Imagination, play and possibilities: A collaborative strengths-based brief family therapy approach with children
Presented by SickKids CCMH Learning Institute as part of our Summer Sprints Microlearning series.
Live webinar August 13 and 20, 2021 | 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST
Facilitator: Matthew D. Selekman, MSW, LCSW, CRADC
This training is suitable for:
Mental Health Professionals: psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers.
Medical Professionals: nurses, psychiatrists, pediatricians, family doctors.
Direct Service Workers: Drop in workers, shelter and hostel workers, child and youth workers, youth justice workers.
Description: Children presenting with angry and explosive, oppositional defiant, school disruptive behaviors and difficulties with anxiety and depression can be quite challenging to work with in practice settings where the mandate is to provide short-term treatment and/or maintain a high caseload.
Historically, the use of play therapy approaches and for children to be seen individually was considered the most appropriate way to provide treatment. Often, parents are excluded from the direct treatment of their children and seen by a separate therapist. Family therapists, on the other hand, argue that children’s symptoms or behavioural difficulties are directly connected to dysfunctional family dynamics and therefore they should all be seen together.
However, it is clear that both schools of thought have a lot to offer and can complement one another nicely, such as through the use of family play and art therapy strategies. Actively involving the parents and concerned helpers from their social networks directly in the children’s therapy can empower them to resolve their difficulties and greatly shorten lengths of stay in treatment.
In this “hands-on,” practice-oriented webinar, participants will learn a flexible and client outcome-informed collaborative strengths-based brief therapy approach that capitalizes on the strengths and resources of the child, family members, key members from their social networks, and involved helping professionals from larger systems to rapidly resolve their presenting problems.
The webinar format will combine didactic presentation, use of videotape examples, and skill-building exercises.
Learning objectives:
- Therapeutic questions that elicit family members’ expertise, untold family stories, well-formulated treatment goals, and co-create compelling future realities
- Effective engagement strategies with children
- Empirically validated parent management tools and strategies
- Key character skills and qualities for parents to cultivate in children to help them to become more resilient and successful in all areas of their lives
- Rewriting ferocious temper and DSM-V disorder stories: Externalizing conversations that liberate children and their families from the clutches of their problems
- Several family play and art therapy experiments that tap family members’ inventiveness and imagination powers
- Use of children’s friends and their trusty stuffed animal teams
- Guidelines for when to see children individually and/or do one-person family therapy
- Co-constructing change: Facilitating transformative and solution-generating conversations with involved helping professionals from larger systems
- Trouble-shooting guidelines for working with challenging and complex child cases
Registration fees: $250 Student and group rates are available.
For full registration details please visit https://cvent.me/n9xrg3
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