Children and Adolescents

“This was a great webinar. The presenter shared content in an organized, yet interactive manner. The tools taught were very practical. Great presenter and would be awesome to teach future webinars.”-K.W., Social Worker, North Carolina

A high percentage of mental health clients have experienced some sort of trauma in their lives. That’s why it’s so important that we as clinicians use a treatment that is proven to work. This seminar will present an overview of child trauma and the evidence-based treatment, Trauma Focused- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Attendees will gain an overview of child trauma, review the definition of abuse and discuss the common affective, behavioral and cognitive reactions to trauma. Then an overview of Trauma- Focused CBT will be given, including the specific components, real life examples of activities used and the evidence for why this approach works. At the end attendees will be provided with the next step to get certified in TF-CBT.

While the larger human trafficking narrative has focused on child sex trafficking, child labor trafficking has been left out of the discussion. This training will provide an overview of child labor trafficking in the United States, specifically focusing risk factors, and the intersection of homelessness and forced criminality. Participants will learn about signs a youth may be labor trafficked as well as needs a youth needs after being identified as a child labor trafficking survivor.

“Very informative. Presenter used real world examples to help explain concepts I learned that there are many more pathways that lead youth into being sexually exploited.”-Amy L., Social Worker, Arizona

The commercial sexual exploitation of youth and young adults is a national and international epidemic. It impacts youth regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and age. It’s crucial for providers working with youth and young adults to learn about commercial sexual exploitation. “An Overview of Commercial Sexual Exploitation” will introduce you to the topic by talking about federal legislation, whether or not youth choose to be involved in the commercial sex industry, risk factors for being exploited, and the impact of involvement in the industry. Providers will also learn about the resiliency of survivors and an overview of ways to support survivors on their healing journey.

Attachment theory can inform work with sexually abusive youth. This webinar will describe and discuss the use of attachment theory as a model and methodology by which to better understand the development of juvenile sexually abusive behavior and to better understand individual clients from an attachment-informed perspective. The webinar is not intended as a primer or introduction to attachment theory, but does ill provide a descriptive overview of relevant theoretical models, and includes case studies that highlight the use of attachment theory as a framework by which to understand and explore work with sexually troubled young people and their families. The webinar is designed for those wishing to learn more about attachment theory and its application in treatment with sexually abusive youth.

“Very helpful and incredibly insightful. Brought ideas and suggestions to the topic I had not thought about.” -Gina F., Social Worker, New York

Bullying has become a high priority problem for many schools. Across the country, most states have passed laws that prohibit bullying and harassment because of the hostile and discriminatory environment that they create. Students who are targeted by bullying suffer educational discrimination as well as a host of internalizing and externalizing problems. Likewise, the effects on bullies and bystanders are not to be dismissed. This webinar will take participants through basic and mid-level information on bullying that will provoke critical thinking about how we have traditionally sought to prevent and respond to this problem. It will consider how context shapes behaviors and how we as adults in the school environment can influence context. Finally, this webinar will look at ways to respond to bullying that avoid the traditional “investigate, interrogate, blame, and punish” approach to solving the problem of bullying.

School refusal is a common problem and can be due to a number of factors. In this seminar, Dr. Hannan will identify some of the causes of school refusal and how to assess kids to get a better understanding of the behavior. He will talk about some of the instruments that can be helpful in the assessment process. He will go over how to do a functional assessment of the problem. He will provide you with treatment strategies for assisting kids that includes cognitive therapy, social skills training, exposure therapy, problem solving, and behavior management. He will use a number of case examples to illustate the assessment and treatment process. He will also highlight the treatment literature on this important topic.

Adolescence is a time of social, cognitive, and emotional growth.  The rapid rise of technology presents a unique challenge to teenagers and those responsible for their care.  Electronics use (Online videos, texting, social media, video games, streaming TV shows/movies, etc.) creates an environment that can both enrich and hinder healthy development.  Participants in this webinar will be provided with a review of the current state of knowledge, as it relates to the impact of electronics use on adolescent wellness.  Topics addressed will include the relationship of electronics to academic performance, sleep, mental health, the developing brain, and safety.  Throughout the webinar, feedback will be provided on ways to keep adolescents connected in a way that promotes a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

This workshop will provide an overview of shame and in­volvement in the commercial sex industry and how it can present in treatment. The workshop will also focus on strategies to heal shame with youth and young adults who have been commercially sexually exploited. The presenter will share information on shame resilience and self-compas­sion. 

