All Available Workshops
OMSSA offers a diverse range of professional development opportunities for human services staff at all levels.
In addition to our scheduled workshops, OMSSA can work with you to deliver any of our workshops to you and your team in a virtual or in-person format at a time that works for you. We can also customize the content of each workshop to meet your specific needs.
Click on the workshop titles below to learn more about each workshop, and contact OMSSA's Director, Education Christie Herrington to learn more about bringing a workshop in-house.
See our complete listing of professional development workshops below, including information on Self-Directed Learning Paths, our OW Directives and SAMS Training Series, and Person-Centric Strategies.
All Online Workshops
Being Trauma Informed (formerly Trauma Informed Care
Building Your Conflict Management Competencies
Creating Interactive Digital Meetings and Learning Sessions
Crisis Intervention: Strategies for Effective Verbal De-Escalation in Stressful Situations (formerly De-Escalation Strategies for High Stress Situations)
Difficult Conversations Series
- Making Difficult Conversations Easier
- Improve Your Listening Skills with the 4-Step Empathy Loop
- Resolving Difficult Conversations
Eligibility Review Officer Core Training
Fundamentals of Transformative Mentoring and Coaching
Fundamentals of the Internal Review Process and Preparing for Social Benefits Tribunal (formerly Case Presenting Officer)
Addressing Hoarding: Evidence-Based and Trauma-Informed Approaches
Self-Directed Learning Paths
New for 2024, OMSSA has organized the education calendar to help you gradually build and layer your skills. Consider following one of the self-directed paths* for your personal learning.
If you are interested in taking courses from multiple self directed paths, consider enrolling in the OMSSA Academy to complete our Human Services Certificate Program.
*Self-directed paths are suggested course selections clustered together based on an overall theme. Participants do not receive a certification or credential for completing courses in a specific path.
Leadership Path
Human Services Fundamentals
- Difficult Conversations Series
- Practical Intervention Skills: Effective Strategies for Complex Mental Health & Addictions (formerly Motivational Interviewing
- Addressing Hoarding: Evidence-Based and Trauma-Informed Approaches
- Compassion Fatigue
- Being Trauma Informed
- Person-Centric Strategies for Staff 1
- Person-Centric Strategies for Staff 2: Advanced Applications
Caring for Yourself and Others
OW Directives and SAMS Training Series
Working within Ontario Works (OW) and the Social Assistance Management System (SAMS) can be challenging at the best of times. OMSSA provides several OW/SAMS training workshops as a great way to enhance skills and efficiency for yourself or your colleagues. OMSSA can work with you to develop, customize and deliver a custom training plan to suit the unique needs of your team.
Learn more about workshops for OW Directives and SAMS Training.
Person-Centric Strategies
Person-Centric Strategies (PCS) is a comprehensive, strategic series of targeted professional development programs designed to prepare staff, teams, organizations, related service systems and those they serve to respond effectively to wholesale provincial changes to social assistance and employment services. OMSSA can work with you to customize and deliver these sessions in a way that suits your team's needs.