Advanced Clinical Practice for Adults

Online via Zoom • 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (lunch break 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.)
Instructor: Daniel Morehead, MD

Neuroscience and Clinical Social Work
Neuroscience constitutes an exciting though vast and disorienting field. This course will synthesize information from primary neuroscience into a coherent and usable form for clinical social work, human social life, and everyday life. We will review brain structure and function, then discuss illuminating aspects of brain science in human development, adversity, resilience, and health. Finally, we will connect specific mental health disorders and treatments to neuropathology, as well as social challenges and inequities. Throughout the course, we will emphasize the brain as one aspect of human nature, a level of dynamic organization that both reflects and influences social and psychological experience, and ultimately cannot be separated from them. No prior knowledge of neuroscience is required, and the class format will be interactive..

Learning Objectives:
1. Participants will learn brain anatomy and function for the purposes of understanding relevant clinical literature and neuroscience-based theories. 
2. Participants will learn the neuroscience and physiology of normal stress and its relation to the development of mental illness. 
3. Participants will learn the neuroscience of fear and trauma, including the developmental consequences of early life adversity.
4. Participants will explore the neuroscience of major depression, PTSD, anxiety, and their treatment. 
5. Participants will be exposed to the complex and mutual interactions between biological, psychological, and social factors in mental health.
 

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Course Fee: $150
CEUs: 6

Online via Zoom • 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (lunch break 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.) Instructor: Susan Lee Tohn, MSW, LICSW

Integrating Solution Focused Therapy Into Clinical Practice, Part 1 (Part 2 to be offered during Summer 2022 SSW Workshop Series) 

Solution Focused work is ideal for these challenging times as this model meets the client's needs over Zoom and is applicable to a culturally diverse clientele. Solution Focused Brief Therapy focuses on "change" not "problems" and is applicable to both the micro and macro levels of working with individuals, families, and groups. Solution Focused Therapy empowers people to create and realize their own solutions, and emphasizes strong rapport and active participation by both client and therapist. The training will challenge participants to explore their assumptions and provide them with many hands-on techniques they will be able to incorporate immediately into their work. This Part 1 (of 2 Parts) training will include: the miracle question, exceptions, and scaling for an initial session. 

Learning Objectives:
1. Participants will be able to explain the 13 Solution Focused assumptions.
2. Participants will be able to explain the unique paradigm for “cooperating with clients”.
3. Participants will be able to demonstrate a progress scale.

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Course Fee: $150
CEUs: 6

Online via Zoom • 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (lunch break 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.) Instructor: Kenna Sullivan, LICSW

Assessing and Treating Youth and Young Adults at Risk for Suicide  
This course will address the psychological and mental health factors that contribute to suicide in the young. We will examine the impact that factors such as family history of suicide, untreated mental illness, bullying, and “death by text” have on suicide among youth. We will address ethical dilemmas posed by these clients and their families in assessing and treating suicidal youth, as well as the bereaved. We will identify some common errors made by clinicians in assessing and treating adolescents and young adults at risk for suicide and the ramifications of these errors. The course will identify best and evidence-based practices in individual and group clinical practice, and review larger scale preventive interventions that seek to lower rates of suicide and suicidal behaviors by at-risk youth. 

Learning Objectives:
1. Participants will identify and learn to refute some common myths about suicide in children and adolescents. 
2. Participants will name three high risk factors for suicide in these age groups. 
3. Participants will name one suicide assessment tool in determining suicide. 
4. Participants will list two methods/programs for suicide prevention. 
5. Participants will differentiate between normal grief, complicated grief, and persistent complex bereavement disorder of suicide survivors. 
6. Participants will name two strategies for burnout prevention for clinicians engaged in suicide assessment and prevention work.
 

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Course Fee: $150
CEUs: 6

Online via Zoom • 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (lunch break 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.) Instructor: Zane FitzGerald, MSW, LICSW

Trauma Informed Care
Trauma and traumatic stress impacts the lives of individuals across all demographics and service systems. Human services organizations and entities are often tasked with responding to the biopsychosocial manifestations and stress responses, but do not always have the right tools and training to distinguish the symptoms from the source. Participants in this training will develop an understanding of trauma and the developmental impacts from early childhood through adolescence and into adulthood, and uncover the importance of infusing a trauma informed care approach to screening, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. Intervention strategies gleaned from evidence-based practice models will be explored, along with resources for integration into a variety of practice settings. 