Why topic is important: Involvement in the commercial sex industry can carry a lot of stigma and shame. When individuals don’t heal their shame, it can linger and nega­tively impact their lives. So, it’s crucial for providers to understand the heaviness of shame with commercially sex­ually exploited youth and young adults and learn strategies to support their healing.

Self-harm, or non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is most common among adolescents and young adults. Although NSSI typically decreases in late adolescence, this behavior is one of the strongest antecedents of suicide in youth; and those who engage in repetitive NSSI seem to be at high risk for continuing to use dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies, even after discontinuing NSSI. People engage in NSSI for a wide array of reasons (including a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD), but usually this involves an inability to manage emotions in some way, making Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) an ideal treatment for this population.

While most mental health clinicians will encounter NSSI at some point, there is still a paucity of research about this behaviour and why it happens; and education programs rarely teach about this behaviour and how to work with clients who are engaging in it. This workshop will help you understand NSSI, factors to consider when assessing and working with clients, and will take a DBT approach to helping clients eliminate this behaviour.

High rates of adolescent depression and suicide present as a major international public health problem.  Suicidal adolescents are often a daunting population for clinicians to work with given their high-risk. Of the few effective treatments for this population, many are often multi-modal involving individual and group therapy, medication, etc.  An empirically supported family therapy for adolescents struggling with depression and suicide that requires only weekly sessions and which can be conducted on an outpatient, home-based, or inpatient basis is Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT).  ABFT emerges from interpersonal theories suggesting adolescent depression and suicide can be precipitated, exacerbated, or buffered against by the quality of interpersonal family relationships. It is a trust-based, emotion-focused psychotherapy model aiming to repair interpersonal ruptures and rebuild an emotionally protective, secure-based, parent-child relationship. The therapy is trauma-focused while also being brief and structured. Treatment is characterized by five treatment tasks: a) reframing the therapy to focus on interpersonal development, b) building alliance with the adolescent, c) building alliance with the parents, d) facilitation conversations to resolve attachment ruptures and e) promoting autonomy in the adolescent. 

In this workshop, Dr Levy will use lecture and case studies to provide an overview of the theoretical principles, research support, and clinical strategies forABFT. Dr. Levy will review how attachment theory,emotional regulation, and trauma resolution informthe delivery of this treatment approach.  She will review the goals and structureof the five treatment tasks that provide a roadmapfor delivering this interpersonally focused psychotherapy effectively and rapidly in community mental health.

“I really enjoyed the expertise of the presenter. He had so much useful knowledge to share. The case studies really went deeper into my personal knowledge and helped me to process and analyze situations differently.”-Kristie C., Social Worker, New York

It is essential that that schools and communities know the incidence of school violence and be up to date on the best safety and prevention practices. This presentation will review numerous state and national initiatives that have focused on school safety and the recommendations from a variety of foundations started by parents who lost their in tragic school shootings. Many school shooters died by suicide and this presentation will outline the major theory of murder suicide. The presenter has a wealth of practical experience responding to school crises and participants, whether they are parents, school personnel or community members will learn many lessons from school tragedies and practical strategies to prevent future school violence.

"Excellent speaker. Very engaging and very conversational. I only signed up due to scheduling, but she got me very interested in this subject matter. My favorite CE program for this license renewal! Opened my eyes to the long term consequences of trauma and ways to work it though.”-Martin W.-Psychologist, California

Trauma can impact one’s understanding and experience of intimacy and given the high rates of sexual abuse amongst youth and young adults, it’s important that clinicians are equipped with the skills and knowledge to talk about intimacy after sexual abuse. In this workshop participants will have an opportunity to reflect of their understanding of intimacy and how it impacts their work with sexual abuse survivors. You will learn about common sexual symptoms of sexual abuse and ways to support clients in developing healthier sexual beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.  Despite how common this can be amongst sexual abuse survivors, it is often not addressed in therapy. In this training, the trainer will discuss how trauma impacts one’s relationship with sex and how to support foster youth and transitional age youth in developing a healthier understanding and experience of sex.

“Presenter was extremely well-informed and was up to date with current apps. She was warm and engaging.”-D.C., Psychologist, California

The smartphone has changed the social world and, while social challenges have always created anxiety for some, today’s online social world has raised the bar, creating more anxiety for people of all ages, adolescents and young adults in particular. From FoMO (fear of missing out) to NoMophobia (no mobile phone phobia) and from perfectionism to procrastination, the impacts of social media have exacerbated anxiety. This seminar will offer pragmatic tips for therapists to broaden their ability to mitigate anxiety in clients who have become overly attached and overly affected by their social media world.

