Strengthening Parent-Child Relationships in Multi-Stressed Families

Cost: This program is sponsored by Venango County MH/DS and is free to all behavioral health and child welfare providers in the county.

A Live, Interactive Webconference
Thursday, 3/10/22, Venango County via Live Interactive Zoom
8:30am-12:30pm

Children treated for serious emotional problems in community agencies often live in multi-stressed families. These families face grave and chronic personal, social, and economic challenges which can impede caregiving and disrupt family process. Developmental science suggests that the parent-child relationship is one of the most important protective factors for children who are struggling, yet it is severely threatened in multi-stressed families. This workshop presents an attachment-focused eco-systemic lens for identifying risk in the parent-child relationship, and how to use experiential methods such as enactment to help strengthen these relationships. This interactive training will demonstrate concepts and methods through review of treatment videotapes.

Objectives

As a result of participating in this workshop, therapists will be able to:

Describe the science on the role of the parent-child relationship as both a risk and protective factor
Identify common psychological and relational barriers which can create ambivalence in caregiver’s commitment to leaning into the parent role
Describe how to use enactments to facilitate emotional connection and boundary setting

Agenda
8:30am-12:30pm: Objectives 1-3

This is an intermediate level course. The target audience is behavioral health professionals. This is a live synchronous distance learning activity conducted in real time, allowing for simultaneous participation of participants and instructors from different locations.

Frequently Asked Questions
Visit our FBMHS Policies & FAQs on Live, Interactive Webconferences for additional information regarding CFBT live interactive workshops, accommodations for disabilities, reporting problems with the training, instructions for registering for a training, etc.

Recognizing & Responding to Intimate Partner Violence

A Live, Interactive Webconference
Wednesday, October 6, 2021, Catholic Charities via Live Interactive Zoom
9:00am-4:00pm

The US is currently experiencing simultaneous public health issues. The COVID crisis is obvious but the other crisis, trauma created and maintained by patterns of violence, is often less visible and gets too little attention. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is of pandemic proportions. IPV creates adverse childhood experiences as well as significant life adversity for adults, both of which are social determinants of health linked to chronic disease, poor health outcomes, and premature death. Utilizing a trauma focused lens, this training explores contributing factors of IPV, including what many families describe as generational curses related to IPV. This training highlights the contexts that maintain and perpetuate these “curses” involving the intergenerational transmission of this form of violence. Videos and case scenarios are utilized to help identify different types of IPV, the structural and systemic issues that intersect with IPV, and the indicators for predicting lethality.

As a result of participating in this training, attendees will be able to:

Explain the link between IPV, adverse childhood experiences, and the long-term adverse effects on adult physical, emotional, and relational health.
Describe the Cycle of Violence
Describe the role of intersectionality and systemic structural issues that contribute to re-traumatization of individuals and families seeking services and support
Explain the role of stigma and the concept of generational curses in the intergenerational transmission of IPV
Identify types and lethality indicators for IPV

Agenda
9:00am-12:00pm: Objectives 1-3
12:00-1:00pm: Break
1:30-4:00pm: Objectives 4-5

Lisa Christian is an experienced Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Temple University. She completed a post graduate training program in Marriage and Family Therapy at the Philadelphia Child and Family Therapy Training Center (PCFTTC) where she is a faculty member. She is employed full time at the Anti Violence Partnership of Philadelphia (AVP) and has been working in the area of victim’s services for the past 5-years. At AVP she provides in-office individual and family therapy as well as in school counseling, trauma focused crisis response, clinical consultation, training and support to middle/high school students and faculty impacted by violence and violent crime. She also provides clinical supervision, training and support to the Philadelphia (CARES) Peer Crisis Response Program. Prior to her work in victim services, she worked in varied capacities with homeless adolescents and families for 26-years. She has an extensive background as a trainer, group and workshop facilitator. Her engaging and interactive teaching style incorporates more than 30-years of work as a practitioner in homeless as well as victim services.

Shifting Negative Family Patterns Through Facilitated Enactments

A Live, Interactive Webconference

Thursday, 10/7/21, Venango County Human Services via Live Interactive Zoom
8:30am-12:30pm

Therapists working in the community see many families who are stuck in negative, self-defeating interactional patterns that create a toxic relational environment for their children and themselves. These negative patterns result in caregivers struggling to find empathy and compassion for their children and struggling to maintain a leadership role in the family. Caregivers often also struggle with co-parenting with their partners. Therapists relying strictly on methods directed at changing cognitions or behavior often fail with multi-stressed families. This workshop describes how to use a method that is the cornerstone of EcoSystemic approaches to family therapy – enactments. This approach involves therapists assuming a facilitative role, seizing on opportunities in sessions to help family members to experience themselves in more functional interactions with one another.

