Family Oriented Workshops

The following is a sample list of workshops Covenant Counseling & Family Resource Center provides.

Understanding Adolescents – Looks at what is going on with teenagers and discusses ways for parents to deal with the powerful changes they work on the family.

Parenting Adult Children – Explores the phenomenon of children returning to the parental home as adults and discusses the roles, rules, and responsibilities for family members in this increasingly common situation.

Understanding Families – Helps family members understand the essential dynamics at work in the family system. A series of lectures based on a systemic approach covers issues like triangles in the family, transgenerational patterns and family projection processes.

Hallmarks of the Healthy Family – Examines the characteristics of healthy family life and focuses on how to facilitate and maintain these healthy aspects of family life.

Becoming a Step Family – Provides a support group for people struggling with the complexities of becoming a step family. Combines biblical, theological and developmental insights to help educate participants regarding the uniqueness of living in a step family. Looks at step family’s expectations about life, and identifies methods for dealing with areas of conflict. Minimum six week commitment.

Improving Bad Grades: How to Motivate Your Child – Looks at 11 things parents can do to influence their children to do better with school responsibilities.

Children and Stress – Looks at some of the signs and symptoms of stress in childhood and discusses what parents can do about it.

Creative Parenting – Explores self-esteem issues in children and parents.

Helping Your Children Live with Your Divorce – Looks at divorce from the viewpoint of a child. Explores how to help children manage with the trauma of divorce.

Development of Self-Esteem in Children – Helps parents to understand how self-esteem develops in children and the role of parenting in its development. Explores developmental stages and offers practical suggestions on “How to” promote healthy self-esteem in these stages.

Ministry with the Aging – Looks at what churches can do in ministry with and for senior adults.

Understanding the Elderly – Focuses on helping adult children of the elderly understand some of the dynamics of the aging process and how to respond in light of these dynamics.

Quality of Life in the Senior Years – Looks at the positive aspects of aging and discusses several outstanding role models; reviews the characteristics of quality aging and goes over a number of tips provided by successful senior adults.

Conflict Resolution – Examines some of the Do’s and Don’ts for moving from conflict to cooperation.

Couple Communication – Helps couples understand and appreciate different styles of communication and how to improve the quality of communications.

Talking and Listening Together: Couple Communication – Focuses on communication styles, effective listening, self-awareness and disclosure, and conflict resolution.

Developing Intimacy in Relationships – Examines what it means to be close to another person and discusses how to improve intimacy between a man and a woman.

Getting the Love You Want – Helps couples understand each other from the perspective of what they bring into the relationship from their family of origin and how they might respond to each other more empathically. Uses exercises from Harville Hendrix’s book, Getting the Love You Want.

Growing Together – A marriage enrichment workshop aimed at facilitating the growth and development of couples. The focus is on looking forward in a positive direction, identifying areas in which to grow and discovering ways in which that growth can take place. The workshop utilizes David Olson’s Prepare/Enrich material.

Understanding Your Spouse – Based on the book, Please Understand Me, each spouse will have a clearer understanding of the type person to whom they are married and how they might respond in ways that would be more useful in creating a marriage with understanding.

Stress Management (A) – Recognizes stress as strain on personal endurance and focuses upon a three step process of “stepping back,” “breathing deep,” and “diving back in” to cope more effectively with the demands of life.

Stress Management (B) – Looks at both healthy or constructive stress and unhealthy or destructive stress. The participants will evaluate their own stress and how they might deal with it.

Coping Strategies for Reducing Stress – Teaches strategies for controlling stress on the job, at home, and in relationships. Also looks at ways to be more assertive and how to deal with anger.

Bereavement and Grief – Normalizes bereavement and grief as a universal part of human experience, examines typical patterns of grieving, and discusses, when added to the support of family and friends, medical and professional support would be helpful.

Dealing with Loss and Grief – Explores the stages of loss and grief and assists participants to learn how to respond in these difficult situations.

Death and Dying – Leads the participant through an experiential encounter with the feelings associated with loss and grief.

Grief Processing – Discusses the stages of grief along with the process of conscious and unconscious integration of loss. The wide variety of losses that each individual must encounter in life are explored. Also, practical techniques for expression of grief to facilitate the process are offered.

Divorce Recovery – Discusses how, wanted or unwanted, divorce does violence to the spirit and healing is necessary to become free to love again. Reviews typical experiences of divorced people and discusses how to grow through the pain of divorce to wholeness.

Rebuilding: Divorce Recovery – Assists divorced persons to begin to accept the ending of a relationship; to deal with anger, loneliness, feelings of rejection; and to tap inner, spiritual resources.

Men and Intimacy – Focuses on a male audience and is oriented toward helping men understand the cultural values that have shaped and distorted our perceptions about and efforts at intimacy. Includes some directions and suggestions of ways men can change some of the old patterns in their effort to achieve more satisfaction in intimate relations.

Addictive Diseases – Includes a description of the dynamics involved when individuals seek to escape pain and despair through various forms of self medication. Addictions can range from seemingly innocuous behaviors such as watching T.V. or working, to drug and alcohol abuse. Emphasis is on the psychological and spiritual adjustments necessary for the recovery of the individual, and for the healing of those who relate intimately with an addicted person. Intervention methods are also discussed.

Alcoholism and Drug Abuse – Examines the signs and symptoms of alcohol and drug abuse and discusses issues of intervention and treatment for the abuser and affected family members.

Co-Dependency – Looks at origins of the current dynamics of co-dependent relationships and how to break out of dysfunctional patterns.

Co-Dependency and Religious Teachings – Explores the dynamics of co-dependency and its relationship to some of the traditional teachings of the church. For instance, when is trying to “love” another person really “caretaking?”

Compulsive Eating – Occurs when the individual eats for reasons other than physical hunger. He or she may or may not be overweight. Possible causes will be explored and approaches to treatment will be considered.

Depression – Focuses on symptoms of depression, types of depression, underlying causes, and treatment of depression. The power of choice is explored as it is related to depression and its effects. Also, the importance of one’s unconscious foundation on which expectations of life are abased is explored.

Depression and Suicide – Examines various levels of depression and discusses the difference between normal highs and lows and clinical depression which is best handled with professional support. A range of self-help and treatment options are described. Because depressed people are more likely than others to commit suicide the warning signs of suicide are discussed along with appropriate responses for family and friends.

Identifying and Dealing with Sexual Abuse – Helps participants identify the symptoms or after-effects of childhood abuse and provides some beginning understanding of the steps toward recovery.

Surviving Sexual Abuse – Examines what it means for adults to have survived childhood sexual abuse and explores possibilities for the healing journey.