Skills for Living Groups 2025
Key Day/Time
Saturdays 10:00 – 12:00 & 12:30 – 2:00
Key Dates
Location
70, Victoria Avenue, Invercargill, Southland Region, 9810, New Zealand.
These workshops offer specific skills set for everyday living, including distress tolerance skills, emotion
regulation skills, mindfulness skills and interpersonal effectiveness skills. Many SCS kiritaki have difficulty recognising, regulating and processing emotional aspects of trauma, tolerating distress, regulating emotion and engaging in here-and-now mindfulness (Linehan, Fruzetti, et al). These workshops will reduce crisis management in individual therapy, strengthen therapeutic and social relationships, and ultimately reduce the time individuals require therapeutic intervention. Kiritaki could complete the skills for living group as stand-alone workshops, or as a complete programme (which will total 32 hours).
Skills Group Programme Overview
The essential components of the skills group programme are skills focussed around four domains:
- 1. Distress Tolerance Skills – learn to bear pain skilfully, without making the situation worse.
Saturday, 19 July 2025 & Saturday, 26 July 2025- STOP
- TIP or TIPP
- Wise Mind ACCEPTS
- Improving the moment with IMPROVE
- Radical Acceptance / Turning the Mind
- Willingness
- Create New Coping Strategies / Committed Action
- Emotion Regulation Skills – learn strategies to accept and also change painful emotions, and to increase more positive mood states.
Saturday, 13 September & Saturday, 20 September 2025- Observing and Describing Emotions
- Mindfulness of Emotions Without Judgement
- PLEASE Skills
- Opposite Action
- ABC
- VITALS
- Pros & Cons3.
- Relationship Effectiveness Skills – learn to manage emotions in relationships. The skills taught in this module are very practical ones, e.g. How do I go about getting my needs met without damaging a relationship? How do I learn to say no to people? How can I ask for what I want?
Saturday, 11 October 2025 & Saturday, 18 October 2025- Knowing What You Want / Your Rights
- DEAR MAN
- Asking and Saying “No”
- Making a Simple Request – 4 Components
- Modulating Intensity of Yes and No
- GIVE
- FAST
- Assertive Listening
- Blocks to Listening
- Coping with resistance and conflict
- Mindfulness Skills – learn how to accept life as it is in the moment.
Saturday, 1 November 2025 & Saturday, 8 November 2025- Grounding / Five Senses
- Identifying Your Emotions (anger, fear, sadness, joy)
- Wise Mind: States of Mind
- Judgements vs Present Moment
- Beginner’s Mind
- What Skills
- How Skills
- Participation
- Five Steps to Mindful Regulation
- Radical Acceptance / Turning the Mind
- Daily Mindfulness Regimen
Who is the group for?
- kiritaki over 18+
- inclusive of men and women of different cultures, ethnic backgrounds and physical abilities
- kiritaki needing to develop any or all of the following: emotion regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness and relationship effectiveness skills.
Referral Criteria
Kiritaki eligible for participation in the skills for life workshop/s will be those with an accepted ACC sensitive claim and are in the Support to Wellbeing stage of their treatment Package A or B.
Hours to Request
On your Wellbeing Plan, please name which of the group/s your client would like to attend
Supplier: South Coast Psychology G09884
1x SCSGTT: Triage for Group-based Therapy (per group)
8x SCSGT: Group-based Therapy in-person sessions (per group)
Course Information
Location: Unit 2, 70 Victoria Avenue, Invercargill
Times: Each group will consist of two consecutive weekends on a Saturday, 10:00 – 12:00 & 12:30 – 2:00
For further information please contact
- Kate McKay (PAI347) – Counsellor 027 222 2865 – katejmckay@gmail.com
- Annie Coughlan (PAK864) – Counsellor 027 250 9838 – ann-mariecou@hotmail.com
Location
70, Victoria Avenue, Invercargill, Southland Region, 9810, New Zealand.
