April 2027: Navigating Conflict, Rigid Complementarity, and Repair in Co-Teaming

A Live, Interactive Webconference

Friday, April 23, 2027, FBMHS Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom
8:25am-12:40pm

Every team develops a dance. Under pressure, useful differences can harden into predictable roles: one pushes while the other retreats, one carries while the other follows, one challenges while the other protects. Eventually, therapists may stop seeing the pattern between them and begin seeing their partner as the problem.

This experiential didactic moves into the storming of team development and examines what happens when complementarity becomes rigid, conflict becomes recursive, and the very patterns therapists are attempting to change in families begin appearing within the treatment team itself. Participants will explore Team NIPs, Person-of-the-Therapist factors, induction, isomorphism, escalation, and the role of supervision in restoring flexibility. Through case material, video, dialogue, mapping, and experiential practice, participants will learn to move beneath the content of disagreement, recognize the relational dance organizing the team, and make new moves that create greater flexibility, trust, and repair.

The strongest teams are not teams without conflict. They are teams that can turn conflict into greater flexibility, trust, and range.

Objectives

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

Recognize conflict as a predictable aspect of team development.
Identify common rigid complementary roles.
Use mapping to identify recurring positive and negative co-team interactional patterns.
Identify the influence of Person-of-the-Therapist factors, induction, and isomorphic processes on co-team conflict.
Describe strategies for interrupting dysfunctional team patterns and facilitating repair.

This is an intermediate level course. The target audience is behavioral health professionals working within Pennsylvania’s Family Based program and North Carolina’s Intensive In-Home Program. This is a live synchronous distance learning activity conducted in real time, allowing for simultaneous participation of participants and instructors from different locations.

Agenda

8:25am-10:30am: Focus on Objectives 1-2
10:30am-10:40am: Break
10:40am-12:40pm: Focus on Objectives 3-4

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October 2026: The Art and Practice of Intentional Co-Teaming

A Live, Interactive Webconference

Friday, October 23, 2026, FBMHS Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom
8:25am-12:40pm

Putting two therapists in the same room does not create a team. Effective co-therapy requires something more intentional: two clinicians learning to see together, think together, regulate together, and use their differences in the service of the family.

This experiential didactic explores the art and practice of becoming a therapeutic team within ESFT. Participants will examine how shared purpose, trust, flexible complementarity, role differentiation, and intentional use of the Team of Three can transform co-therapy from two clinicians working in parallel into an integrated clinical system. Through teaching, dialogue, video, and experiential practice, participants will develop concrete strategies for turning toward one another before, during, and after sessions—learning not simply to divide the work, but to multiply what becomes possible in the room.

The goal of co-teaming is not to become more alike. It is to become more usable to one another.

Objectives

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

Describe co-teaming and its clinical value within ESFT.
Identify therapeutic uses of complementary differences in therapist style, strengths, perspective, and role.
Describe how to apply practical co-teaming strategies before, during, and after sessions.
Identify how to use the Team of Three—therapists and supervisor—for expanding perspective, managing induction, strengthening team functioning, and improving treatment.

Agenda

8:25am-10:30am: Focus on Objectives 1-2
10:30am-10:40am: Break
10:40am-12:40pm: Focus on Objectives 3-4

March 2027: Enactments in Action: Changing Family Relationships in the Therapy Room

A Live, Interactive Webconference

Friday, March 5, 2027, FBMHS Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom
8:25am-12:40pm

Thursday, June 10, 2027, North Carolina IIH Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom
8:25am-12:40pm

Enactment is one of the major tools used in both ESFT and other evidence-based family therapies (e.g., ABFT, MDFT, BSSFT) to disrupt and shift negative interactional patterns toward more functional ones. Enactments refer to family members interacting and problem-solving directly with one another in session, with the therapist maintaining a less central, facilitative role. Enactments place family members in an active, central role, allowing them to experience themselves interacting more functionally with one another.

The goals of change-oriented enactments in ESFT focus on the four pillars: strengthening caregiver executive functioning, deepening the emotional bond between parents and their children, increasing family members’ distress tolerance and emotion regulation, and strengthening caregivers’ natural supports for parenting. In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to see and discuss videotapes of well-executed enactments which target each of these ESFT treatment goals. The enactments in the videotape examples will be analyzed in relation to how they demonstrate the four tasks outlined in the Family Therapy Enactment Scales.

Objectives

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

Identify the four tasks of effective change enactments
Use enactments to strengthen caregiver executive functioning
Use enactments to strengthen the family’s ability to increase their distress and problem- solve despite conflict.
Use enactments to strengthen caregiver-child emotional connection

Agenda

8:25am-10:30am: Focus on Objectives 1-2
10:30am-10:40am: Break
10:40am-12:40pm: Focus on Objectives 3-4

December 2026: Strengthening the Co-Caregiver Alliance

A Live, Interactive Webconference

Friday, December 4, 2026, FBMHS Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom
8:25am-12:40pm

Caregivers of youth treated in intensive in-home settings often struggle to maintain an executive leadership role within the family. They are often easily overwhelmed by the day-to-day tasks of nurturing and guiding their children. They usually parent alone. In this workshop, engaging the other caregiver, whether they live in the family or outside of it, is emphasized as critical to restoring order and strengthening leadership within the family.

This workshop focuses on the caregivers’ relationships with one another – the co-caregiver alliance. Three maladaptive co-caregiving patterns commonly found among multi-stressed families are identified, along with the predictable challenges, family dynamics, agency interactions, and “traps” for therapists that are associated with them. Strategies are highlighted to engage the under-involved parent and to constructively manage inter-parental conflict in sessions.

Objectives

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

Identify personal and contextual barriers that interfere with caregivers stepping into an executive role with their children.
Describe the nature of a co-caregiver alliance and reasons it is important.
Recognize and distinguish between three common dysfunctional co-caregiver relationship patterns.
Facilitate teamwork and positive communication between caregivers on behalf of their children.

Agenda

8:25am-10:30am: Focus on Objectives 1-2
10:30am-10:40am: Break
10:40am-12:40pm: Focus on Objectives 3-4