Previous Courses

The BICA Training Group offers a range of workshops and courses that aim to promote best practice amongst professionals who work with people affected by infertility. These are variously designed to meet the training needs of counsellors and therapists who are already specialising in the field of infertility or wish to do so, or those whose work includes some clients with fertility issues, and of doctors, embryologists, nurses and support staff in the multidisciplinary clinic team. We also provide training for other organisations in related fields in the UK and overseas.

All members of the Training Group are accredited and experienced infertility counsellors. Our approach is to balance direct teaching with experiential learning and ample room for reflection and discussion.

 

1. Donation and Family Creation

A study day for counsellors and therapists who wish to develop or refresh their knowledge and skills in work with people who need sperm, egg or embryo donation in order to have a child and with the people who offer their gametes or embryos. It explores:

The legal framework in the UK
The needs of donor conceived people from early childhood through to adulthood.
The issues to be faced in finding a donor
Working with the loss and grief
The impact of fertility loss on the individual, couple and those close to them
The meaning of mother, father and parent in our world today
Emotional, social and cultural issues in parenting children conceived by donation
Counselling the donors
The counsellors role in the assisted conception centre

 

2. Implications Counselling Today

In a fast-changing landscape of ART with ever-increasing choices for family creation, it can be difficult to keep up with new developments.   At times the role of implications counselling stretches our skills and resources in unexpected ways and we may be faced with competing needs. At others, the routine of the work may lead to complacency and dull our awareness. This one day workshop will give you the opportunity to take some time out to update and refresh your knowledge, to review your practice and explore the challenges facing the counsellor in the implications session.

3. Complex Issues

This is a workshop for counsellors and therapists who work in the field of infertility. The programme balances teaching with experiential learning. It aims to ensure that fertility counsellors have a sound knowledge of the legal framework, are aware of the potential risks, have insight into the issues that surrogates, intended parents, donors and recipients face and the skills to undertake this complex work.

4. Facing the Void

When our clients face the prospect of untreatable infertility and the loss of the child/ren that they have imagined, the grief can be hard to bear and the future may feel like a void. Their journey is often intensely painful and poses great challenges to counsellors. At this workshop we will explore how both clients and counsellors negotiate this experience, and how they find a way to move forward. We will look at the personal and social implications of remaining childless and talk more about one of the alternatives – adoption.

5. “Why Me?”- Insights Into Infertility

The inability to conceive and bear a child can have a devastating effect on people’s emotional well-being, personal relationships and social functioning. Effective counselling can play a really important role in enabling them to deal with the many anticipated and actual losses of this experience. This workshop is designed for professional counsellors who, in their general practice, find themselves working with clients suffering from infertility, in recognition of the need for additional knowledge and skills to undertake this work.

6. Working with Men in an Infertility Setting

This workshop will provide counsellors and therapists with additional insights and skills when working with men in a fertility setting. It aims to enhance their role in working with men both as individuals and in the couple relationship. We will look at typical reactions of men, gender differences and explore the issues that arise when men are faced with sperm or egg donation or choose to be donors.

How working with men impacts us
How is it for them?
What is male infertility?
The counsellor’s role
Working with donors

7. Trauma Perspectives on infertility

What is Trauma? How does it come about? When are our clients exhibiting trauma reactions as opposed to the effects of grief and loss? How does trauma manifest in the fertility counselling room? How do fertility counsellors support clients experiencing both past and current trauma? What’s the small “t” and what’s the big “T”?

8. Couple Counselling

A study day for counsellors and therapists who work in the field of infertility to develop skills for working with couples. Its focus is:

This study day is for all members of the fertility team looking at the issues that are raised for staff and patients when no more treatment can be offered. It addresses:

Facing the future – the void and ways which both staff and patients might collude in avoiding the void
Breaking bad news – dealing with the patients and our own feelings
The meaning of the baby for the individual and the couple
Why people wish to have children
The losses when this cannot be achieved
The role and issues for all members of the fertility team
Facilitating and staying with the mourning process
Helping patients to end and leave the clinic
 

9. Infertility Matters

This study day is for all members of the fertility team looking at issues that may arise for staff and patients when no more treatment can be offered. It addresses:

Facing the future – the void and ways which both staff and patients might collude in avoiding the void
Breaking bad news – dealing with the patients’ feelings and our own
The meaning of the baby for the individual and the couple
Why people wish to have children
The losses when this cannot be achieved
The role and issues for all members of the fertility team
Facilitating and staying with the mourning process
Helping patients to end and leave the clinic

 

10. Working with Surrogacy

A one day CPD interactive workshop aiming to explore in an experiential environment the complexities and the fertility counsellor’s role in supporting patients both Intended Parents and Surrogates considering surrogacy arrangements

We will explore their journey from initial considerations through relationship building, potential implications and working in line with the HFEA 9th Code of Practice. We will explore the complex legalities and the proposed Law Commissions Consultation

An interactive workshop for counsellors aiming to in crease their knowledge and experience in:

Surrogacy arrangements
Intended Parents Journey
Surrogates Journey
Changes made in the 2019 HFEA Code of Practice 9th Edition
Proposed changes in the Law Commissions Consultation

Intended Parents Personal expereince along with their Surrogate and her personal experience