone not employed under the AOD Traineeship Program, workers from other community sectors such as family violence, homelessness, mental health, non-supervisors and AOD workers outside of Victoria.

Terms & Conditions

Please ensure you have clearance from your line manager to attend. If you cannot attend, cancel your registration and make your spot available to someone else on the waitlist.

Motivational Interviewing Developing Skills

Have you completed a two-day Foundation Skills course in Motivational Interviewing?

Are you looking for a chance to refresh your MI skills, consolidate learning and look for your next steps in learning MI? Then this one-day professional development workshop may be for you.

Perhaps you enjoyed meeting MI, but the details are getting fuzzy. Or you’ve been using the skills and are curious to check in with how you’re going. Or maybe you’re looking for the next step in developing your use of MI in practice.

While MI offers practical and accessible skills to try from the outset, the approach takes time and practice to make the most of its potential to help us have more meaningful and productive conversations about change.

Overview

This workshop provides participants to practice core skills in a positive learning environment with coached feedback. The aim is to have fun revisiting the skills, and gain more focus in their ongoing practice.

The workshop extends the foundation skills training, including deepening reflections, exploring the role of values and working with change talk.

The learning objectives include:

  • Refresh and deepen your understanding of the MI framework
  • Learn from observation and small group practice
  • Deepen understanding of guiding within a client-centred approach
  • Practice core component skills, such as developing useful complex reflections within change conversations
  • Practice identifying core personal values and their relevance to the change process
  • Practice working with change talk
  • Develop strategies to monitor our use of the skills and continue to develop after the workshop is over.

Workshop details

The workshop will be held online via Zoom, providing break-out rooms for small group discussion and skills practice. Workshop numbers will be limited to create a comfortable and personalised learning environment.

 

Eligibility Criteria

  • You must have completed MI Foundation Skills training to enrol in this course
  • This training has been funded for workers employed in a Victorian State-funded Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) service, including Peer and LLE workers.

Who is not eligible?

Students on placement or internships, workers from other community sectors such as family violence, homelessness, mental health, and AOD workers outside of Victoria.

Please ensure you have clearance from your line manager to attend. If you cannot attend,  cancel your registration and make your spot available to someone else on the waitlist.

No-shows will be charged a $50 cancellation fee.

Motivational Interviewing Foundational Skills

Dates:

Day one: Thursday, 4 December 2025, 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM*

Day two: Thursday, 11 December 2025, 9:00 – 4:30 PM

*Download both days to your calendar.  Bookings can only be made from day one of training.

Location: Online (Link will be sent to you closer to the training date)

Description

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative method for guiding conversations about change. More than a set of techniques, MI is a discipline in its own right that brings together a set of values, principles and disciplined use of skills to assist people in resolving ambivalence and deepen motivation to pursue meaningful changes for them.

While the skills take time and practice, the conversation style is gentle, and curious and comes from a place of faith in the other person. The hope is that, together, we may discover what is meaningful for this person and what choices would work best for them, knowing who they are and what they want deep down for their future. MI asks us to be mindful of the way our own hopes and assumptions can interfere in the process as much as they can help and create a space of genuine enquiry and deepening understanding.

Rather than replace other approaches, MI can enhance and deepen the full range of interventions we use by bringing a more acute awareness to the how and when of conversation rather than just what we talk about.

The training is highly interactive, with a focus on practical skill development. The two-day workshop will offer an opportunity to:

  • Gain a clear and up-to-date understanding of MI – what it is, how it works and recent changes to the framework
  • Increase understanding of the change process
  • Review and practice the core skills
  • Apply the skills to the change process
  • Increase ability to work effectively with resistance and ambivalence
  • Practice skills in softening sustained talk and eliciting change talk
  • Develop strategies to continue learning and practising MI.

 

Eligibility Criteria

This training has been funded for workers employed in a Victorian State-funded Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) service, including those who are new to the AOD sector or recently employed under the COVID-19 Workforce Initiative and Peer workers.

Who is not eligible?

Students on placement or internships, workers from other community sectors such as Family Violence, Homelessness and Mental Health and AOD workers outside of Victoria.

Terms & Conditions

Please ensure you have clearance from your line manager to attend. If you cannot attend, cancel your registration at least 24 hours before the cancel your registration and make your spot available to someone else on the waitlist.

No shows will be charged a $50 cancellation fee.

Motivational Interviewing Foundational Skills

Dates:

Day one: Thursday, 4 December 2025, 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM*

Day two: Thursday, 11 December 2025, 9:00 – 4:30 PM

*Download both days to your calendar.  Bookings can only be made from day one of training.

Location: Online (Link will be sent to you closer to the training date)

Description

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative method for guiding conversations about change. More than a set of techniques, MI is a discipline in its own right that brings together a set of values, principles and disciplined use of skills to assist people in resolving ambivalence and deepen motivation to pursue meaningful changes for them.

