Training Programs for Mental Health Practitioners

These workshops are available by request.

If your organization or group is interested in any these workshops please contact: Sandra Marshall – Coordinator, Training and Development, training@ckmconsultation.com

Assessing Trauma in Children and Adolescents

This workshop will present a comprehensive model for the assessment of trauma in children and adolescents. Key clinical issues in trauma assessment will be identified. The role of psychometric measures, collateral information, previous diagnoses and child interviews will be defined. Models of trauma assessment will be presented and each model will be reviewed and discussed in terms of applicability.

Critical Issues in Sibling Sexual Abuse

This workshop will review the literature and clinical features of sibling sexual abuse. Topics include: separation of victim and offender, joint interviews with victim and offender, the roles of key service providers (police, protective services, probation, and mental health). The critical role of full family participation in the assessment and treatment process will be outlined. Case examples demonstrate a working model to address issues of safety, loyalty, engagement, and minimization.

Developing Psychological Hardiness

New workers to the field often find their first years of practice unsettling. While most training programs have prepared the new worker to manage difficult clinical situations, workers find the stresses of full time practice challenging and often struggle to maintain a psychological equilibrium.

The recent research on work place stress and wellness promotes the ideal of workers learning to create a psychological hardiness in order to be able to endure the rigors of mental health work.

What are the practices that all workers should incorporate in order to protect their mental health and minimize the incidences of secondary trauma?

This workshop will address:

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is designed for workers who are just starting out. It specifically addressed their difficulties and shock of being exposed to certain experiences for the first time. New workers will b e encouraged to establish a life long practice of skills to ensure psychological hardiness.

Effects of Early Trauma on Brain Development

Attachment is a deep and lasting connection established between an infant and caregiver in the early years of life. It affects every aspect of child development. Children raised by nurturing and stable caregivers develop healthy attachments and a secure sense of self. The brains of such infants also have the opportunity for optimal development.

Children raised in neglectful, abusive or unpredictable environments are at risk of developing attachment disorders and deficits in brain development. Such children present with oppositional, impulsive, aggressive and mistrustful behavior. They have poor affect regulation and an inability to trust and care for others, and are often very difficult to reach and to treat. These are the children who challenge and drain the resources of parents, caregivers and professionals.

Trauma takes many forms in the early development of children. The impact of attachment disruption, chaotic, unpredictable and violent environments as well as specific events will be the focus of this workshop. The resulting effects of early trauma on brain development, personality development, functioning and the impact on child maturation, and will examine the effects of trauma that occurred to the child between the ages of 0 and 6 years.. The training will include practical methods of treatment. The workshop will include lecture, individual exercises and small group discussions. Implications for assessment and treatment planning will be outlined.

Effects of Early Trauma on Child Development

Trauma takes many forms in the early development of children. The impact of attachment disruption, chaotic, unpredictable and violent environments as well as specific events will be the focus of this workshop. The resulting effects of early trauma on brain development, personality development and functioning will be discussed. This workshop will examine the effects of trauma that occurred to the child between the ages of 0 and 6 years. Implications for assessment and treatment planning will be outlined.

How to Stay Positive While Working With Difficult Clients

Length: 1 full day

We are challenged to help children and families with many serious issues and problems. Our clients’ styles of coping and their resultant behaviour will stir up powerful feelings in the staff who try to help them. Their behaviour can elicit anger in us, leave us frightened, or overwhelm us. These feelings, when not acknowledged and processed, can result in inappropriate or ineffective treatment responses.

By attending this workshop you will learn to:

Who should attend:

Staff who are working with difficult children and families who are searching for ways to stay positive and maintain a beneficial therapeutic relationship with clients that they find challenging.

Impact of Trauma

Clients accessing our health and mental healthcare systems frequently show signs and symptoms of trauma. Old trauma symptoms can resurface or be exacerbated when new traumas are experienced or when experiences remind them of old trauma.

This workshop will:

Who Should Attend:

This is a short training designed to give staff a basic understanding of how trauma can effect clients and explain some of the behaviour we see. The concept of client’s effecting staff will be introduced.

Partners in Healing: Couple Work with Survivors of Sexual Abuse

Length: 1 full day

For many survivors of sexual abuse the healing process is complex, stressful and exhausting. For survivors in couple relationships, the impact of abuse and the process of healing can place added strains that can threaten the relationship. Both sexual and emotional intimacy and developmental life issues can impact on the survivor and the partner. Extended family relationships, outside friendships, pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing can be re-traumatizing experiences for the survivor. In the face of such challenges, survivors can focus on protecting themselves and containing their feelings rather than connecting with their partners.