You will get a brief overview of the neuroscience that undergirds the compulsion for continuous connection and a look at the impact of stress responses that create the circular pattern of using social media raising anxiety – turning it off raising anxiety – turning it on. We will explore the comparison fallacy and social media’s impact on anxiety, shame and low self-esteem that interferes with healthy social and personal development. And the primary focus of this session will explore pragmatic ways to decrease our clients maladaptive use of social media (including texting) and increase their productive use of smartphones to manage anxiety.

“Brava, Dr. Ruth Ellington. The best Webinar I've experienced yet. Well done. I learned strategies to teach ASD clients and parents about handling bullying.”-William C., Psychologist, California

Deficits in social skills are considered one of the defining challenges among young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), yet few evidence-based social skills programs exist for higher functioning youth with ASD.  This seminar will provide an overview of the social skills needed for making and keeping friends and handling peer conflict and rejection.  You will be given tips on how to provide social coaching using concrete rules and steps of social behavior derived from the widely popular PEERS® program, the only known evidence-based social skills program for teens and young adults with ASD. Within the framework of solid research evidence about what works and what doesn’t work socially, attendees will be given easy-to-use strategies to assist young people with making and keeping friends. The seminar will include topics such as appropriate use of conversation skills; strategies for entering conversations; and advice for managing arguments and handling teasing, physical bullying, cyber bullying, rumors, and gossip. 

Although the commercial sexual exploitation of youth has occurred in the United States, it has only recently begun to get attention. Given the newness of the topic, many providers struggle to engage youth involved in the com­mercial sex industry. The Stages of Change model has been identified as a best practice for working with the popula­tion. This 3-hour training will equip you with a better understanding of the Stages of Change model and en­gagement skills you can utilize when working with youth who are commercially sexually exploited. Without a model to engage youth, providers may place undue pressure on youth, unintentionally cause harm, and develop unrealis­tic expectations for themselves. The training will discuss the stages in a practical manner. Participants will follow a youth through each stage and learn strategies to engage them and help them move to the next stage.

Psychological functioning is always embedded within the context of social systems.  Maladaptive patterns that bring clients to psychotherapy are often learned within the family-of-origin.  Psychotherapy can help clients explore and understand systemic patterns and social roles that may contribute to current psychological distress.  Clients can learn to recognize and modify maladaptive cognitions, emotions, and behaviors that may have been learned within their families. A systemic focus in individual psychotherapy can help clients function in new social systems in more effective ways.

This seminar will teach both systemic conceptualization and intervention methods that can be used in individual psychotherapy.  Systemic conceptualization will include looking at family structure, roles, and beliefs systems.  Webinar participants will learn to consider how homeostasis, family life cycle, and multigenerational patterns shape individual functioning over time.  In order to promote a unified approach to treatment, the webinar will highlight how families and other microsystems shape the way people think, feel, and act.

Foundational interpersonal skills will be described and demonstrated with role-play videos.  These skills will address three general processes: (1) Exploration and functional analysis of systemic patterns, (2) Guided discovery to uncover more adaptive social functioning, and (3) Enacting systemic adaptation outside of psychotherapy.  Practical skills that can be learned and utilized with clients will be described for each of these three phases of treatment.

At a more advanced level, this seminar will explore the way clients internalize aspects of the people who raised them in ways that continue to influence current functioning and affective states.  Current dysfunction is often related to the way family members and family experiences have been internalized in a manner that shapes schema modes.  Diversity is addressed in this seminar by describing the way cultural contexts shape families and other social systems and how families serve as a conduit for cultural socialization.

This seminar is part of Level Two of Training in Unified Psychotherapy (TUP), focusing on working contextually with external and internal influences.  An essential part of a unified approach to treatment is understanding the impact of systemic patterns on dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and actions and fostering more adaptive responses.

“Outstanding instruction presented in an interesting way, especially wtih the use of short video clips. It increased my awareness of how trauma is transmitted to children and made me want to research more about this.”-Audrey H., Counselor, Alabama

Working with youth can be challenging given the generational patterns of trauma, poverty, incarceration, etc. So, it’s essential for providers to understand generational trauma and how to work with youth from a generational perspective. Without this perspective, we can have unrealistic expectations for youth and their families and encounter barriers to engagement. Providers will learn strategies to support youth with generational patterns of trauma within their families.