While the skills take time and practice, the conversation style is gentle, and curious and comes from a place of faith in the other person. The hope is that, together, we may discover what is meaningful for this person and what choices would work best for them, knowing who they are and what they want deep down for their future. MI asks us to be mindful of the way our own hopes and assumptions can interfere in the process as much as they can help and create a space of genuine enquiry and deepening understanding.

Rather than replace other approaches, MI can enhance and deepen the full range of interventions we use by bringing a more acute awareness to the how and when of conversation rather than just what we talk about.

The training is highly interactive, with a focus on practical skill development. The two-day workshop will offer an opportunity to:

  • Gain a clear and up-to-date understanding of MI – what it is, how it works and recent changes to the framework
  • Increase understanding of the change process
  • Review and practice the core skills
  • Apply the skills to the change process
  • Increase ability to work effectively with resistance and ambivalence
  • Practice skills in softening sustained talk and eliciting change talk
  • Develop strategies to continue learning and practising MI.

 

Eligibility Criteria

This training has been funded for workers employed in a Victorian State-funded Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) service, including those who are new to the AOD sector or recently employed under the COVID-19 Workforce Initiative and Peer workers.

Who is not eligible?

Students on placement or internships, workers from other community sectors such as Family Violence, Homelessness and Mental Health and AOD workers outside of Victoria.

Terms & Conditions

Please ensure you have clearance from your line manager to attend. If you cannot attend, cancel your registration at least 24 hours before the cancel your registration and make your spot available to someone else on the waitlist.

No shows will be charged a $50 cancellation fee.

Motivational Interviewing Foundational Skills

Dates:

Day one: Tuesday, 5 August 2025, 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM*

Day two: Tuesday, 12 August 2025, 9:00 – 4:30 PM

*Download both days to your calendar.  Bookings can only be made from day one of training.

Location: Online (Link will be sent to you closer to the training date)

Description

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative method for guiding conversations about change. More than a set of techniques, MI is a discipline in its own right that brings together a set of values, principles and disciplined use of skills to assist people in resolving ambivalence and deepen motivation to pursue meaningful changes for them.

While the skills take time and practice, the conversation style is gentle, and curious and comes from a place of faith in the other person. The hope is that, together, we may discover what is meaningful for this person and what choices would work best for them, knowing who they are and what they want deep down for their future. MI asks us to be mindful of the way our own hopes and assumptions can interfere in the process as much as they can help and create a space of genuine enquiry and deepening understanding.

Rather than replace other approaches, MI can enhance and deepen the full range of interventions we use by bringing a more acute awareness to the how and when of conversation rather than just what we talk about.

The training is highly interactive, with a focus on practical skill development. The two-day workshop will offer an opportunity to:

  • Gain a clear and up-to-date understanding of MI – what it is, how it works and recent changes to the framework
  • Increase understanding of the change process
  • Review and practice the core skills
  • Apply the skills to the change process
  • Increase ability to work effectively with resistance and ambivalence
  • Practice skills in softening sustained talk and eliciting change talk
  • Develop strategies to continue learning and practising MI.

 

Eligibility Criteria

This training has been funded for workers employed under the AOD Traineeship Program.

Who is not eligible?

Anyone not employed under the AOD Traineeship Program, workers from other community sectors such as family violence, homelessness, mental health, non-supervisors and AOD workers outside of Victoria.

Terms & Conditions

Please ensure you have clearance from your line manager to attend. If you cannot attend, cancel your registration and make your spot available to someone else on the waitlist.

Motivational Interviewing Foundational Skills

Dates:

Day one: Tuesday, 5 August 2025, 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM*

Day two: Tuesday, 12 August 2025, 9:00 – 4:30 PM

*Download both days to your calendar.  Bookings can only be made from day one of training.

Location: Online (Link will be sent to you closer to the training date)

Description

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative method for guiding conversations about change. More than a set of techniques, MI is a discipline in its own right that brings together a set of values, principles and disciplined use of skills to assist people in resolving ambivalence and deepen motivation to pursue meaningful changes for them.

While the skills take time and practice, the conversation style is gentle, and curious and comes from a place of faith in the other person. The hope is that, together, we may discover what is meaningful for this person and what choices would work best for them, knowing who they are and what they want deep down for their future. MI asks us to be mindful of the way our own hopes and assumptions can interfere in the process as much as they can help and create a space of genuine enquiry and deepening understanding.

Rather than replace other approaches, MI can enhance and deepen the full range of interventions we use by bringing a more acute awareness to the how and when of conversation rather than just what we talk about.

The training is highly interactive, with a focus on practical skill development. The two-day workshop will offer an opportunity to:

  • Gain a clear and up-to-date understanding of MI – what it is, how it works and recent changes to the framework
  • Increase understanding of the change process
  • Review and practice the core skills
  • Apply the skills to the change process
  • Increase ability to work effectively with resistance and ambivalence
  • Practice skills in softening sustained talk and eliciting change talk
  • Develop strategies to continue learning and practising MI.

