* A Language of Hope (Perkins Event)

New Members

Join Anne Lutz, M.D., Director of Training for the Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy, a board-certified adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist, assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester, a Child and Family Psychiatrist at Perkins, and author of "Learning Solution-Focused Therapy: An Illustration Guide" for a special two-day training event, located on the Perkins campus.

This program has been approved for 13 Category I MaMHCA hours for re-licensure, in accordance with 262 CMR. This program has been approved for 13 Social Work Continuing Education hours for re-licensure, in accordance with 258 CMR. Collaborative of NASW and the Boston College and Simmons Schools of Social Work Authorization Number 80693.

Course Overview

Educators, school counselors, nurses, and mental health professionals have ever increasing demands, limited time and tremendous responsibility. Adding to these challenges is the impact of childhood stress and trauma and difficulties engaging with youth and their families. Left unaddressed this may lead youth to experience academic decline, alienation from peers, family conflict and worsening clinical conditions.

Many stressed and anxious children experience brief symptoms of depression, anxiety or developmental regression but return to baseline quickly, whereas others suffer long-standing PTSD. The cause of this diversity of outcomes is not fully understood. The growing field of developmental traumatology suggests that differential outcomes occur in part because of risk and resilience factors in the child and environmental factors. A crucial role for clinicians and educators is the identification and promotion of resilience factors.

Solution-focused approaches are brief, pragmatic and highly effective interventions that are ideal to enhance engagement and promote resilience factors in multi-stressed youth and families.

This workshop will provide you with a fundamental understanding of solution-focused brief therapy techniques, practical methods that can be implemented immediately in the counseling session, in the classroom, and with parents. There will be opportunities to practice solution-focused skills through role plays, lively discussions, and video case examples. Leave with practical “how to” skills that you can immediately use with the clients you serve.

Following this training the participants will be able to:

Describe solution-focused therapy and how this differs from a problem-focused perspective.
Demonstrate solution-focused skills that assist in engaging with children and families
List and demonstrate specific Solution-focused interventions that address stress and anxiety in multi-stressed youth and families
Describe several types of solution-focused scaling questions that enhance hope
Describe how to remain solution-focused in follow-up sessions