This training series is comprised of 10 half-day live streaming modules which build upon and deepen concepts introduced in the Foundations series.  The series is designed for therapists who have completed Level 1 ESFT certification and are currently working toward Level 2 ESFT certification. Typically, these are therapists in their second and third year of family-based training. Each of the 10 modules are structured similarly. They begin with a one-hour didactic describing one ESFT concept or skill and a video demonstrating the concept or skill. There are then two case presentations including videotaped family sessions where application of these concepts and methods are discussed.  The case material is used to create role-plays so that all participants have an opportunity to practice ESFT skills. 

The overarching goals for the core clinical series are aligned with the skills required to complete Level 2 certification. These include the following: 

1. Deepen trainees’ ability to develop trauma-informed, developmentally grounded, systemic case conceptualizations that link children’s presenting problems to the relational context of the family and community ecosystem.
2. Sharpen trainees’ ability to identify, track, and utilize emotional processes therapeutically in family sessions. 
3. Strengthen trainees’ ability to recognize personal or team induction into negative family process and effectively regain a balanced therapeutic position.   
4. Consistently recognize opportunities to disrupt the NIP and use enactments to help families build more functional patterns. 
5. Consistently keep the focus on relationships in sessions and maintain a facilitative role. 
6. Maintain equal empathy for all family members and cultivate a positive, strength-based collaborative relationship with them.  

This series counts toward required annual training hours in Family Based Mental Health Services but is not currently available for CE credit.

Core Clinical Topics

Training Hours: 8:30am-1:00pm
Training Hours Provided: 4.5

Core Clinical Training 1
Adam Bogusk, MDiv

This training begins with a mini-didactic on Intimate Partner Violence, with a focus on how to recognize and assess for its presence in families.    The trainers will review and discuss excerpts from a previously recorded presentation for family-based therapists on this topic by Lisa Christian, MSW, LCSW and Wayne Jones, Ph.D. 

Core Clinical Training 2
Andy Fussner, MSW & Robin Armstrong, MSW, LCSW

This training begins with a mini-didactic on ADHD, with a focus on recognizing and understanding its influence on family interaction.  Like trauma, ADHD is very common among the youth and families treated in FBMHS.  Dr Wayne Jones will review and discuss a previously recorded presentation for family-based therapists on this topic. 

Core Clinical Training 3
Andy Fussner, MSW & Robin Armstrong, MSW, LCSW

This training begins with a mini-didactic on Using Individual Subsystem Sessions to Engage Youth. Dr. Wayne Jones will review and discuss excerpts from a previously recorded presentation by Dr. Ashley King on Attachment Based Family Therapy. Focus is given to how youth’s motivation for family therapy often hinges on the extent to which they can articulate the link between a mental health problem narrative and an attachment narrative.   

Core Clinical Training 4
Frani Pollack, MSW, PhD

This training begins with a mini-didactic focused on  Creating Safety for Caregivers with a Trauma History through Emotional Attunement and Co-Regulation Dr. Pollack will review and discuss excerpts from a previously recorded presentation by Barbara Kopystecki, Program Director of the FBMHS Program at the Penn Foundation, and Dr. Wayne Jones. Focus is given to how chronic adversity shapes family members’ perception of threat, their autonomic nervous system reactivity, and the escalation of negative interactions in families. Implications for emotional attunement and the therapist’s role co-regulator in family therapy sessions are provided. 

Core Clinical Training 5
Frani Pollack, MSW, PhD

This training begins with a mini-didactic highlighting Tools for Strengthening Caregiver Distress Tolerance. This presentation builds on Dr. Pollack’s min-didactic on complex trauma, moving the conversation from recognizing the impact of complex trauma on family members to helping them more effectively manage actual or perceived distress. Dr. Pollack will describe tools from the DBT module on distress tolerance. She will show how to use subsystem work with the caregivers to foster distress tolerance skills.

Core Clinical Training 6
Frani Pollack, MSW, PhD

This training begins with a mini-didactic, Tools for Strengthening Caregiver Emotion Regulation Skills Dr. Pollack describes the link between emotion regulation skills and managing boundaries at the individual level as well as at the family level. She describes tools from the DBT module on interpersonal effectiveness, such as DEAR MAN, that family-based therapists can use to help caregivers manage the emotions stirred up when faced with situations calling for either relaxing or tightening boundaries. 

Core Clinical Training 7
Adam Bogusk, MDiv

This training begins with a mini-didactic that focuses on caregivers – Using Caregiver Subsystem Sessions to Cultivate an Attachment Frame. Adam Boguski will review and discuss excerpts from a previously recorded presentation by Dr. Ashley King on Attachment Based Family Therapy. The focus is on to how open the caregivers to the idea of working on their relationship with their son or daughter, engaging them in repairing attachment ruptures in family therapy sessions.        

Core Clinical Training 8
Jorge Colapinto, LMFT

This training begins with a mini-didactic that focuses on a central technique in ESFT – Using Enactments to Evoke Family Member Strengths. Mr. Colapinto will review the role of enactments in working from the outside-in to create change. He will draw on his work with Dr. Minuchin and Structural Family Therapy to demonstrate through case examples how to create opportunities for family members to show parts of themselves that are often hidden in the family context.  

Core Clinical Training 9
Jorge Colapinto, LMFT

This training begins with a mini-didactic that explores Cautions and Traps for the Trauma Informed ESFT Therapist. This presentation expands on a recorded conversation between Mr. Colapinto, Adam Boguski, and Wayne Jones regarding the degree to which trauma histories should organize treatment decisions in a family therapy session. Mr. Colapinto discusses clinical situations in which an over-focus on a family member’s history of trauma can unwittingly reinforce a disempowered, hopeless mindset and obscure the therapist’s ability to see hidden family strengths and resources Dr. Jones highlights the best uses of a trauma-informed perspective in systemic work that avoids some of these pitfalls.   

Core Clinical Training 10
Frani Pollack, MSW, PhD

This training begins with a mini-didactic on Recognizing and Avoiding Triangulation and Induction. Dr. Pollack discusses and builds on a previously recorded presentation by Dr. Jones on this topic. While impossible to avoid triangulation and induction all the time, the ability to see it when it is happening and then to extricate oneself from it is a critical skill in the ESFT Level 2 Certification process.