Cutting, Self Mutilation, and Suicide

Despite the seemingly growing rate of self injurious behavior across all cultures, particularly among adolescent and college populations, therapists and other helping professionals often fail to ask direct questions to their young clients about the origin of unusual injuries and willingly accept “the cat scratched me again” without exploring further.  Others, who attempt to go further, are often left feeling frustrated by those who repeatedly injure themselves and resort to responses such as “they're just doing it for attention” or misinterpret self injurious behavior to mean that the individual is suicidal. In all cases, the child or adolescent is left emotionally injured.

Child Interviews: Understanding The In’s and Out’s

This training is designed to give participants a deeper understanding of the art of interviewing young children.  Participants will increase their knowledge and understanding of how the child’s brain functions and what particular strategies can be utilized to build rapport and elicit information from children in a non-threatening way.

Communicating With Adolescents: Speaking Their Language

When parents and helping professionals try to start a conversation with adolescents, they often get one-word answers or no answer at all.  Many families and helping professionals struggle to understand how adolescents think and feel.

Mental Health of Youth in the Child Welfare System

Eighty percent of youth in the foster care system have serious problems with mental health, compared to 18-22% in the general population. It is imperative that child welfare workers be able to identify the risks and symptoms through effective interviewing of families, schools, treatment providers, and youth. 

Teen Substance Use and Abuse

Forty percent of those who started drinking at age 13 or younger developed alcohol dependence later in life. Ten percent of teens who began drinking after the age of 17 developed dependence. As a result, the youth’s safety, stability, well-being, and permanency are often compromised. This training is geared toward helping adult professionals and caretakers identify early warning signs of child and teen substance use and abuse; understand the differences between experimenting vs. problem behavior; and help develop plans that match the level of need of the child, youth, and family.

Aspergers, Autism, and OCD: Understanding the Differences and How to Help

Given the overlapping symptoms of these three disorders, many helping professionals and parents are often left feeling confused about their distinctions and how to help children and adults who carry these diagnoses. This focuses on understanding the distinctions between the three disorders, understanding them and helping to plan for those who struggle with the symptoms of Aspergers, Autism, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.