Strengthening Family Resilience: Overcoming Life Crises and Challenges
Presented by: Froma Walsh, MSW, PhD
LIVE, In-Person ONLY training, Oshkosh, WI
Thursday, July 14, 2022, 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM CDT
*includes a one-hour lunch break; lunch is not provided
**Up to 6 CE credits will be issued to those attending this LIVE, IN-PERSON event.
Workshop Description: In these tumultuous times, lives have been disrupted and many families struggle to move forward from painful losses, multi-stress hardships, and future uncertainties. Family resilience—relational processes in overcoming adversity—has valuable application in community-based practice with couples and families facing serious life challenges. As research attests, human resilience is relationally based, nourished in our vital connections.
In this workshop, Froma Walsh, the leading expert on family resilience, presents her research-informed practice framework to build resilience in distressed couples and families, helping all members from youths to elders. From extensive experience, she applies this approach in a wide range of adverse situations: complicated loss; disruptive life transitions (e.g. separation/divorce; and persistent multi-stress conditions, (e.g. illness/disability; job loss/financial strains). The workshop provides intervention principles, guidelines, and case illustrations to mobilize key relational processes for coping and positive adaptation, attuned to cultural and family diversity. Facilitating empowering beliefs and practices, and tapping systemic, cultural, and spiritual resources, promotes meaning-making, hope, and resourcefulness in facing challenges. Beyond problem solving, this approach can yield profound transformation and positive growth—deepening bonds and inspiring new life possibilities to thrive. We’ll also discuss ways to nurture resilience in our multi-stress professional and personal lives.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will learn core principles and guidelines in a Family Resilience Practice Framework, based on the latest theory and research and attuned to cultural and family diversity.
- Participants will gain useful practice knowledge and skills to identify and build key relational/systemic processes: Family beliefs and practices, and tap community/systemic/cultural/spiritual resources to rebound from crisis, trauma, and loss, and surmount multi-stress challenges.
- Participants will learn ways to support a positive outlook, realistic hope, and active agency to focus on possibilities and counter overwhelm, helplessness, and despair.
- Participants will learn how to apply and adapt this approach in brief counseling, more intensive therapy, and multi-family group formats in a variety of clinical and community-based settings.
- Participants will gain tools and strategies for resilience in their professional and personal lives.
Presenter Information: Froma Walsh, MSW, PhD, a highly respected leader in the field of family therapy, is Co-Founder & Co-Director, Chicago Center for Family Health and Firestone Professor Emerita in the Crown Family School of Social Work at the University of Chicago. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Dr. Walsh is the leading expert on family resilience, with extensive experience working with a wide range of adverse challenges involving trauma and loss, disruptive life events, and multi-stress conditions. Her research-informed Family Resilience Framework is applied worldwide in research, clinical practice, and community-based services with at-risk youth and vulnerable families. Her collaborative, systemic practice approach integrates developmental, relational, and socio-cultural-spiritual perspectives. She is a valued consultant nationally and internationally for resilience-oriented training and practice.
Dr. Walsh, a Clinical Psychologist, received her BA degree with honors in Psychology, University of California, Berkeley; MSW, Smith College; and PhD in Human Development & Behavioral Sciences, University of Chicago. She is Past President, American Family Therapy Academy; Past Editor, Journal of Marital & Family Therapy; and recipient of many awards for her distinguished contributions to the mental health field. With 120+ professional publications, her recent books include: Strengthening Family Resilience (3rd ed., 2016); Normal Family Processes: Diversity and Complexity (4th ed., 2015), and (forthcoming) Complicated Loss in Families: Fostering Healing and Resilience
In-person Event Attendance:
Hotel Information: WAFCA has reserved a block of rooms for this event. Please call 920.230.1900 by June 13th if you would like to reserve a room.
Safety: To ensure your safety, WAFCA will be follow local guidelines regarding masking. All participants will be socially distanced and hand sanitizer will be made available. Registrants are strongly encouraged to be fully vaccinated for their own safety. Registrants experiencing any cold, flu, or COVID-like symptoms should not attend the event. Refunds will be made available to those who cancel at least 1 week prior OR for reasons of illness (with notification provided to WAFCA).
Ethics & Boundaries: A Conversation about Moral Principles & Cultural Humility
Presented by Anita Mandley, MS, LCPC
Friday, August 12, 2022, 10:00 AM – 2:30 PM CDT
*includes a 30 minute lunch break
**Up to 4 CE credits will be issued to those attending this Virtual event. See below for details.
Workshop Description: This workshop focuses on Cultural Humility and the moral principles that shape our ethical attunement to our clients. We will explore how our own personal history has shaped our own biases and how they impact our intentions and behaviors as therapists, counselors, and healers. We will explore the complicated issues of justice as a principle of ethical care, and their connection to the issues of diversity, inclusivity, and equality. The workshop will include didactic material as well as video presentations, experiential opportunities, and discussions.
