Partner: Growing2gether: Professional CPD Training in Transformational Work with Young People (online)
January 29 - April 16, 2027
Growing2gether: Professional CPD Training in Transformational Work with Young People (Online)
With Diana Whitmore and Gavin Morgan
A professional, CPD accredited training for making a difference in young people’s lives, using Positive and Transpersonal (transformative) Psychology.
Do you seek to empower young people to make positive choices for their future? This accredited course will train you to apply the principles of transformative (positive psychology), helping you support improved mental health and wellbeing for young people.
For close to a decade, Scottish charity Growing2gether has been helping thousands of vulnerable young people find a sense of purpose. Proven results show measurable improvements in wellbeing, mental health and re-engagement with schooling and their communities.
This unique and pioneering approach is now available to others, through this trauma-sensitive training.
Using a multi-layered curriculum of theory and experiential learning, you’ll build your ability to work with more marginalised groups of children and young people, allowing them to experience their potential and gain the life skills necessary for better choices.
The training has been accredited by the Institute of Leadership.
Who is it for?
The programme is open to anyone who works in a leadership capacity for the wellbeing of children and young people, from youth workers and school guidance teams, to social workers, teachers, counsellors, psychologists and more. Anyone who aims for what is best and highest for our young people.
What you will learn
Rather than seeing young people as a “problem”, this methodology helps you bring out the unique potential that already exists within them, offering them a deeper understanding of who they essentially are.
Positive and Transpersonal (transformative) Psychology provides a holistic psychological approach, enabling people to develop self-awareness and personal responsibility. It recognises the importance of meaning and purpose as requirements for wellbeing, as well as positive engagement with society.
Course sessions
The course takes place online over 14 weeks. It begins with two days of facilitated sessions, followed by one day every two weeks, totalling 49 hours of classroom delivery. This is supplemented by Peer Learning and Support groups every two weeks, in small groups of three.
The teaching approach
This is experiential learning, which focuses on the learner experiencing the theory that is being taught. This means you will experience your own personal development as you learn the subject matter, both multi-dimensionally about yourself and about the diversity of others, through sharing and small group work.
Experiential learning lends itself especially well to working with children and young people. As a trainee, you’ll work on yourself in much the same way as you’ll be working with young people. This experiential form of teaching, mixed with theory, recognises the value of “learning by experience”, which enables you to integrate the theoretical content of the course more fully.
The skills you’ll take away
- How to establish a “container” to hold disengaged young people, firmly and positively
- A potential-orientated approach, and skills to look beyond surface behaviour
- Relational dynamics, mentoring, role modelling and how to build healthy attachments
- Leading young people in learning skills of self-reflection, and how to make choices that get the outcomes they want
- Reframing: tools to turn challenges into developmental steps forward
- A transformational approach to leadership, mindfulness and becoming a reflexive practitioner
- Tools for shifting mindsets to be positive and growth-based, and integrating this into your leadership
- Group dynamics and leadership styles
- Adolescent and youth social stages development
- Tools for managing challenging behaviour and conflict resolution, exploring the deeper need behind behaviour
- Young people and internal multiplicity: finding identity, trying out different identities
- Positive Psychology and Appreciative Inquiry: its value and application to leadership and education
- Enhancing leadership through coaching skills, methodology and application
FREE Taster webinars (online)
Get a taste of what you’ll explore in a free, experiential hour and a half webinar, to see if this training is for you.
- Friday, September 18, 2026, 5.30 to 7pm UK time
- Thursday, November 19, 2026, 10am to 11.30am UK time
(Check your time zone: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter?t=1730&tz2=London-UK)
Course requirements
- Facilitated sessions: 1 day every 2 weeks, including 49 hours of classroom delivery of experience and theory
- Peer Learning and Support groups every two weeks, in small groups of three
- 14 hours of suggested reading or supportive internet learning
- 1.5 hours of self-reflective journalling after each module (10.5 hours total)
Additionally, due to the experiential learning nature of the programme, self-reflection occurs after each exercise and is shared with a partner or in small groups.
