education
Instructor training for professionals working with children and young people
The next training starts in September 2025 in “Villa Fohrde”, Germany.
Feel free to contact info@ddif.de if you have any questions.
“Children – Mindfulness, Empathy, Compassion and Presence”
Throughout the curriculum we will pay close attention to group-building/teambuilding. In our experience, whenever you want to create a good environment for learning and development, it is necessary to create an atmosphere that is both safe and dynamic. These qualitites are important in the context of our own training as well as for the groups the participants are supposed to work with after the education. To create an environment free of prejudice and suffused with joy and cordiality we will make use of play and creativity, and also in this way make the training programme a kind of laboratory for personal growth and development.
The entire program is based on insights from contemporary psychology, neuro-affective psychology and pedagogy in combination with the ancient knowledge and wisdom that lies at the heart of meditation traditions. The training programme will run over two years, and will consist of nine 4-day residential workshop modules, comprising a total of 36 days.
Participation fee
The participation fee amounts to 6.700,- €
There is no value-added tax, fee excludes catering, travel costs and accommodation.
Location
Villa Fohrde, August-Bebel-Str. 42, 14798 Havelsee OT Fohrde
Accommodation and catering at Villa Fohrde
The Empathy training programme takes place at Villa Fohrde. The costs for accommodation and catering amount to € 336.15 per module. This price includes 3 overnight stays with a total of 4 meals per day. The first meal on the day of arrival is lunch, and the last meal on the day of departure is coffee and cake.
Accommodation and meals at Villa Fohrde are obligatory. In general, an overnight stay in a double room is provided.
Form
9 modules of 4 days. The training will have the form of a workshop, and will take place indoors as well as outdoors. Sessions will alternate between lectures, exercises in mindfulness and awareness, body exercises, exercises in relational competence, and work on dreams and creativity.
1. Module 11.-14.09.2025
2. Module 27.-30.11.2025
3. Module 08.-11.01.2026
4. Module 19.-22.03.2026
5. Module 02.-05.07.2026
6. Module 17.-20.09.2026
7. Module 26.-29.11.2026
8. Module 07.-10.01.2027
9. Module 20.-23.05.2027
Always from Thursday 10:00 a.m. – Sun 3:30 p.m
Criteria for participation
You are expected to have a daily meditation practice, or must be willing to establish and maintain one. You have previously received professional training and/or have substantial experience in working with children. You are to fill out a form and to write a 3-500 word statement about your personal and professional background, as well as your motivation for this training programme.
The training is organized in cooperation with ddif (German Danish Institute for Family Therapy and Counselling). To apply, please send a CV and a short letter of motivation explaining why you would like to take part in this training to info@ddif.de.
Maximum number of participants: 24
Between modules
You are expected to maintain a daily practice. Participants will exchange about their experiences in small groups, 2 times 3 hours, if necessary via Skype.
Teachers
Master of arts in psychology, dramaturgy and dance Katinka Gøtzsche, psychologist and family therapist Helle Jensen, author Peter Hoeg, MA, family therapist, Compassionate Systems Framework facilitator (MIT) and action researcher Lukas Herrmann, family therapist Rebecca Hinzmann.
Modules
Module 1 – Introduction
In the first module, we introduce the two main principles of our approach, namely relational competence and presence. This module focuses particularly on the participants’ own experience and practice. We will introduce a model that depicts the natural human competences that we all share and are born with. This “pentagon” model describes the five natural resources: body, breath, heart, creativity and consciousness. Each participant works on becoming aware of their own connection to these resources through inner exercises, working with the body, dialogues and games.
We also teach how relational competence can be understood and developed in theory and practice – and what contribution natural resources can make for us here.
How can we improve mindfulness, empathy, presence and compassion in our daily lives?
How can we find our way back to the joy of play and reconnect with our natural desire to create, as we remember it from our childhood?
And how can this regained joy influence our everyday lives and our professional and personal development?
Katinka Gøtzsche & Lukas Herrmann OR Rebecca Hinzmann
Module 2 – The connection between relationship skills and natural competences
“We can only encounter other people as deeply as we have encountered ourselves” (P. Hoeg).
