Click here for Instructor Bio.
Children and families treated in intensive, in-home programs regularly experience marginalization based on social class, race, ethnicity, disability, religion, health status, and/or sexual orientation. This workshop focuses on the often overlooked but highly impactful issues of power and privilege that result in marginalization, which shapes family member relationships to one another, with their communities, and with helping professionals. The content in this course is derived from an edited version of a series of live zoom workshops presented in December 2020. Ms. Christian uses a discussion-based format to teach this content. She introduces key concepts and principles then engages participants in an open discussion of them. The 12 webinars below have incorporated selected portions of these discussions, which not only help to further elucidate the concepts and principles but also help translate them into day-to-day practice.
This first module of this course describes characteristics of power and privilege and explains the importance of using a trauma lens when trying to understand the hidden impacts of chronic marginalization or oppression. Cultural humility is explained and promoted as an attitude that can be developed to help therapists appreciate the complexity of social identity and combat induction into reductionistic, culturally insensitive relationships with patients who are from a culture, SES group, or ethnic group very different from their own.
The second module focuses on trauma and how it shows itself among children and adolescents. Too often these symptoms of trauma are misunderstood as simply behavioral problems. A case study is presented involving a family living in an unsafe neighborhood which is negatively impacted when their teenage son witnesses a homicide at the hands of a neighborhood gang.
The third module begins with a TEDx talk by Dr. Camara Jones who differentiates race from racism. She identifies three levels of racism: personally mediated, institutionalized, and internalized. There is also a webinar that describes three different types of microaggressions. The third webinar in this module provides the historical context for understanding the stigmatization of mental health treatment in communities of color, with a special focus on males of color.
The fourth module in this course explains the reasons it is important to use an expanded form of the ACEs when working with ethnically diverse families across the socioeconomic spectrum. The concept of a generational embodiment of historical trauma is introduced and described, along with stigmatized and disenfranchised loss. A case study is presented involving trauma related to parental drug addiction.
This is a Intermediate Level course. The target audience is all behavioral health professionals working with children and adolescents.
Learning Objectives
1. Identify the reasons it is important to view marginalization, oppression, and disenfranchised loss through a trauma lens.
2. Explain cultural humility and how it helps therapists stay open to the complexity of social identity in self and others.
3. Identify common symptoms of trauma among children and adolescents that are often misinterpreted as behavioral problems
4. Identify three levels of racism and three types of microaggression.
Course Outline
- Module I: Dimensions of Power & Privilege (60 minutes)
- Slide handouts
- Webinars
- Power & Privilege – An Introduction
- Social Identity
- The Importance of Cultural Humility
- Module II: Recognizing Trauma (65 minutes)
- Slide handouts
- Webinars
- Recognizing Signs of Trauma
- The Trauma of Community Violence – A Case Study
- Module III: Racism, Microaggression, and Attitudes Toward MH Treatment (30 minutes)
- Slide handouts
- Webinars
- Microaggression
- Historical Roots of Attitudes about MH Treatment Among Men of Color
- Resources
- Allegories on Race and Racism
- How to Respond to MicroAggressions & Bias
- Module IV: Recognizing Common but Overlooked Adversity (70 minutes)
- Slide handouts
- Webinars
- An Expanded View of Adversity
- Stigmatized and Disenfranchised Loss
- The Trauma of Parental Addiction
- Vicarious Resilience
- Resources
- ACE Slide
- ACE Survey
- Examples of Disenfranchised Grief
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 4.5 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.