This workshop we will explore and address:

Who Should Attend:

Those who work with survivors of sexual abuse and want to integrate working with partners as part of their treatment approach

Resiliency: The Hope of Overcoming Adversity

Length: 2 hour presentation

Pain, grief, hurt, loss, betrayal, trauma – these are some of the challenges that are part of the tapestry of our lives. How is it that some survive their painful experiences and others are crushed? How can we use these experiences as opportunities to learn about ourselves and connect with others? In this service we will explore the qualities we can nurture in ourselves and in others to transform pain into something useful, to live life with resiliency.

Who should attend:

Anyone wishing to learn more about how people who are faced with sometimes almost insurmountable obstacles are able to overcome and thrive.

Running Successful Mutual Aid Groups for Adolescents and Adults

Length: 1 full day

Group work can be a very effective tool to assist clients with a wide variety of problems and issues. Harnessing the power of mutual aid and a shared experience can have many potential benefits compared with other forms of therapeutic intervention.

This workshop will address:

Who Should Attend:

This workshop has been designed to assist workers who want to run groups for adolescents and adults.

Silent Victims: Children and Youth Who Witness Violence in Their Homes

Length: 1 day

They are the innocent bystanders….the hidden victims…and the silent witnesses. These are the individuals that struggle in school, fear leaving their home, have sleep disturbances, worry about their safety and their family’s safety, have increased somatic complaints, intrusive thoughts and memories, and increased anxieties. Children and youth who witness violence in their homes are often as traumatized as those who are directly affected by violence.

This workshop will focus on the impact of violence and fear on the development of the child. It will look at how violence can alter the development of the child’s brain, resulting in changes in social, emotional, behavioural, and cognitive functioning. The goal of this workshop is to help participants gain a better understanding of the complexities of the impact of children witnessing family violence.

Participants will have an opportunity to discuss the challenges, difficulties and struggles working with these children/youth. Important and effective prevention, intervention, and treatment approaches will be reviewed.

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is designed for Clinicians, Social Workers, and Child & Youth Workers working with children/youth in the community.

Secondary Trauma and Human Service Organizations – Beyond Self Care

Length: 1 or 2 days

Working with clients who have experienced trauma will have a variety of effects on mental health workers. Research points to an inevitable conclusion that working with trauma survivors will irreversibly change the way human service workers view the world. They are likely to experience reactions that mirror symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress. Research shows that the effects of secondary trauma will be cumulative and permanent and be evident in both the workers personal and professional life.

Secondary Trauma is an occupational hazard for mental health workers who work with this population, and may manifest itself through: decrease in quality of service to clients; poor management of professional boundaries; increased professional errors and subsequent liability; demoralized work group; toxic work culture; counselor’s reenactments; loss of employees; more sick time, stress leaves and increased cost of sick benefits to the organization; increased management / employee conflict

This workshop will address:

Who Should Attend:

This training is designed to be more thorough examination of the issues of human service organizations, secondary trauma issues and self care. Focus will be on the development of practices and procedures that are directed at minimizing the impact of social service and mental health work, both at an organizational level and at a staff level.

Secondary Trauma: Impact on Staff and Organizations

Length: 1 full day

Staff are effected and changed by working with victims of trauma. Helping those who have been abused is important work and can be both rewarding and challenging for the helper. Organizations and workers who want to remain effective need to understand the impact of the work on them. Ignoring the impact of working with traumatized people has the potential to harm workers, clients and the organizations for which they work. Addressing this issue can lead to increased effectiveness, self-growth and satisfaction.

The presenter will draw from the writings and models developed by leading researchers in the area of secondary trauma. Through the use of case examples, as well as her own experience, the workshop leader will present practical, useful strategies to minimize the negative impact of trauma work to staff and their organizations. The workshop participants will be challenged to implement new strategies in their work and workplace.

This workshop will examine:

Who Should Attend:

Staff who work in Human Service Organizations

Separation and Saying Goodbye!

Length: 1 day

How we deal with youth who are leaving their home, leaving residential care and/or foster care has a powerful effect on pre- and post-placement adjustment. Many foster parents and/or residential counsellors come into the lives of young people with the goal of helping them to leave us. Ideally, separation begins at intake! The purpose of this workshop is to understand the issues of separation in relation to the youth and the foster parent/residential counsellor; understanding youth’s relationship (loyalty) with their parent, and how the foster parent/residential counsellor can support them; what they need in order to re-build their lives; and how to best understand the decisions others adults (judges) in their lives have made.

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is designed for Residential Staff, Foster Parents, and Clinicians who are working with children in out-of-home placements.

Sexual Development Birth through Puberty: “What is Normative?”

