Perspectives
Training update 2026
You spoke and we listened - read about updates to our training programs
Over the past year, we’ve made some significant changes to how ODC delivers its One-Year Foundation Course — and we wanted to share what that means for practitioners across Australia. These changes have been shaped by what we’ve heard from practitioners and services about what they need to make Open Dialogue work in their context.
Our One-Year Foundation Course (OYFC) is now available virtually — making it accessible to mental health, primary care, youth services, allied health and community practitioners right across Australia.
It can also be delivered in-person for organisations wanting to train a cohort of 20-25 people together.
The OYFC develops the skills, knowledge and confidence to facilitate Open Dialogue network meetings, and supports practitioners to implement the approach in a way that is genuinely transformative — for people and families, and for the workforce delivering their care.
A few things that make this course different:
→ Delivered in sequenced blocks, with space for reflection and practice between sessions.
→ Practitioners who’ve completed our Four-Day Skills Training can now continue directly into the OYFC at day 5 — creating a flexible pathway for teams to build capability together
→The first four days of the OYFC now run concurrently with the Four-Day Skills Training. This means services can train support facilitators and lead facilitators at the same time — building consistency and shared language across your team from day one.
→ Our faculty brings years of experience implementing and adapting Open Dialogue across vastly different service settings — their teaching is grounded in real practice, not theory alone.
By the end of the course, participants are equipped to facilitate network meetings with confidence, embed trauma-informed and human rights-based principles into everyday practice, and contribute to meaningful systemic change within their teams and services.
The OYFC is also the gateway to our Mentor in Training program — the first step towards becoming a qualified Open Dialogue trainer.
You can learn more about our training programs here
You can learn more about the Four-Day Skills training and register here
