Friday, November 3, 2023, North Carolina Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom Webconference
1:00pm-4:00pm

Too often in supervision, particularly in community-based agencies, urgent administrative clinical management tasks dominate, leaving little time for promoting the growth and development of supervisees as competent therapists. Similarly, supervisors who are interested in developing their personal skills as clinical supervisors may find too little time to review videos and reflect. We discuss these challenges as a group with the goal of identifying strategies for finding a balance between the various demands of supervising. To sharpen ESFT supervisory skills in developing supervisees’ competencies, we use the rubric – Seeing, Thinking, Doing, and Being. Videotapes of Family therapy sessions and supervision sessions are reviewed for practicing using supervisory tools such as the ESFT Clinical Competencies Scale and Recognizing Process in Clinical Supervision Scale

This is a live synchronous distance learning activity conducted in real time, allowing for simultaneous participation of participants and instructors from different locations.

Objectives:

As a result of participating in the forums, participants will be able to:

1. Identify strategies for structuring supervision such that a focus on supervisee clinical growth and development is maintained.
2. Recognize ESFT competencies in videotapes using the ESFT Competencies Scale.
3. Recognize family process in videotapes using the Recognizing Process in Clinical Supervision Scale.  

Friday, June 9, 2023, North Carolina Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom Webconference
1:00pm-4:00pm

This training explains the reasons clinical supervision is more effective when based on actual observation of treatment, such as reviewing videotapes of therapists’ sessions. Strategies are provided for motivating therapists to take the risk of showing their clinical work, highlighting the importance of being collaborative and strengths based. Supervisors are encouraged to be facilitative, and to use reflective questions, a method that helps supervisees develop their critical thinking skills.

Objectives:

As a result of participating in the forums, supervisors will:

1. Identify the types of reflective questions that best facilitate therapists skills in attuning to key interactional patterns
2. Identify strategies for motivating therapists to videotape and show their work in supervision.
3. Describe the importance of maintaining a collaborative, strength-based stance with supervisees when viewing their videotapes.

Thursday, June 8, 2023, North Carolina Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom Webconference
Friday, June 9, 2023, North Carolina Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom Webconference
8:25am-12:35pm

This workshop provides an eco-systemic framework for understanding and treating troubled parent-child relationships in under-organized families. Life in the under-organized home for children and their caregivers is marked by inconsistency, chaos, and low support. Caregivers are often “leaning out” of the parenting role, appearing distracted and disengaged from household management and day-to-day parenting. Their children have often stopped listening to them, which is usually the caregivers’ main presenting complaint. Relationships between caregivers and between caregivers and their children can be fragile and badly bruised. Adding to the complexity these families are often involved with multiple service providers, including child protective services. Engagement of the caregivers is key to stabilizing the under-organized family and strengthening their relationships with their children. This workshop provides treatment guidelines focused on the initial steps of intervention, such as engaging these caregivers in family treatment, addressing their ambivalence about being a parent, strengthening their executive functioning, and orienting them toward building more functional relationships with their children. Common traps are identified that therapists need to avoid when working with these caregivers and their families.

This is a live synchronous distance learning activity conducted in real time, allowing for simultaneous participation of participants and instructors from different locations.

Objectives:

As a result of attending this continuing education activity, participants will be able to:

1. Recognize the characteristics of under-organization in families and the caregiving patterns that create and maintain it.
2. Describe strategies for emotionally engaging distrustful, detached caregivers in treatment.
3. Describe strategies for addressing caregiver ambivalence about being a parent and moving them toward “leaning into” their relationship with their children.
4. Identify the most common mistakes professionals make when working with under-organized families and how to avoid them.

Thursday, February 9, 2023, North Carolina Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom Webconference
Friday, February 10, 2023, North Carolina Training Groups via Live Interactive Zoom Webconference
8:25am-12:35pm

Life in the home for children living in under-organized families is marked by inconsistency and chaos.  Caregivers are often distracted, disengaged, and absent from the home. Relationships between caregivers and between caregivers and their children can be fragile.  Children are at high risk for emotional neglect, and sometimes abuse, in the home.  The nature of emotional neglect and emotional detachment are described in detail, as well as it’s emotional and behavioral impacts on youth.  This workshop begins with a description of the characteristics of under-organized families.  In addition to conjoint family sessions, EcoSystemic Structural Family Therapists (ESFT) work separately but simultaneously with youth and their caregivers in the service of fostering more functional family relationships.  In this workshop, the focus is on strengthening therapists’ effectiveness when working with the individual youth.  Videotape clips from films and sessions are used to highlight both the internal experience of emotionally neglected youth and how to best support them in engaging in an emotionally focused therapeutic process.

This is a live synchronous distance learning activity conducted in real time, allowing for simultaneous participation of participants and instructors from different locations.

Objectives:

As a result of attending this continuing education activity, participants will be able to:

1. Recognize the characteristics of under-organization in families
2. Describe the link between family under-organization, emotional neglect, and children’s presenting problems.
3. Identify the most common survival skills youth develop as a result of living in under-organized families.
4. Describe strategies for emotionally engaging distrustful, detached youth in treatment.