Coram Deo - Constantiakruin Campus

18/03/2026

Call for Abstracts: The 10th National Autism Symposium is an annual event hosted by the North-West University, in partnership with Autism South Africa (A;SA) and supported by the South African Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (SA-ACAPAP).

The organising committee invites you to submit an abstract for a workshop presentation at the 10th National Autism Symposium, taking place in August 2026.

As we celebrate over a decade of learning, advocacy, and collaboration, our 2026 theme—Celebrating Autism: Next Steps—highlights the importance of moving forward with purpose, inclusivity, and innovation. We welcome submissions that present practical, compassionate, and forward-thinking approaches that support autistic individuals, their families, and the professionals who accompany them on their journeys.

Call for Abstracts:

We invite practical and interactive abstracts aimed at parents, autistic persons, educators, clinicians, and allied professionals. Workshops should focus on a clearly defined area within one of the following sub-themes:

Sub-Themes:

1.⁠ ⁠Unlocking Strengths: Recognising and valuing the diverse strengths, talents, and perspectives within the autistic community. This includes highlighting how autistic ways of thinking, learning, and engaging enrich families, schools, workplaces, and society. Submissions should shift from a deficit-based approach toward celebrating abilities and enabling autistic people to thrive.

2.⁠ ⁠Supporting Every Journey:
Every autistic person’s journey is unique. This sub-theme explores how families, professionals, communities, and systems can offer responsive, respectful, and person-centred support across the lifespan. We welcome practical strategies that honour autonomy, reduce barriers, and create environments where autistic people can navigate daily life with dignity and confidence.

3.⁠ ⁠Building Inclusive Futures:
Looking forward to a world where autistic people are fully included, represented, and supported. Submissions may focus on collaborative solutions, accessible design, meaningful inclusion of autistic voices, and policies that promote equity. The goal is to imagine and build a future where inclusion is the norm, not the exception.

4.⁠ ⁠Evidence Sparks Action and Change: This stream invites submissions that bridge the gap between research and practice. We welcome presentations offering insights from recent studies, innovative research proposals, and critical reflections on emerging evidence and methodologies. The focus is on translating knowledge into actionable strategies for clinical practice, education, policy, and community support—sparking dialogue and advancing real-world application.

We particularly encourage submissions that include:
•⁠ ⁠Evidence-informed and compassionate approaches
•⁠ ⁠Interactive and collaborative formats
•⁠ ⁠Practical tools, strategies, and real-world application

Abstracts are welcomed from:
•⁠ ⁠Autistic adults
• Researchers
•⁠ ⁠Healthcare clinicians
•⁠ ⁠Parents and caregivers
•⁠ ⁠Educators
•⁠ ⁠Social workers

Submission Guidelines: Abstracts must be submitted in Word document format via email to Hanlie.Degenaar@nwu.ac.za
no later than 31 May 2026.

Please ensure your abstract includes all of the following:
•⁠ ⁠Full name, email address, landline, and mobile number
•⁠ ⁠Title of the workshop (maximum 20 words)
•⁠ ⁠A statement explaining how the presentation relates to the symposium theme
•⁠ ⁠An indication of which sub-theme your presentation aligns with
•⁠ ⁠Your title, occupation, affiliation, and interest in autism, neurodevelopmental disorders and/or child or adolescent mental health
•⁠ ⁠An outline of the presentation slides
•⁠ ⁠Presentation summary (maximum 300 words)
•⁠ ⁠Presenter biography (50–80 words)
•⁠ ⁠A high-quality photograph suitable for marketing and media use

Only complete submissions will be considered.

Important Dates:
•⁠ ⁠Submission deadline: 31 May 2026
•⁠ ⁠Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2026
•⁠ ⁠Presenter registration deadline: 30 July 2026
•⁠ ⁠Symposium dates: 28–29 August 2026
•⁠ ⁠Venue: Potchefstroom, North-West Province

For more information, please contact C2K@nwu.ac.za or 018-299-1737

We look forward to receiving your workshop proposal and advancing the next steps in Celebrating Autism together. https://chhpevents.zohobackstage.com/10thNationalAutismSymposium #/

17/03/2026

Today, three years ago, a new journey started…
A journey that I could NEVER have imagined in my wildest dreams…
There were protagonists, antagonists and all the shades of grey and pain (on all sides) in between…

Within this phase of hopeless darkness,
I was rescued by friends and fiery tenacity,
Born from a surviving spirit underpinned by a death on a cross…

A death that not only paid the price for the protagonist; but for the antagonist as well!

Undeserving on both sides, but received by one in such a manner that the blessings and abundance surpassed all hopes and dreams of a mother “to be” for her children…

A stable organism, living, breathing, being, all she can be in this chapter of her life despite the debilitating agony and pain inflicted by an enemy unseen.

She found softness and kindness and treasures abound within the chaos that is daily life and came out the other side!

Radiant,
Glowing,
Loved and free

To be all she was built to be in this space in time.

All honour and glory and power to The One who guides her paths and holds her hand at night.

In awe she stands
To the faithfulness of the one who promised to be all she could wish for on this earth, in this space, at this time.