Learning Objectives: Attendees will be able to…
- Understand the distinction between cultural competency and cultural humility
- Understand inherent dynamics between clients and counselors regarding locations of privilege and marginalization
- Increase their awareness of their vulnerabilities and resources for ethical attunement given the reality of their own history and biases
- Learn an ecology of Ethics/Social Justice and locations of client and practitioner identities
- Learn how to integrate cultural humility into the system of moral care
- Learn how to enact the four major principles of ethical client care
Presenter Information: Anita Mandley is an integrative therapist practicing at The Center for Contextual Change, a shared practice located in Skokie, Illinois. In her more than 40 years in the mental health field, Anita has developed a particular interest in working with older adolescents and adults living with the impact of trauma, violence, abuse, and neglect. Anita works with clients with Complex PTSD, Dissociative Disorders, Eating Disorders, and a variety of injurious behaviors. Her special area of interest is Cultural, Historical and Intergenerational Trauma, (CHIT). Her treatment interventions include Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Imagery, Transforming Touch for Trauma, and other expressive therapies. Anita also teaches at National Louis University and trains locally and nationally on a variety of trauma related topics. Her training topics include Cultural and Historical Trauma, Issues of Diversity and Equity, Trauma-Focused DBT, Compassion Fatigue, and Complex Trauma, among others. She is currently excited and feels passionate about her recently developed Integrative Trauma Recovery, ITR, which is a group therapy process for adults with Complex PTSD.
The Road Traveled: Applied Behavior Analysis & Socially Significant Change
Presented by Jana Sarno, BCBA
Friday, September 20, 2022, 10:00 AM – 2:30 PM CDT
*includes a 30 minute lunch break
**Up to 4 CE credits will be issued to those attending this Virtual event. See below for details.
Workshop Description: The science of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) has a long history dating back to the early 20th century. ABA uses the science of learning and principles of behavior change that leads to meaningful and durable improvements to human behavior. Hallmarks of being systematic, conceptual, technological, socially significant, among others, form the bedrock of the field. ABA is best known for the success with working with individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. Applications of ABA have resulted in profound outcomes such as increased independence, freedom from problem behavior, increased social/communication skills, and much more.
The presentation will begin with a short history of the road traveled in the science and practice of ABA. Specific attention will be provided to original works/approaches that shaped the field to what is today. While on a historical journey during the presentation, examples of ABA in practice will be incorporated to bring the concepts into sharper focus. The presentation will conclude with a summary of “today’s ABA,” with a heightened focus on outcomes for individuals with autism and those who exhibit challenging behavior. Finally, future directions, emerging research, and resources will be provided to foster ongoing learning.
Learning Objectives:
- To be able to provide at least three characteristics/dimensions of the science of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA),
- To be able to provide a definition of ABA and three examples of strategies based on ABA principles,
- To be able to state three features of “today’s ABA,” and
- To be able to summarize one example of ABA in practice.
Presenter Information: Jana Sarno (she/her/hers) is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) with extensive educational, clinical, and professional development experience in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis. She earned her Bachelor of Science from Western Michigan University (WMU). Following graduation from WMU, Jana attended The University of Southern Mississippi and earned her Master of Arts degree in Psychology.
During her time at USM, she worked with children enrolled in Head Start/Early Head Start, local school districts, a multi-disciplinary setting for children with communication and developmental disorders, and the USM School Psychology Clinic. Her thesis titled, “Escape-to-Attention as a Potential Variable in Maintaining Problem Behavior in the School Setting,” under the direction of Dr. Heather Sterling was published in School Psychology Review. She is currently finishing her doctoral work at The University of Southern Mississippi.
In practice, Jana completed a year-long internship at the Marcus Autism Center, a NIH Autism Center of Excellence in Atlanta, GA. While at Marcus, Jana received intensive clinical experience in the assessment and treatment of severe problem behavior, verbal behavior, and feeding disorders. Jana has held clinical leadership positions at several in-home, school, and clinic-based ABA organizations. Currently, she serves as the Chief Clinical Officer for Autism in Motion Clinics. AIM Clinics is a mission-driven organization that provides ABA-based services to historically under resourced areas. Along with her work at AIM Clinics, Jana serves as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to various projects and regularly presents at national and international applied behavior analysis conferences.