Parent Workshops
Parents at ISB take an active role in ensuring students wellbeing and they are regularly invited to interactive workshops with experts from ISB and elsewhere.
FORTHCOMING WORKSHOPS
Wednesday, 15 February
18:00 - 19:30
Reinach Campus
Introduction: 18:00 - 18:10
Session 1: 18:25 - 18:50
Session 2: 18:55 - 19:30
Explore the Topics - 15 Feb
Keeping Calm in Stressful Times
Presentation
Presenter
Jo Storrar
Jo is a Child and Adolescent Psychologist who brings over 12 years of experience working in community mental health services in Scotland for children aged 0-18yrs. She has a solid reputation of building relationships with young people and their families and is trained in many therapeutic interventions and international parenting programmes. Jo has lectured at a number of Scottish Universities on child and adolescent development and psychological theory. This is her 4th year counselling senior school students at ISB.
Additionally, Jo is a yoga teacher and fitness instructor, passionate about considering individuals holistically and contributing to their overall resilience and well-being.
Hayley Milner
Hayley Milner has been working for the past fifteen years in schools across Australia, Thailand and Switzerland. Her education background includes a BA in Applied Theatre, a graduate degree in Education (Secondary Drama & English) and Masters in Counselling.
Her passion lies in the development of the whole child ensuring their health and well-being in and outside of the classroom. She is looking forward to building relationships with students, parents and community while collaborating with Steve Ayling to support our middle school students.
Positive Parenting
Presentation
In this workshop, we will explore a variety of tried and trusted resources, tools and strategies to help parents develop their unique positive parenting toolkit, while engaging in rich conversations around parenting and education.
We will share and explore some common dilemmas and challenges with one another so come along with an open mind. We hope you enjoy this opportunity to talk and strategize together.
Presenters
Becca Bower
Dr. Becca Bower is a UK trained Clinical Psychologist, who is registered to work with individuals experiencing mild - severe mental health difficulties across the lifespan.
Becca specialises in working with children, young people and their families, but has previously worked as a Clinical Psychologist in the UK National Health Service (NHS) within Maternity and Neonatal, Adult Mental Health and Intellectual Disability services.
Becca enjoys connecting with children and families, using a range of evidence based interventions to support wellbeing within a proactive early intervention framework.
Steve Ayling
Steve Ayling is in his 21st year of International School Education, originally from the UK where he gained his BEd prior to venturing to the Philippines. He earned his counsellor certification and Masters degree by 2010 and has spent the last 13 years working as a school counsellor at each school division.
In addition to supporting students, and working as a summer workshop leader in counselling, Steve has a passion for Parent Education, hosting various workshops and bookgroups and is excited to delve into various parenting resources, strategies and dilemmas together with you.
Parenting Adolescents
Presentation
This workshop will examine to following topics:
- What are the current challenges facing our children and young people today?
- Adolescent Psychosocial and Neurological Development.
- How do we understand the differences between normal adolescence and mental health difficulties?
- Building a strong relationship with your teenager.
Presenter
Justine Gardiner
Originating from England, Justine holds a Master’s Degree in Guidance and Counselling from the University of Southern Queensland Australia. She has enjoyed 23 years working in a professional therapeutic capacity with children, young people and families in the UK and internationally, including 14 years of practice as an International School Counsellor in Brunei Darussalam and Singapore.
Justine embraces diversity and remains enthused to provide an inclusive and holistic approach to enriching student experience and wellbeing. Justine’s practice at all times reflects her personal values of compassion, integrity and respect for human rights and dignity.
Raising Food & Body Confident Kids & Teens
Presentation
There are so many confusing messages around food, eating, bodies and health and some of these have the potential to harm kids and teens. This session briefly explores the relationship between food, eating and body image, why positive body image and non-diet approaches to food and exercise are important for a child’s overall well-being and what parents can do to help their children develop a healthy body image and healthy behaviours in relation to food and exercise. This is a relaxed and informal session for parents who want to hear a message with a difference from a nutrition professional!
Presenter
Louise Pollard
Louise has a Bachelor of Science and Master of Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Sydney, Australia. She is an Accredited Practising Dietitian, is recognised by the Swiss Association of Dietitians (SVDE) and a certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor.
She has diverse experience having worked as both a dietitian for adults and children at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, Australia and in the NHS, in the United Kingdom. Prior to starting her private practice in 2021, Louise was a lecturer for 10 years teaching students completing the undergraduate degree course for nutrition and dietetics at the Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. She now works exclusively in private practice in Basel, specialising in Intuitive Eating and helping parents raise food and body confident kids. She is passionate about helping women and their families improve their health and well-being – without dieting and food deprivation.
