Shifting Families from a Behavioral to a Relational
Understanding of their Children

CE Hours: 4.0
Instructor: C. Wayne Jones, PhD

Wednesday, June 9th, 2021, North Carolina training groups, Zoom Web Conference Training
Thursday, June 10th, 2021, North Carolina training groups, Zoom Web Conference Training
Friday, June 11th 2021, North Carolina training groups, Zoom Web Conference Training
8:30am-12:30pm

Caregiver participation and involvement is an essential component of treatment engagement in intensive, in-home, family-based treatment. Treatment outcomes, however, directly depend on caregivers’ “buying-into” a relational view of their child’s problems. When caregivers adopt a relational view of problems, they are then more open to therapists’ efforts to help them respond more effectively to their children. Getting caregivers to adopt a relational perspective can be challenging for therapists. This is because caregivers of children with severe emotional problems typically enter treatment with an entrenched behavioral perspective on their child’s problems. They regularly misinterpret the child’s negative behavior as manipulative or oppositional. There is little regard for the child’s social or psychological context. This workshop describes relational parenting and identifies common ways therapists unwittingly reinforce the caregivers’ behavioral view of their children’s problems. Strategies are demonstrated for helping caregivers see their children in a relational context and become open to engaging themselves in the change process.

Objectives

As a result of attending 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 behavioral 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 be more open to 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.