This means that a relationship is lively and conducive to development (not necessarily always harmonious!) when the people involved have a sense of themselves, their own thoughts, feelings, boundaries, yes’s and no’s – and of their counterpart. This is why the development of relational competence builds on the five competences – and goes even further.
How can everyone get in touch with their own personal authority and authenticity?
The second module consolidates the foundation for the entire training by making the natural resources, relational competence and their connection tangible. In addition, the participants set their own goals for their professional and personal development, i.e. what they want to learn during the training period.
After Module 2, we will start a continuous training to support the participants’ own practice (virtual practice 1-hour meetings every fortnight). In this training we will deepen the practices introduced in the first two modules and learn new ones.
Katinka Gøtzsche & Lukas Herrmann OR Rebecca Hinzmann
Module 3 – Dialogue and inspiration for working with the five competencies
In the third module, we work with various impulses that enable access to natural resources. Participants will experience different ways of working with these resources for themselves and can use them as a starting point for their own guidance.
We also provide an insight into different formats for working with groups on relationship competence and the five competencies, both structured, manualised programmes and through intuitive application in work situations.
The focus is on how each individual can incorporate the experiences and content from the training into their everyday professional life.
This includes the ability and willingness to engage in dialogue. Reflecting on what we do and how we do it. Participants are invited to bring in and work on examples from their everyday work with children, young people or adults.
Katinka Gøtzsche & Lukas Herrmann OR Rebecca Hinzmann
Module 4 – The five competences, focus on meditation
The focus of this module is on the connection between natural competences and meditative practice. We look at meditation, contemplative traditions and the development of work with natural resources from these traditions. Together we will try out different approaches to meditative practice, attention and presence. We will introduce the various elements that a personal meditation practice can contain and what is helpful in developing it for yourself. The practical reference to the participants’ everyday life is important to us and thus also the question of how meditative practice can be used individually for work and private life.
Helle Jensen & Peter Høeg
Module 5 – Challenging situations
Working with people can sometimes be very challenging. When dealing with troubled children and young people or people with special needs, for example, educators often get out of control – and make the situation worse. In these moments, it is particularly important to stay in touch with yourself and your own strength in order to help the other person to do the same. How can we use the exercises for this? How can play and creativity help to resolve conflicts between children, between adults or between adults and children?
And how can I put myself in the shoes of someone who “triggers” me? Where would I perhaps like to be challenged myself? In dialogues and exercises, we examine which sources of strength are available to us to act constructively in such situations.
Katinka Gøtzsche & Lukas Herrmann
Module 6 – Retreat
The focus of this module is on the personal development of each individual. There is ample opportunity for contemplation in silence, for collective bodywork and for individual supervision.
Helle Jensen & Peter Høeg
Module 7 – Grief and loss
Relational competence and access to our natural competences are especially needed when we are with children and young people who have experienced grief and loss. How can we stay in touch with ourselves as well as with the child or children in such difficult circumstances?
Katinka Gøtzsche & Lukas Herrmann OR Rebecca Hinzmann
Module 8 – Working with groups on the principles of Training Empathy
Participants develop their own individual way of communicating the impulses and values to professionals, colleagues, parents and children and offer individual sequences for the group. The principles of the training are reflected upon and the experiences from the modules are collected and organised.
Participants present their projects and use their own experiences as a starting point for giving and receiving feedback.
How do we explain why we are going down this path, what we are doing and how we understand the work?
How can we organise encounters between people, and especially between adults and children, in such a way that they become fruitful encounters?
And how can those involved in these encounters also be with themselves and enable deep mutual understanding?
In order to ensure the growth of these new impulses and “seedlings”, we also examine our context of application: Which structures and processes in the work help the values and impulses to become effective? Which ones are more of a hindrance – and how do we relate to them?
Katinka Gøtzsche & Lukas Herrmann OR Rebecca Hinzmann
Module 9 – Evaluation and conclusion
In the last module, we take time for a dialogue-based evaluation of the participants’ personal and professional objectives.
Conclusion of the course and farewell.
Katinka Gøtzsche & Lukas Herrmann OR Rebecca Hinzmann