Systemic Practice & Family Therapy Training Program

This training is suited to qualified professionals working in health and social care settings, including:

• Social Workers

• Nurses

• Psychiatrists

• General Practitioners

• Psychologists

• Psychotherapists

• Counsellors

• Occupational Therapists

To get the most from the program, participants need to be in a role where they can actively work with individuals, couples, and families, and have access to ongoing systemic supervision.

Testimonial — What would you tell someone who was considering completing the training? 

It changes the way you see people, relationships, and problems not just clients, but teams, organisations, and even your own family dynamics.

If you’re used to linear thinking (“this happened because of X”), the training helps you think more relationally and systemically.

It encourages curiosity rather than certainty moving away from needing to immediately identify who is right, wrong, responsible, or the “problem.”

The training can feel challenging because it asks you to reflect on your own patterns, assumptions, and responses not just your professional practice.

It is highly practical, not just theoretical. The concepts can be applied immediately in conversations, assessments, supervision, and team dynamics.
— Senior Social Worker, Christchurch

What I would tell someone considering the training – DO IT. Helps to open conversations when you feel stuck as a clinician, creates more ways to be curious and engage with clients and whanau. I think no matter what setting you work in it is beneficial.

 How has my practice changed/been influenced by this training – So many ways I think this training has helped me grow as a clinician. I don’t think I can go back to how I was working before, I’m curious about so many more things and have so many more tools in my kit.
— Registered Nurse, Auckland

The program combines teaching, case discussions, reading, and video material, with a strong emphasis on connecting ideas directly to your clinical work.

You’ll be encouraged to bring your own cases, questions, and reflections into the learning space.

This is not just about acquiring knowledge—it’s about developing a way of thinking, seeing, and practising that stays with you.

By the end of the program, you can expect to:

• Develop a solid grounding in key systemic models and understand how they have evolved over time

• Build practical skills for engaging individuals, couples, and families across a range of presentations

• Strengthen your ability to think systemically in complex clinical situations

• Grow your confidence in working collaboratively and meaningfully with families

• Deepen your capacity for self-reflection and understand how your own experiences shape your practice

• Explore your personal and professional development through a systemic lens

• Engage critically with therapeutic ideas and approaches

• Understand and apply concepts such as the Family Life Cycle across diverse family forms

• Increase your awareness of the wider social context, including culture, identity, power, and inequality

• Strengthen your commitment to anti-oppressive and inclusive practice

• Appreciate the central role of ethics in both individual and organisational work

• Become more familiar with key family therapy literature and research

Now in its sixth year, the program has welcomed clinicians from across Aotearoa New Zealand.

Each intake has filled quickly—often with waiting lists—reflecting both the demand for this way of working and the value participants take back into their practice.

• June 2026

• October 2026