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:

1. Identify the key differences between a behavioral focus and one that is psychological and relational
2. Explain the negative impacts of transactional parenting on the social-emotional functioning of children.
3. Identify the common personal and contextual forces that pull therapists into a behavioral focus when working with children and adolescents who have SED
4. 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.

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:

1. 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.
2. Develop a more holistic understanding of addiction, being able to explain root causes, common co-occurring disorders, and functional uses of drugs and alcohol
3. Learn the 11 symptoms of substance use disorders, and will be able explain how to determine severity of the disorder
4. List risk and protective factors for people with substance use disorders, and explain the effect these have on treatment
5. Accurately identify the drugs with the highest risk for overdose and withdrawal symptoms
6. 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.

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.

Thursday, October 1st, 2020 Venango County Via Zoom
Friday, October 30th, 2020 Mercer County Via Zoom
8:30am-12:30pm

One of the most critical tasks in any family therapy approach is convening the right members of the system for treatment and gaining their full participation. Parent participation and engagement is considered a related but separate construct from the therapeutic alliance and simple involvement. These differences are explained in this workshop, and clues are provided to help therapists assess caregivers’ level of engagement. Fully engaging all caregivers can be very challenging in working with overwhelmed, distrustful caregivers in community-based programs. This workshop identifies the most common reasons that caregivers may be reluctant to participate fully in in-home treatment and identifies strategies for addressing them. These strategies will be demonstrated in videos of family sessions.

Objectives

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

1. Explain the differences between caregiver engagement and caregiver involvement
2. Identify strategies for “selling” caregivers on the importance of their participation and engagement in treatment for their children
3. Identify the most common reasons caregivers do not participate and engage in treatment
4. Apply a motivational interviewing approach to addressing barriers to caregiver participation and engagement in treatment

November 4, 2020, Catholic Charities, Harrisburg via Zoom
9:00am-3:00pm

This training will teach clinicians about the unique aspects of maintaining integrity, professional boundaries, and ethics while providing home and community-based services. It is based on the principles addressed through the Codes of Ethics for Licensed Social Workers, Licensed Professional Counselling and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists. It will explore topics related to Relationships with Clients, Conflict of Interest, Confidentiality, and Technology. The goal of the training is to help therapists better manage their roles ethically.

Home and community-based clinicians often struggle to manage multiple roles, such as therapist, case manager, advocate, and/or coach, which can lead to role confusion.  The clinician may have to quickly trade hats and determine which role they are playing and why. It can be challenging to navigate the environment and avoid boundary crossing when families are offering food, inviting you to take a dip the pool, or to become friends on Instagram. This training will provide guidance on how to address these challenges as it pertains to home and community-based services.

Confidentiality in home and community-based services requires skill to anticipate and respond appropriately to potential breaches. When entering the home, clinicians may encounter uninvited friends and neighbors wanting to participate in the session.  Clinicians must quickly determine if this will enhance the session, and what is needed to ensure that confidentiality is not broken. Telehealth services present additional challenges with having a limited view of who else might be present during the session. This training will provide clinicians with options to think quickly though these issues and prevent a breach in confidentiality.

The trainers will engage staff using case scenarios, group discussion and thought-evoking dilemmas to build critical thinking skills associated with challenging decisions that clinicians face working in our field. The trainers will tap into their experience providing and supervising Family Based Mental Health Services to enhance the focus on home and community-based service provision, as it relates to ethics and professional boundaries.

Objectives

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

1. Define ethics in relationship to law and morality.
2. Recognize the unique challenges found in home and community-based services.
3. Distinguish between use of self and self-disclosure.
4. State the difference between boundary crossing and boundary violations.
5. Identify Five Steps to Ethical Decision Making.
6. Name three ways to prevent a breach in confidentiality.