Learning Objectives
1. Participants will explore the impact of traumatic stress inflicted on individuals by others.
2. Participants will explore various forms of interpersonal violence.
3. Participants will engage in a variety of intervention strategies.
 

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Course Fee: $150
CEUs: 6

Online via Zoom • 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (lunch break 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.) Instructor: Kristan Bagley-Jones, MSW, LICSW

Play Therapy
This course will explore effective clinical practice with children via the use of play therapy. An overview of theories informing the practice of play therapy will be discussed. Key factors in play therapy such as the importance of the play therapy relationship, applying the therapeutic powers of play, and the “how and why” of therapeutic limits will be explored. Participants will learn the specific play therapy techniques for effective assessment and practice consistent with the theoretical perspectives presented. Practical (and fun!) interventions will be explored.

Learning Objectives
1. Participants will be able to identify the major play therapy theories, therapeutic powers of play, strategies, and techniques commonly used in play treatment.
2. Participants will explore play interventions such as sand tray play, therapeutic game play, puppets, and other play interventions.
3. Participants will gain understanding of the use of the treatment relationship to shape new patterns of emotions and behaviors, set therapeutic limits, and address differences.

 

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Course Fee: $150
CEUs: 6

Online via Zoom • 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (lunch break 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.) Instructors: Cayla Disano, MSW, LCSW and Sara Rodrigues, MSW, LICSW

Gender and Sexuality Across the Lifespan: An Intersectional Study
Gender and sexuality are multidimensional facets of the human experience that intersect with each other throughout the lifespan. Debates such as nature vs. nurture and the influence of biology vs. social constructs are often invoked while discussing gender and sexuality and how they both evolve over time. In this course, participants will learn how to define human sexuality and gender, explore how both expand in each life stage, and how familial, social, cultural, and psychological factors impact personal and social development.

Learning Objectives
1. Participants will explore the social construct origins of both gender and sexuality and how they have evolved over the past century.
2. Participants will explore the theoretical underpinnings of gender and sexuality development across the lifespan through psychological, humanistic, and biological lenses.
3. Participants will identify the biological and social constructs of gender and sexuality through intersecting identities of race, ethnicity, class, religion, age, disability, spirituality, nationality/citizenship, and other critical variables.
4. Participants will explore gender and sexuality development in the context of neurocognitive variances.
5. Participants will identify and discuss the implications of the deeper understanding of gender and sexuality in both clinical and macro social work practice.

 

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Course Fee: $150
CEUs: 6

Online via Zoom • 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (lunch break 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.) Instructors: Greg Bodine, LICSW and Matt Mooney, MSW, LICSW

Narrative Therapy for Adults
This course will introduce students to the social justice perspective a Narrative Worldview offers when working with adults. A thorough examination of the distinction between Narrative and Normative Worldviews will be followed by an exploration of the two pillars of narrative practice: Deconstructing and Reauthoring. Students will consider the importance of seeing people and problems within broader social, historical and political contexts and will learn about the respectful and collaborative approach that narrative therapists take in working with people who are experiencing problems in their lives and relationships.

Learning Objectives
1. Participants will distinguish between Narrative and Normative Worldviews.
2. Participants will understand the difference between Internalizing and Externalizing a problem.
3. Participants will learn the De-centered but Influential stance of the narrative practitioner.

 

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Course Fee: $150
CEUs: 6

Online via Zoom • 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (lunch break 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.) Instructor: Kelsey Taylor, LMHC

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills for Children, Youth, and Families
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a cognitive behavioral treatment that aims to replace ineffective, maladaptive, or non-skilled behavior with skillful responses, as well as help clients become more comfortable with change. The term “dialectical” means a synthesis or integration of opposites; the primary dialectic within DBT is between the seemingly opposite strategies of acceptance and change. This course provides an orientation and overview of DBT and focuses on how to implement skill training into clinical practice. Participants will learn Acceptance-Oriented and Change-Oriented Skills for individual and group therapy, and explore interventions focused on developing Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness skills. The Walking the Middle Path skill module is discussed as a way of working with teens and families. Through case studies, interactive discussions, role-plays, and worksheets, you will take away practical strategies to use immediately with any client.

Learning Objectives
1. Participants will learn to describe the primary dialectic of DBT.
2. Participants will identify the model of emotions.
3. Participants will be able to name a treatment function of DBT.
4. Participants will identify the components of a behavioral chain analysis.
5. Participants will name the DBT Skills modules and identify their primary functions and corresponding skills.

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Course Fee: $150
CEUs: 6