Many youth, especially foster care and juvenile justice youth, come from generational cycles of trauma and oppression. So, it’s necessary for providers to understand these generational patterns to effectively partner with these youth and their families.

“Very well explained and organized. Easy to follow and understand. I will use his plans to help me with creating effective behavior plans.”-Deborah S., Professional Counselor, New York

Child and adolescent behavioral issues can cause significant disruption to family life.  In addition to the effects on family, it may impact academic and social life.  Although many parents understand the concepts of reward and punishment, they may not understand the most effective ways to implement behavior management techniques.In addition, many parents may be overly reliant on punitive consequences for negative behavior rather than focusing on ways increase positive,pro-social behaviors.  Dr. Hannan’s seminar Understanding and Implementing Parent Training in Clinical Practice will teach clinicians how to instruct parents in behavior management.  Parent training is essential to positive outcomes in treatment for both externalizing and internalizing disorders.  This webinar will include instruction on performing a functional behavioral assessment, case conceptualization, and devising an appropriate behavior plan.  Beyond positive reinforcement and punishment,this webinar will present a variety of behavioral techniques including shaping,extinction, and differential reinforcement of alternative behavior.  Clinicians will learn how to tailor treatment according to developmental level and co-occurring psychiatric conditions, as well as how to address problems within typical development.  Research into the factors associated with successful implementation of behavioral principles will be discussed as well.

“This may have been the best training overall I have seen in the 30 years of my professional life. If not the best, then clearly in the top five. Dr. Hannan maintained the pace and energy and held my attention for six hours, no mean feat whatsoever. Hats off to him!.”-James B. Counselor, Armed Forces

In this webinar, Keith Hannan, Ph.D will talk about the diagnosis and treatment of disruptive behavior disorder.  He will help you distinguish between benign mischievousness and malignant antisocial behavior.  He will explore the literature on delinquency in girls.  There will be a review of risk assessment.  Information will also be presented on the cognitive style and deficits of delinquent youth.  He will present a model for effective psychotherapeutic intervention.

"Very well done.  Great content and practicality in my practice.  New to treatment in this field.  Everything was rather new.  Great introduction to this line of work."-Matthew B., LMFT, Utah 

It has become increasingly common for children and adolescents who engage in sexually abusive or sexually troubled behavior to come to the attention of authorities, with a resulting increase in referrals to mental health practitioners for the evaluation or treatment of juvenile sexually abusive behavior. This seminar is designed to help clinicians understand current ideas about this specialized practice, and recent and evolving changes in the field, providing an overview of current thinking and models by which to understand, approach, and engage in treatment. The seminar does not focus upon treatment itself or treatment models. It instead highlights and discusses important and current ideas about sexually abusive youth and the nature of the treatment process, the importance of the collaborative treatment relationship,an approach to treatment that recognizes the individuality of each youth in treatment, and an understanding of the developmental pathways to sexually abusive behavior. The seminar will be useful for those experienced in the treatment of sexually abusive youth and those new to the field or just wishing to learn more about the work.  

Traumatized adolescents and young adults struggle with self-regulation. They are dysregulated across systems--neurologically, cognitively, physically, emotionally, behaviorally, socially, and spiritually. Anxious and vigilant, and unable to trust themselves or caregivers, they may experience even loving relationships as confusing and frightening. But to learn self-soothing, they must first be able to rely upon others and discover the comfort of co-regulation. They benefit from relationships with adults that provide them with the psychological (and physical) sense of stability and containment they cannot supply themselves.

To work effectively with these youth it’s crucial for adults to first foster their own capacity for self-awareness and self-regulation. It’s not easy, especially when our young clients’ extreme reactions—ranging from angry arousal to frozen shutting down—can trigger our own sense of helplessness, failure, dissociation, and rejection. In this webinar, you will learn about Developmental-Relational Therapy (DRT), an attachment-based model of trauma treatment. You will learn and practice mindful, empathic strategies that help teens feel more secure, connected, present, and regulated. You’ll discover how to get unhooked from old enactments by exploring:

Specific adolescent attachment styles that interact with or trigger our own

The React, Reflect, and Respond approach to corrective relational experience

Four M’s—mirroring, mentalizing, mindfulness, and modulation—to increase connection and mood regulatio

How to use moment-to-moment attunement—including strategies of validation, unflinching empathy, strategic self-disclosure, and the compassionate sharing of adult feelings and opinions-—to bring traumatized youth back into relationships with themselves and with you.