Divorce is hard.
But Thank You Jesus🛐

04/03/2026

Please read and join us

22/01/2026

THIS IS THE HOLY TRUTH

Perfectionism slips into ordinary days wearing the costume of virtue. It shows up early, stays late, cleans its tracks, and asks for praise only in private. The damage it does is quieter, harder to name, and often mistaken for character.

Anne Wilson Schaef named that damage with a bluntness that still startles. When she wrote Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much in the early nineties, she was writing into a moment when women were being told they could finally have everything, provided they managed it flawlessly. Schaef was a clinical psychologist, a speaker, and an Episcopal minister, shaped by the recovery movement and by feminist critiques of caretaking as a moral trap. Her work circled addiction, codependence, and the ways socially rewarded behaviors can still hollow a person out. The book’s audience was not abstract. It was overfunctioning women who mistook exhaustion for virtue and control for safety.

What makes her claim about perfectionism sting is the reversal. Abuse is something done by an external force, not something we inflict on ourselves. Yet perfectionism thrives on internalized authority. The rules are invisible, the punishments self-administered. No one needs to scold because the voice already lives inside, precise and unsparing. The standards keep shifting. The relief never arrives. Excellence would allow for rest. Perfectionism does not.

Psychologically, the habit feeds on fear dressed up as discipline. The fear of being ordinary. The fear of needing help. The fear that any looseness will expose a deeper failure. In that sense, perfectionism behaves less like ambition and more like compulsion. Schaef’s background in addiction studies mattered here. She saw how behaviors that look admirable on the surface can operate with the same rigidity and self-erasure as substances. The harm is normalized because the results often benefit institutions, families, and workplaces that quietly depend on someone else’s overextension.

Culturally, the idea has only grown more relevant. The contemporary workplace praises optimization and resilience while quietly penalizing limits. Even outside paid labor, standards multiply. Bodies must be maintained, homes curated, emotions managed, relationships improved. The language has changed since the nineties, but the underlying demand remains. Be better, but never be finished. Think of how often a task completed cleanly still feels inadequate. The email sent and then reread. The presentation delivered and then replayed. We know the moment when the room empties and the second guessing begins.

Literarily, Schaef’s sentence belongs to a lineage of women who resisted the moralization of self-denial. Audre Lorde argued that self-care was not indulgence but survival. Adrienne Rich wrote about the cost of internalized obedience. Even earlier, Virginia Woolf noticed how women learned to serve an ideal that required their disappearance. Schaef’s contribution was to use the language of harm without ornament, refusing to soften the claim. Calling it abuse removed the possibility that perfectionism was merely a personality quirk.

Schaef herself became a complicated figure later in life. Some of her public statements, particularly around vaccines and autism, drew justified criticism and distanced many readers from her work. Acknowledging that matters. Wisdom does not arrive as a complete package, and insight in one domain does not guarantee judgment in another. Still, the clarity of her observation about self-punishment stands apart from those later controversies. The sentence survives because it describes a pattern many recognize before they have words for it.

The hardest implication is not that perfectionism hurts, but that it can feel like love. It promises protection. It claims to keep chaos at bay. Letting go can feel reckless, even immoral. I’ve noticed how strange it feels to stop revising something that could be marginally better, to send it off and sit with the small thud of incompleteness. The room does not collapse. The world does not notice. The quiet that follows can be unsettling, but it is also clean.

Anne Wilson Schaef was not arguing for carelessness or lowered standards. She was arguing for an end to self-hostility disguised as devotion. The line between care and cruelty runs through intention and outcome. When effort becomes a way to deny rest, worth, or forgiveness, the effort has turned against the person making it. Naming that shift is not weakness. It is the first unpunished act.

© Echoes of Women - Fiona.F, 2026. All rights reserved

22/01/2026

Skryf in en begin die avontuur van ontdekking!!

22/01/2026

Kom kuier vanaand om 18h00 by ons!!

21/01/2026

WE NEED YOU 💬✨

This programme has changed the way I see, speak, and show up in the world.
Pastoral Narrative Therapy isn’t just a course — it’s a journey of story, hope, and healing. If you’re ready to make a difference in your own life or someone else’s, this might be the invitation you’ve been waiting for.

📍 Where: ConstantiaKruin Campus, Roodepoort
🕕 When: Thursdays, 18:00–21:00
🚀 Start: 22 January 2026
🎓 Accredited by: University of Pretoria

I’ve seen lives shift. I’ve felt my own story deepen.
Please share this with someone who’s longing for meaning, growth, and connection. Let’s grow this first-year group together — your voice matters.

📩 Contact: Helene de Villiers – 082 925 6999 | coramdeo@constantiakruin.co.za

Coram Deo - Constantiakruin Campus
Leonie Stassen Prinsloo

21/01/2026

20/01/2026

Growth, healing, and recovery are not about perfection — they’re about showing up, trying again, and choosing yourself every day. Wherever you are on your journey, know that progress looks different for everyone, and every step forward matters.

Join us! Coramdeo@constantiakruin.co.za