Professional Training and Development for Every Workplace
Professional Ways was launched in 2025 and is an extension of Parenting Ways. Professional Ways offers a variety of excellent training and education programs to businesses and professionals, some of which are not available anywhere else in the South West.
Our range of child focused Professional Ways programs includes programs for:
- Early childhood co-ordinators and educators
- Primary school leaders and educators
- Upper school leaders and educators
- Daycare directors and educators
Professional Ways also delivers corporate training and education in leadership. Our range of corporate training and team building programs are not only for those working in the education industry, we also provide training programs for those working in mining, health, hospitality, entertainment, finance retail and technology.
Our range of corporate and team building programs can help individuals and teams:
- Improve productivity and performance in the workplace
- Enhance workplace relationships
- Improve communication in the workplace
- Encourage team collaboration
- Improve team interactions and dynamics
Deb Woods, the founder of Professional Ways, is an experienced and accredited facilitator who will help you find the right program and solution for you.
Get in touch with Deb to talk about your professional training and team building needs.
Quick links to courses on this page:
Aussie
Optimism
Protective Behaviours
– Universal Plus
Personality
Dimensions®
Circle of Security® Classroom Approach
Tuning in to
Your Student
The Brain
Architect
Aussie Optimism
What is Aussie Optimism
Aussie Optimism is a fun program that focuses on developing competencies, resilience and practical skills in children aged 4 to 14. It is evidence-based on psychological and educational research into the risk and protective factors associated with psychological difficulties with a particular focus on anxiety and depression.
There are several different Aussie Optimism programs available including:
- I Spy Feelings (for Kindy and Pre-Primary)
- Feelings and Friends (for students in years 1-2 and year 3)
- Positive Thinking Skills (for students in year 4)
- Social Life Skills (for students in years 5 and 6)
- Optimistic Thinking Skills (for students in years 7 and 8)
All Aussie Optimism programs are designed to enable teachers and educators to implement the Aussie Optimism programs in their classroom or daycare centre effectively and with confidence. The format is easy to follow and mapped to the National Curriculum and the Western Australian Curriculum for Health and Physical Education (HPE). The I Spy Feelings program for Kindy and Pre-Primary is also aligned with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF).
How do the Aussie Optimism sessions work?
As an Aussie Optimism Trainer, Deb Woods can bring the program to your organisation/workplace and provide an inclusive Aussie Optimism workshop designed for all staff. This is ideal for schools or daycare centres wishing to implement the Aussie Optimism Program as a whole-school intervention.
The workshop will detail important background information about mental health and teach you the Aussie Optimism Program and how to implement it in your school and/or daycare centre. Workshop participants will actively learn about the Aussie Optimism programs that are suitable to their organisation/workplace with programs suitable for children from kindergarten to year 8. Different levels of accreditation are available for teaching and non-teaching staff.
Protective Behaviours – Universal Plus
What is Protective Behaviours – Universal Plus?
Protective Behaviours is a personal safety and child abuse prevention program.
Using the Stay Safe Program and Wimbly the Wombat, Deb introduces your staff to interactive ways to help children in their care stay safe.
Staff will learn to support children in your care to:
- identify unsafe situations and take the right action to stay safe
- recognise the signs when things are no longer safe
- think clearly about their options and take the right action to stay safe
- seek help and problem solve using their support networks
- build their self confidence and self esteem
- reduce bullying
How do the Protective Behaviours – Universal Plus sessions work?
In the Protective Behaviours sessions, Deb takes a fun and interactive approach. Your staff will be able to support children in their care and give them the tools they need to problem-solve and stay safe. Not only will children be safer, but they will also have fun learning with Wibbly the Wombat and his friends.
Protective Behaviours is a half day workshop that can be facilitated at your workplace or an external venue of your choice.
Personality Dimensions®
Personality Dimensions® for Workplace, Leadership, Staff
Personality Dimensions® in the Classroom
What is Personality Dimensions
Using the rich insights provided by the Personality Dimensions® framework, Deb guides participants through various interactive activities that reveal unique aspects of each person’s personality.
Having a more profound understanding of colleagues’ strengths and preferences can help team members to work more effectively together, resulting in increased productivity, improved problem-solving ability, and greater satisfaction in the workplace.