Want to find out more? Go to Louise’s website at https://louisepollardnutrition.com/
Substances, Social Work & Youth Criminal Law
Presentation
This workshop is designed to discuss the Swiss Legal system particularly the Swiss juvenile crime law and the liability of children and teenagers. A special focus will be on substance abuse amongst young people. It will also discuss risky behaviours and some commonly used substances in Basel. This presentation is designed to give practical, local advice to parents living in Basel. It will encourage questions and audience engagement.
Presenter
Sabrina Schürch
Sabrina studied law at the university of Basel. After several internships among others at the criminal court of Basel-Landschaft and a law firm at Basel, she started working on May 2015 at the Jugendanwaltschaft Basel-Landschaft in Liestal. As a lawyer Sabrina Schürch is responsible for leading the criminal investigations against children and teenagers between the age of 10 years old and 18 years old. Her main goal is to work up the committed crimes together with the teenagers/children and their parents and to prevent them from committing new crimes.
Rene Henz
René worked in addiction prevention and health promotion in Solothurn for around 15 years. At the same time, during the first 7 years there, he additionally worked as a school social worker. Before that, he made his Bachelor of Social Work at the FHNW and worked in two juvenile shelters in Basel and Liestal. Since April 2022 he has been working as a social worker at the Jugendanwaltschaft Basel-Landschaft and is, among other things, responsible for personality and environmental assessments as well as the execution of sentences for delinquent young people. René Henz likes working with young people and their environment. His goal is to support them in their everyday challenges and to motivate them to get involved in their own lives.
Healthy Relationships & Sexual Health
Presentation
Presenters
Kirsten Cumming
Kirsten, is part of the ISB nursing team. She, began her career as a pediatric nurse, nursing children up to the age of 16. Working as a rehabilitation nurse she then moved into surgical nursing ( nursing people pre and post surgery) . During this time she was lucky enough to do some flight nursing, collecting patients from small outlying hospitals, and also flying seriously unwell patients to an even larger hospital, in the NZ capital Wellington. A nurse, a pilot and the patient, all in one small plane!
Then, wanting to broaden her nursing experience, she moved overseas, ending up in England. More surgical nursing jobs in various locations (whilst also travelling in Europe) then finally moving into the role of a community nurse (caring for people in their homes) an area in which she would describe as her favourite type of nursing!
Alison Snow
Natasha Prime
Natasha is part of the ISB nursing team. After completing her MSc in Nursing, she started nursing on a surgical ward then specialised in emergency nursing at a busy London hospital. She completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Tropical Nursing and volunteered in Malawi, Africa to help set up the first Emergency department in the country. She moved to Switzerland in 2018 with her family while keeping up her skills as a nurse at ISB
Wellbeing in the Digital Age
Presentation
Our Digital Wellbeing session will help you establish what your values are as a family around technology and the digital world. Thought provoking questions and interactions will guide you in reflecting on what kind of digital parent you are, and the habits you’re nurturing around technology and social media. We will provide direction to help you establish Digital Media Agreements as a family surrounding safety, digital citizenship, and media balance. Additionally, we’ll discuss what safeguarding online can look like and how you might adjust device settings to help prevent your child from accidentally stumbling on sensitive content. Lastly, we’ll provide different resources that can help you to be a digitally informed parent.
Presenter
Jillian Dingrando
Jillian has lived abroad for the last 14 years and is originally from Michigan, USA. She has 15 years of experience working in schools. She worked at International School Manila for 13 years where she was a Classroom Teacher and Grade Level Program Leader, certified EAL Teacher, and Wellbeing Teacher. Jillian found her ultimate passion to be student wellbeing and decided to pursue counselling.
Last year, her family moved to Basel, and after spending the past year settling into life here, she is ecstatic to be joining the ISB Counselling team, part-time. Please feel free to contact her or pop by to introduce yourself! Ms. Jillian is looking forward to building relationships with students, parents, and teachers at ISB and supporting individuals across the community.
Scott Hall
Scott Hall has over 20 years of teaching experience at all levels of education. As an elementary teacher, he developed a view of inquiry and technology integration that continues to drive his work today. Scott has aimed to work with teachers and students in such a way where learning with technology is seen as simply learning. Over the past 5 years Scott has led various versions of the Tech Talks with Parents series at ISBasel. This series has covered a wide range of topics from screen time to how we parent in the digital age.