At the end of the training, you’ll be asked for a personal essay of 2,000 words on the application of your major learnings, including five (or more) case examples, as well as reflection on your leadership style of work with young people.
Entry criteria
To attend the course, participants must:
- Be willing to engage in experiential learning and personal development. Due to this approach of multi-levelled learning, participants are required to experience the models and methodologies they will be applying to their work with children and young people, which builds their abilities to work with more marginalised groups
- Commit to attending a minimum of 80% of the sessions
- Have a minimum of one year’s experience working with, mentoring or supporting children and young people, or previous experience with similar skills
- Be 18 years or older
- Have previous experience of collaboration and social learning
We will use the Institute Approved status to promote our Transformational Work with Young People as a kite-marked CPD training for professionals working with children and young people. A short application for the CPD accreditation is required.
About the teachers
Diana Whitmore
Diana has founded and directed three successful charities over a 40-year period. She has designed and delivered professional training in the fields of business coaching, psychotherapy and counselling and youth work. Diana is founder Co-CEO of Growing2gether, a charity and resilience-based youth mentoring programme, which raises self-esteem, aspiration and educational attainment whilst re-engaging young people with their communities.
Until 2016 she was a Founding Director of Power 2, addressing the social exclusion of young people and, in doing so, reducing the number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET). She is founder and a current trustee of the Psychosynthesis Trust. For 25 years she was Chairperson of the Trust, Joint Chief Executive, Head of Professional Courses and a Senior Trainer and Supervisor in psychosynthesis.
She has practised psychosynthesis for over 40 years, training professionals throughout Europe, and consults on research and development of new projects in positive psychology. She is accredited by the UKCP National Register of Psychotherapists, a BACP Accredited Senior Supervisor and a founding member of the Association for Accredited Psychospiritual Psychotherapists. She was on the trustee board of the Findhorn Foundation for 18 years, between 1994 and 2012.
She is the author of two books, Psychosynthesis in Education: A Guide to the Joy of Learning and Psychosynthesis Counselling in Action. Her background includes didactic training with Roberto Assagioli, the founder of Psychosynthesis. She trained in Humanistic Psychology at the Esalen Institute, California, and holds an MA in Confluent Education from the University of California.
Diana says: “As a young student of Roberto Assagioli in the 1970s, the period just preceding his death, I was moved by his mission to put the soul back into psychology, which led to my taking over the Psychosynthesis & Education Trust. The Trust was revitalised in honour of Assagioli’s vision, that for human beings to truly flourish and experience fulfilment from life, psychology needed to include the soul, the place in each of us where we find meaning and purpose and a deeper sense of wellbeing. I have been both fulfilled and delighted to see the Trust flourish and grow to be a respected professional training programme.”
Gavin Morgan
Gavin (PGDip CLD/BA Business) is Co-CEO of Growing2gether, the charity supporting and empowering young people through its Nursery/ELC mentoring programme, Youth Social Action Community programmes, and adult training in positive and transpersonal psychology.
Gavin has over 28 years’ experience across public, private and third-sector organisations. He is vice co-chair on the CLD Standards Council’s registration and membership committee and is completing an advanced diploma in coaching. He is passionate about community, learning and development, and has extensive experience working with children, young people and adults across a variety of settings.
He spent six years in a national role for Who Cares? Scotland and over eight years within the CLD youth team at Moray Council. He is a trained Rites of Passage Guide with the School of Lost Borders in California. When not immersed in community development, you may find him out on his Canadian canoe, wild camping, playing his guitar or enjoying a board game with his wife and children.
Gavin says: “I really believe that when young people find their voice and come together, they don’t just build a community, they become the force that transforms it.”
FREE Taster webinars (online)
Get a taste of what you’ll explore in a free, experiential hour and a half webinar, to see this if this training is for you.
Friday September 18, 2026 5.30 – 7pm UK time (Check your time zone)
Thursday November 19, 2026 10am – 11.30am UK time (Check your time zone)