Participant benefits include:
- understanding self and others better
- collaborating more effectively with colleagues
- enhanced job satisfaction.
Benefits for the employer include:
- higher productivity outputs
- better workplace problem-solving skills
- increased staff retention.
At the end of the workshop, your staff will know if they’re an Orange, Gold, Blue or Green personality and what that means regarding their work habits and communicating successfully with others.
How do the Personality Dimensions® sessions work?
Your staff will participate in engaging, stimulating, hands-on activities to discover more about themselves and their dominant personality type – Orange, Blue, Gold or Green. But more importantly, they’ll learn to communicate effectively with each other and gain a greater understanding on how our personality type effects our workplace interactions.
Personality Dimensions is a half day workshop or can be extended to a full day with additional team building activities. The program can be facilitated at your workplace or an external venue of your choice.
Circle of Security® Classroom Approach
What is the Circle of Security® Classroom Approach?
The Circle of Security® Classroom Approach is an extension of the Circle of Security Parenting program. However, instead of coaching parents, Deb enters the classroom or childcare centre to train staff on how to apply the program’s strategies and techniques.
Based on evidence-based research, the program is highly effective in helping carers and teachers nurture children’s emotional health and wellbeing.
You will be taught to:
- discover new ways to connect with children in your care
- recognise children’s emotional needs
- support children’s ability to manage their emotions successfully
- encourage the development of children’s self-esteem.
How do the Circle of Security® Classroom Approach sessions work?
In the Circle of Security® Classroom Approach program, Deb trains staff on better understanding children’s behaviours, identifying effective ways to respond to their emotions, and building a respectful, secure relationship with them.
This is an eight-week evidence-based program consisting of a 2 hour session each week. The program can be facilitated at your workplace or an external venue of your choice.
Tuning in to Your Student
What is Tuning in to Your Student?
Tuning in to Students is a variant of the Tuning in to Kids/Tuning in to Teens parenting programs. This professional learning program aims to build emotionally supportive school communities by emotion coaching children and adolescents in a school setting.
This program helps educators recognise, understand and respond constructively to students’ emotions – turning emotional moments into opportunities for growth and connection.
Tuning in to Students equips teachers with skills in Emotion Coaching to:
- Build emotion understanding and regulation skills to foster a positive classroom climate and strengthen social-emotional learning
- Identify early signs of student distress
- Validate and support student’s emotional experiences
- Guide emotion regulation and problem solving
- Promote a calm, respectful and engaged classroom emotional climate
How do the Tuning in to Your Student sessions work?
In the Tuning in to Your Student sessions, teachers will learn how to use emotion coaching with students in the one-to-one setting, with small groups of students and in the classroom setting. The program also provides videos of regulation strategies that can be used to regulate the classroom climate.
Schools have different needs, schedules and priorities and this program can be delivered in a variety of flexible formats. The program can be facilitated at your workplace or an external venue of your choice. Please contact our Professional Ways team to discuss delivery methods.
The Brain Architect
What is Brain Architect?
The Parenting Way’s Brain Architect game workshop helps policymakers, healthcare providers, and education specialists understand the connection between what happens in children’s brains during their early years and later successes or struggles as adults.
The fun hands-on Brain Architect workshop is the perfect way to get your stakeholders on board with understanding early childhood development’s short- and long-term impact. Plus, you’ll learn about what promotes healthy brain architecture, what derails it and the consequences for society.
How does a Brain Architect session work?
The Brain Architecture workshop is like a fun, hands-on game that helps you see and feel first-hand the implications of the science of early brain development. Further facilitation throughout the game provides the framework for productive conversations on various early childhood issues, policies and programs. Finally, a facilitated discussion concludes the game.
Participants takeaway:
- a robust and shared framework for productive conversations on a range of early childhood issues, policies and programs, and
- clarity and insight into shared civic responsibility for creating the environments in which young children develop.
The program can be facilitated at your workplace, school or an external venue of your choice.
The Brain Architecture workshop suits groups with as little as four people to large conference settings with many players.
Delightfully warm and approachable, Deb Woods delivers evidence-based parenting programs that work.