Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance And their Families

Updated 2/1/19

This course explores in detail the population served by community based programs such as BHRS and FBMHS – children and youth with Severe Emotional Disturbance (SED) and their families. The course begins with first hand accounts from adolescents with mental illness and their caregivers. Links to youtube videos, a podcast and readings highlight their experiences related to living with emotional problems and trying to get services. Although there is incredible diversity among these children and families, there are also some common patterns. These patterns are described in the second unit of this course through a 25 minute webinar. The question is addressed, “what family interactions maintain or exacerbate SED.” The implications these patterns have for treatment are highlighted. The third unit in this course highlights common multi-generational patterns that leave multi-stressed families crisis-oriented.

This is a Beginning Level course. It introduces therapists to the topic of serious emotional disturbance. The target audience is all behavioral health professionals working with children and adolescents.

Learning Objectives

Describe common characteristics children with SED
Describe common characteristics of multi-stressed families.
Describe the impact of chronic family stress adversity on the development of basic social-emotional skills in children.
Identify family interactions and multi-generational patterns that maintain and exacerbate SED.

Course Outline

Unit 1: A Close-Up First-Hand Perspective of SED (80 minutes)
- Podcast: How adversity undermines the development of tenacity, resilience, and impulse control.
- Videos: The experience of parents in accessing mental health services for their children with SED.
- Reading: Adolescents with SED share their experiences and perspective

Unit 2: A Clinical Perspective on Children with SED & Their Families (45 minutes)
- Webinar: The shared characteristics of children & adolescents with SED
- Webinar: A Developmentally-informed strength-based perspective on SED
- Webinar: What Multi-Stressed, Fragile Families have in common
- Webinar: What Maintains SED

Unit 3: Multi-Generational Patterns in Crisis-Oriented Families (45 minutes)
- Reading: Generational patterns in families of children at risk for SED

About the Presenters

Click here for information on C. Wayne Jones, PhD.

This course uses an online distance-learning self-paced format. It includes recorded audio, recorded video-based webinars, and selected readings. There are post-tests to ensure comprehension of the material. Participants can communicate with the instructors via the online moodle interface. Real-time communication with the instructor in our online, self-paced distance learning courses is not possible. However, participants can send an email to the instructor via the online moodle interface within the course and expect to receive a response within 48 hours. All course content, including post-tests, should take approximately 3.0 hours to complete.

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

Understanding Attachment in Families

This four part webinar series provides an introduction to attachment theory and how it can be applied to the family treatment of children and adolescents with serious social and emotional issues. The first module describes the role of an attachment focus in the operationalized version of ESFT and identifies clinical competencies involved in helping caregivers become a more reliable source of emotional support to their children. The second module describes the nature of attachment problems. In the third module, the attachment system and how it creates an internal working model is explained. The fourth module focuses on the nature of secure attachments, with a particular emphasis on how the concepts of attunement and intersubjectivity can be utilized to deepen therapeutic relationships.

This is a Beginning Level course. The target audience is all behavioral health professionals working with children and adolescents.

Learning Objectives

1. Describe the attachment system and how it creates an internal working model
2. Explain the reasons working with attachment is critical in the treatment of children with SED and their families.
3. Describe the features of a secure and insecure attachment patterns in families.
4. Describe the concepts of affect attunement and miscuing emotional needs.

Course Outline

Unit 1: The Role of an Attachment Focus in Family Based Treatment (90 minutes)
- Readings on communal rituals, attachment process in family therapy, and the influence of attachment on treatment
- Webinar: The Role of Attachment in Family Based Treatment

Unit 2: The Nature of Attachment Problems (60 minutes)
- Webinar: Differentiating Attachment Problems from Attachment Disorder

Unit 3: Attachment and the Attachment System (90 minutes)
- Webinar: Defining Attachment and It’s Relationship to the Internal Working Model Video on the Strange Situation experiment
- Reading on attachment patterns from Setting the Stage for Change

Unit 4: What Secure Attachments Can Teach Us About Treatment (90 minutes)
- Reading on attachment-focused parenting
- Video on attachment theory
- Webinar: Applying the concepts of affect attunement and miscuing to Treatment

Tailoring Supervision to the Individual Therapist

The focus of supervision needs to be informed by an assessment of the therapist’s skill set, while the supervisor’s approach to supervision needs to be informed by an understanding of the person of the therapist. This course presents a framework for thinking about the latter, exploring the influence of therapists’ learning preferences, approach to handling emotional intensity, therapists’ personal context (e.g. gender, race, life stage, values), and stage of professional development as a clinician.

This is a Beginning Level course. The target audience is all behavioral health supervisors of therapists working with children and adolescents.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify two general learning styles and how they can affect response to supervision.
2. Describe how the therapist’s personal context and approach to handling emotional intensity can affect response to families and to supervision.
3. Identify four stages of professional development and how this affects the learning needs of therapists.

Relational Treatment Planning

Treatment planning in ESFT is more than pro forma paperwork separated from the actual on-the-ground treatment. It is, in fact, an intervention that can be a major determinant of treatment outcomes. If done well, the treatment planning process shifts the viewing of problems and their solutions to a more relational perspective, setting the stage for highly focused, meaningful, productive work with motivated family members. This course describes procedures for making this happen. Basic principles related to relational treatment planning are described.

This is a Beginning Level course. The target audience is all behavioral health professionals working with children and adolescents.

Learning Objectives

1. Conceptualize the treatment planning process as an interventional “process”
2. Identify the cornerstones of effective treatment planning with children and families
3. Describe the elements of a family friendly and clinically relevant treatment plan

Supervising Two-Person Teams

One of the unique features of Pennsylvania’s Family Based Mental Health Services program is that it is team delivered. This adds another level of complexity to supervision. Not only must the focus be maintained on individual therapists’ development within the team, but also on development of the team itself. This course identifies the stages of team development and the most common team-based challenges supervisors face. The role of the supervisor in supervising two-person teams at each stage of development is highlighted, as well as supervisory strategies for addressing issues that arise.

This is a Beginning Level course. The target audience is all behavioral health supervisors of therapists working with children and adolescents.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify principles of team development.
2. Describe predictable challenges in team development.
3. Describe strategies for using challenges in team formation to facilitate growth and development.