Foundation House - Incidental Counselling 2-day workshop

Learn skills for responding to distress in people from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds.

This practical, hands-on, two-day workshop is designed to increase your confidence, knowledge, and skills to provide responsive and culturally sensitive support when counselling is incidental to your primary roles. Led by senior Foundation House staff with extensive experience as counsellors, you’ll walk away equipped with essential incidental counselling techniques, practical communication tools, and greater confidence to support those you work with enhancing both your practice and the experience of the people you serve.

No counselling experience required.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• Better understand the psychological, social, and emotional consequences of torture and other traumatic events through Foundation House’s conceptual lense and Trauma Recovery Framework
• Understand the emotional, behavioural, and cognitive responses common in people impacted by torture, trauma and resettlement stressors, including black-and-white thinking, dissociation, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm
• Practical strategies for responding to anger and distress
• How to sensitively respond to disclosures in the moment and provide emotional containment and grounding through simple techniques 
• How to identify common duty-of-care issues, and recognise when referrals and further supports are needed 
• Strategies to maintain appropriate professional boundaries guided by the expectations of your role and your level of expertise
• Increase your awareness of your own emotional, physical, and attitudinal responses to survivors and their circumstances so that you can stay present and grounded in challenging interactions 
   

Workshop Style - Learn through presentations, exercises that bring theory into practical application, and discussions in large and small groups.

Certificates and handouts - A PDF of the slides and a certificate of completion will be emailed to you after the event.

CPD points -This workshop adheres to the continuing professional development standards of most professional bodies. Please check the CPD policy of your professional body.

Who should attend?

• Caseworkers, social workers, community workers, youth workers
• Settlement or housing support staff
• Medical, allied health, and admin staff
• Community leaders, bicultural works, peer workers and volunteers
• Educators and school wellbeing staff
• Anyone likely to be “confided in” by people in distress

Pre-requisite

ASSUMED KNOWLEDGE/PREREQUISITE

Participants will be given access to the Foundation House Refugee and Asylum Seeking Experiences (RASE) online 2-hour self-paced module which should be completed prior to the workshop.

Facilitators

Shubha Gokhale, Foundation House Practice Leader

Shubha Gokhale is a psychotherapist who has worked with children, young people, adults and families in India and in Australia. Shubha has worked with refugee and asylum seeker clients in the community and in held detention. In previous roles, Shubha has worked across educational, justice and community settings. Shubha is interested in the work of therapy and supervision in producing generative responses to trauma. She is a member of the Freudian School of Melbourne.

Kristina Dellosa, Foundation House Facilitator

Kristina is a Clinical Psychologist and educator with over a decade of experience across Victoria’s public mental health sector. Driven by a deep passion for cultural diversity and equitable access to care, her ongoing work centres on dismantling systemic barriers and aspiring that vulnerable communities receive culturally responsive, affirming support.

Prior to joining Foundation House in 2026, Kristina served as a Senior Psychology Educator at Western Health, where she focused on workforce capacity-building, instructional design, and equipping multidisciplinary teams with evidence-based frameworks to navigate complex trauma.

Holding a Master of Psychology (Clinical) and AHPRA board-approved supervisor status, Kristina is dedicated to fostering psychological safety, reflective practice, and systemic advocacy that champions human rights and social justice.