 

Eligibility Criteria

This training has been funded for workers employed under the AOD Traineeship Program.

Who is not eligible?

Anyone not employed under the AOD Traineeship Program, workers from other community sectors such as family violence, homelessness, mental health, non-supervisors and AOD workers outside of Victoria.

Terms & Conditions

Please ensure you have clearance from your line manager to attend. If you cannot attend, cancel your registration and make your spot available to someone else on the waitlist.

Take Note! Case Notes Essentials

Date: Thursday, 14th August 2025 9:30AM – 12:30PM

Location: Online

Description:

This training will provide you with:

  • An understanding of the benefits and importance of effective case note writing, record-keeping and information sharing for yourself as AOD workers, for your clients and your workplace
  • An overview of evidence-based practice and principles for clinically-relevant and compliant case notes
  • An understanding of the legal context and important concepts (e.g. consent, disclosure, confidentiality, privacy, access, ownership, record-keeping and reporting)
  • Consideration of ethical and operational barriers to case note writing
  • Practical tips and resources for efficiently writing effective case notes
  • Skill development through key examples, resources and activities

 

Eligibility Criteria

This training has been funded for workers employed under the AOD Traineeship Program.

Who is not eligible?

Anyone not employed under the AOD Traineeship Program, workers from other community sectors such as family violence, homelessness, mental health, non-supervisors and AOD workers outside of Victoria.

Terms & Conditions

Please ensure you have clearance from your line manager to attend. If you cannot attend, cancel your registration and make your spot available to someone else on the waitlist.

Peer Worker Training (Online)

This is a funded 6-day training delivered by SHARC, for existing peer workers.

Dates: 15th, 16th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd & 24th April 2025, 9:30 AM – 3:00 PM each day.

Location: Online

Click here to register

Description:

Peer workers, like in any professional role need quality standardised training and ongoing professional development. This comprehensive 5-day training developed through extensive research and consultation, provides a vital knowledge base for peer workers. It ensures that the peer workforce have consistent and standardised training.

This course is specifically designed to provide practical knowledge and skills for existing and emerging peer workers in a contemporary, rapidly growing and developing lived experience workforce. It focusses entirely on how to provide services within formalised settings within the scope of the peer work role.

Key learning outcomes:

  • Understand the fundamental qualities, values and concepts that underpin peer work.
  • Be equipped with knowledge, principles, practices and skills to apply better practice.
  • Apply the key components of the role with a focus on the peer-to-peer relationship and practicing purposeful disclosure when sharing lived experience stories.
  • Understand power imbalances within services and how to minimise this.
  • Understand ethical practice, boundaries, inclusion and cultural competence.
  • Understand service systems, different working environments and legislative requirements.
  • Understand risk management and escalation strategies within the scope of role.Understand the impact of co-occurring needs and how to respond effectively.
  • Increase confidence and skills in communication while navigating relational parameters.
  • Understand how to work collaboratively within multi-disciplinary teams.
  • Practice advocacy constructively and effectively within scope of role.
  • Understand how to manage their own support, wellbeing and development needs.

 

Eligibility Criteria

This training is funded for those who are in paid AOD peer work roles in state-funded Victorian services.

Who is not eligible?

Anyone who is not in a paid AOD peer work role, workers from other community sectors such as family violence, homelessness, mental health, and AOD workers outside of Victoria.

Terms & Conditions

Please contact peersupport@sharc.org.au for any queries regarding this training.

*The same training is offered in person in June 2025.

Panel Discussion: How do we give women a voice in their recovery?

Facilitator: Lyanne Morel, Lived Experience Advocate

Panel: Tara Schultz, Lived Experience Advocate, Michele Campbell, Clinical Director, NADA and Jennifer Uzabeaga, Consumer Engagement Coordinator, NADA

In this video, panel members discuss experiences of women and the AOD service system.

Resources mentioned can be accessed here: Symposium Resource Hub

To access the video, click on ENROL NOW to change to “I’m going”

The WATCH VIDEO button will appear; click to access the video.

To return to the video later, revisit this page by clicking on Self-paced learning.

Presentation: Voice and creativity in research – young women’s experiences of youth intimate partner violence

Bianca Johnston, PhD Candidate, Monash University

Slides: Voice and creativity in research – Bianca Johnston

Bianca’s PhD examines young women’s experiences of youth intimate partner violence. Using mixed methods of creative art and qualitative interviews with young women, Bianca’s research seeks to provide a platform for young women’s voices and experiences of intimate partner violence.

Resources mentioned can be accessed here: Symposium Resource Hub

To access the video, click on ENROL NOW to change to “I’m going”

The WATCH VIDEO button will appear; click to access the video.

To return to the video later, revisit this page by clicking on Self-paced learning.