Objectives

As a result of participating in this workshop, therapists will be able to:

Describe the role of supportive counseling, psychoeducation, coaching, and enactment in family therapy
Describe the nature of an enactment and the reasons this approach is effective in shifting negative family patterns
Recognize when to use an enactment in sessions and how to set it up to be effective

Agenda
8:30am-12:30pm: Objectives 1-3

Shifting Families from a Behavioral to a Relational Understanding of their Children

Thursday, April 29th, 2021 Venango County Via Zoom
8:30am-12:30pm

The effectiveness of both prevention and intervention programs, whether it is Early Head Start or family therapy, depends on parents “buying-into” the idea that their relationship with their child is directly tied to outcome. As a group, parents of children who are most at risk for chronic emotional and behavioral problems reflexively misinterpret their children’s challenging behavior as manipulative, selfish, or oppositional, with little regard for social or psychological context. This workshop identifies common ways that therapists unwittingly reinforce a behavioral view of children’s problems, describes the nature of a relational perspective, and offers strategies that can help parents see their children in relational context.

Objectives

As a result of attending in this training, participants will be able to:

Identify the key differences between a behavioral focus and one that is psychological and relational
Explain the negative impacts of transactional parenting on the social-emotional functioning of children.
Identify the common personal and contextual forces that pull therapists into a behavioral focus when working with children and adolescents who have SED
Identify “process-oriented“ strategies that help caregivers attune to the relational context of their children’s behavior and buy-into relational interventions

Frequently Asked Questions
Visit our FBMHS Policies & FAQs for additional information regarding the CFBT online learning center, accommodations for disabilities, reporting problems with the course, instructions for viewing webinars, etc.

Deconstructing Addiction

April 28th, 2021, Catholic Charities, Harrisburg via Zoom Webconference
9:00am-3:00pm

This training is intended for clinicians providing services to people with mental health and substance use disorders. Participants will be introduced to the two prevailing theories of addiction, the supporting evidence for each, and will be introduced to a third perspective that is gaining recognition in the field of addition. This new perspective integrates aspects of both the choice and disease model and presents a more holistic, person-centered framework to understand addiction, helping them understand the root causes of addiction and common themes and patterns in addiction.

Through this new framework, participants will be challenged to view addictions in a more adaptive way, improving their ability to relate to, support, and help clients struggling with substance use disorders. Participants will also learn how to identify substance use disorders using the DSM-5 as well as being able to determine the severity, risk factors, and protective factors to make informed clinical recommendations for treatment.

Participants will also learn effective methods to build strong rapport and a workable therapeutic alliance with clients in recovery from SUD, including pitfalls to avoid and trade secrets that can keep clients active and engaged through early, middle, and late treatment. Participants will leave the training with a set of specific skills, strategies and interventions they can use to help clients trying to overcome addiction.

Objectives

As a result of completing this training activity, participants will be able to:

Explain the choice and disease model of addiction, the central tenets of each theory, and the deficiencies of each in providing an accurate and adaptive understanding of addiction.
Develop a more holistic understanding of addiction, being able to explain root causes, common co-occurring disorders, and functional uses of drugs and alcohol
Learn the 11 symptoms of substance use disorders, and will be able explain how to determine severity of the disorder
List risk and protective factors for people with substance use disorders, and explain the effect these have on treatment
Accurately identify the drugs with the highest risk for overdose and withdrawal symptoms
Develop an “elevator speech” for early treatment which includes a.) accurate empathy, b.) an adaptive explanation of addiction, c.) an individualized treatment recommendation, and d.) a hopeful outlook for recovery

About The Trainer

Hailey Shafir is a licensed clinical mental health counselor, a licensed addiction specialist, and a board-approved clinical supervisor for newly licensed mental health and addiction counselors. She has more than a decade of experience providing counseling and has also helped to develop programs for at-risk youth, people struggling with addictions, and to train new clinicians. She is the owner of several businesses including Keep Counsel, Plan-it Therapy, and Selfhelpers, and is a content writer and medical peer reviewer for several national and international websites including Addictions.com, the National Drug Helpline, Choosing Therapy, Rehab Adviser, and Social Pro Now.