ACT in early childhood (4-11 years)
Practical skills for supporting children and parents
Working with younger children brings a unique set of challenges and opportunities, requiring a thoughtful and creative approach. This workshop introduces the use of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help young children (4–11) and their parents navigate psychological and behavioural difficulties. Using the DNA-V model (Hayes & Ciarrochi, 2015), a developmental framework for ACT, you’ll learn practical and engaging ways to encourage curiosity, mindfulness, and values-based action for both children and their parents.
Background to the workshop
The early years are a key time for helping children learn how to understand, express, and manage big feelings, build strong relationships, and develop healthy habits. Many young children struggle with things like anxiety, big outbursts, or feeling stuck, and this can make family life harder too.
ACT offers practical ways to support children and their caregivers by focusing on flexibility, emotional awareness, and meaningful action. While ACT is well-known with older children and adults, it’s still not used as often with younger kids.
This workshop is designed to help practitioners bring ACT to life in ways that make sense for younger children. Through playful, developmentally sensitive approaches rooted in behaviour analysis, we’ll look at how to support kids and their families in building resilience, regulating emotions, and living in line with what matters most to them.
What you will gain from this workshop
Participants will leave with:
- A clear understanding of the DNA-V model, as a developmental framework for ACT, and how to apply it with young children and their parents.
- Practical behavioural strategies to support parents in developing warm, responsive and effective parenting skills.
- Tools to spot and work with skill gaps that can lead to inflexibility, emotional struggles and challenging behaviour.
- Strategies for evoking and shaping values guided behaviour in children and parents, using play and real-life practice to support learning through trial and error.
- Child-friendly techniques to build core psychological flexibility skills, including being present, stepping back from unhelpful thoughts, tuning into what matters, and taking small meaningful actions.
About this workshop
The workshop combines didactic teaching with experiential learning. Participants will engage in clinical examples, role plays, video demonstrations, and hands-on practice to deepen their understanding of ACT principles and the DNA-V model. These interactive components will help attendees learn to conceptualise cases and apply therapeutic techniques effectively. Each session is designed to be highly practical, ensuring participants can integrate the skills into their clinical practice immediately.
Who will benefit from this workshop?
This workshop is designed for psychologists, therapists, and other mental health professionals working with children and families. While no prior experience with ACT is required, familiarity with behavioural or contextual therapies will be beneficial. It is particularly suited for clinicians looking to expand their toolkit for addressing psychological and behavioural challenges in early childhood, as well as those interested in process-based, developmentally informed interventions.
After this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Describe the DNA-V model as a developmental framework for acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) with children aged 4–11.
- Identify common psychological and behavioural challenges in early childhood and explain how ACT processes can be applied to address them.
- Demonstrate developmentally appropriate, play-based techniques for fostering psychological flexibility skills such as mindfulness, defusion, and values-guided action.
- Apply ACT strategies to support parents in strengthening responsive parenting practices and promoting resilience within family systems.
- Utilise child-friendly tools and metaphors to help children recognise feelings, step back from unhelpful thoughts, and take values-based actions.
- Develop practical intervention plans that embed ACT and DNA-V strategies into everyday family routines and real-life situations.
APA psychologists: This program is sponsored by Contextual Consulting and is approved for 7 CE credits for psychologists. Contextual Consulting is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Contextual Consulting maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Behaviour analysts: This workshop is available for 4 BACB Learning CEUs. Contextual Consulting is an approved BACB ACE Provider # OP-20-3415.
Nationally certified counselors: This workshop is available for 7 credit hours. Contextual Consulting Ltd. has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7578.
To find out more, including attendance requirements and how to access your certificate, go to our continuing education information page.
If you have disability and require adjustments or accommodation, please email us at admin@contextualconsulting.co.uk to discuss your needs and we will do our best to help you.
Booking cancellation
The registration fee will be refunded minus a administration charge if cancellations are received at least two weeks before the workshop date.
Cancellations within two weeks of the event date are charged the full registration fee, other than in exceptional circumstances that can be verified.
Event cancellation
In the event of cancellation of the course outside of our control we will not be held accountable for travel and/or accommodation costs incurred. However, the workshop fees will be refunded.
All workshops will be subject to minimum delegate numbers being met; in the event that a workshop should be cancelled delegates will be given no less than 2 months’ notice.
Replacing delegates
If a delegate is unable to attend and a replacement is nominated there may be a charge depending on the individual circumstances, this will be advised at the time. Please contact the us to request a replacement of delegates at least a week before the workshop date.
Contextual Consulting is committed to the identification and resolution of potential conflicts of interest in the planning, promotion, delivery, and evaluation of continuing education. Potential conflicts of interest occur when an individual assumes a professional role in the planning, promotion, delivery, or evaluation of continuing education where personal, professional, legal, financial, or other interests could reasonably be expected to impair their objectivity, competence, or effectiveness.
There was no commercial support for this event. None of the planners or presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.