Transitions - good beginnings and good endings

Change is part of our everyday lives. It’s what we all know in theory though often hard to live through, especially in these recent times of uncertainty in the pandemic.

Transitions can cause stress even when the change is a positive one – welcoming a new baby into the family, starting school, moving to a new class, starting a new job, moving to Japan! All changes are about fracture and reconnection.

How we learn to manage and thrive in the process of change is a life skill. The session will focus on the underlying theories that stress the importance of intentional transition planning.

The 90-minute Zoom session will cover:

• The rationale for transition planning -being part of a mobile world, attachment theory, grief and loss, relationship making
  
• What transition looks like in terms of emotions and behaviour
• A transition cycle as a framework for understanding and intervention
• What helps to create a good welcome and a good goodbye -examples of good practice
• Building and using strengths
• Working with parents

About the Presenter

Elizabeth Gillies is an Educational Psychologist from the UK and now based in London. She has worked in schools as a psychologist at the individual, group and systems level for over 30 years. She has been fortunate to live, work and raise her family in America, Japan and Australia so, unsurprisingly is interested in transitions and the implications for families and schools. Tokyo was home for 10 years, so she has a good understanding and knowledge of life in this great city.

Currently she works in schools and with families mainly in a counselling therapeutic role and as a trainer for school communities and other organisations. She is a founder member of London multi-professional group, Special Networks (www.specialnetworks.co.uk)and is UK Co-chair of a global Third Culture Kids organisation, Families in Global Transition (FIGT).