Understanding inappropriate sexual behaviour presentations is impossible without having a clear understanding of normative sexual behaviour. This workshop will review normative sexual development - birth through puberty. Developmental expectations for each phase of sexual development will be clearly outlined.

Sexualized Behaviour Problems in Prepubescent Children – When is Clinical Intervention Necessary?

This workshop will address the confusing issues surrounding sexualized behaviour presentation by the pre-school and school aged child. Discussion will include the influence of culture and media on “acceptable” behaviour. Criteria will be outlined to assist in determining the necessity of clinical intervention. The role of parents, educators, health care personnel and mental health practitioners in identifying problems will be defined.

Therapist Reactions in Trauma Treatment

Length: 1 full day

The treatment of people who have experienced trauma is challenging and can be full of risks and pitfalls for the client and worker. Recent attacks on therapists’ credibility and disputes around memory are now common place. Research now confirms that the events that we are asked to listen to and work with will effect us personally and professionally. Considering the subject matter how can the work not elicit strong reactions?

It is our professional duty to use these reactions for the best benefit of our clients. We will look at the use of various creative strategies to help therapists stay in touch with their reactions.

Case examples will be used to demonstrate some common therapist struggles.

This workshop will address:

Who Should Attend:

Therapists, counsellors, clergy who work with trauma survivors

Tools Utilized in the Assessment of Trauma: Determining Treatment Direction

Effective trauma treatment is highly dependent on an accurate trauma assessment. The workshop will review specific tools for trauma assessment and outline the implications for trauma treatment based on assessment results.

Trauma Treatment: A Directive Structured Approach to Treating Unresolved Trauma

Trauma treatment is complex. There are diverse and often competing theories about how individuals experience and interpret their traumatic experience and how we as counsellors can respond. All theorists are in agreement that trauma impacts on the emotional belief system of the individual. These belief systems often centre on the victims' feelings of self blame and are played out in persistent trauma symptoms such as depression, depersonalization and aggressive behaviour.

Trauma theory assists the clinician in identifying and responding to these key emotional belief systems. In this workshop, we will examine trauma theory and its impact on clinical practice. Choice of treatment modality (individual, group and/or family), treatment plan development and length of intervention will be highlighted.

Wellness Issues for the Experienced Worker

Length: To be determined

Recent research validates that workers who are exposed to traumatic incidences through their work will experience secondary trauma. The risk to this occupational hazard increases over time. Therefore, the worker who is more experienced will need to take particular care in managing stress and processing their responses and feelings with regards to trauma clients.

The more senior workers will be further challenged by their own life stage and development. Such issues as aging parents, relationship breakups, losses, deaths and our own health issues add to the challenge of maintaining a balanced work and personal life.

This workshop will explore:

Who Should Attend:

Senior staff who have been in the field for a number of years, particularly those who are experiencing some of the stressful impact of their work.

When Clergy Betray Us....Treatment Implications for Individuals, Families and Communities

Length: 1 full day

The experience of being abused by clergy is now recognized as occurring with more frequency than previously believed. Greater profile of this problem has led to more individuals and families seeking treatment. When someone has been abused by a religious leader, there are issues unique to this type of abuse that need to be addressed in treatment.

Abuse of an individual by a respected religious leader impacts not only that individual and their family but also the wider community that was served by the clergy. Both families of victims and the religious communities that were served by the clergy can be considered secondary victims.

This workshop will:

Who Should Attend:

Clergy, pastoral counsellors, persons involved in investigating allegations of clerical abuse.

When Institutions Fail Children - Who Cares?

Length: 1 full day

Social service agencies, mental health organizations, schools, child protective services and churches- all can play a critical role in the lives of vulnerable children. What happens when the “care” they provide harms or fails to support a child’s development? Who is watching when needed resources and services are not available or provided to children? What happens when staff abuse or neglect children who are in their care? Is the temptation too great for institutions to protect their staff instead of the children?

Reporting misconduct and advocating for children when systems fail to meet their needs presents significant challenges, especially to the professional who may have ethical and legal reporting responsibilities. The situation becomes more complex when the worker is responsible to managers and administrations who are part of the problem. When we fulfill our role as advocates to children, who will protect the concerned professional when they are in a collision course with their institution’s practices?

This presentation will examine:

Who Should Attend:

Those who work in agencies and institutions that work with vulnerable populations and are interested in exploring how we potentially help and how we may also potentially harm by some of our practices.

Worker Resiliency – What Organizations can do to support Staff who work with Traumatized Populations

Length: 1 full day

The essence of most work in human services is enhancement of quality of life. Most of our clients have experienced abuse, deprivation, loss or marginalization. A major source of stress for those in the helping professions is constant proximity to great pain. This dynamic can take its toll, both personally and professionally, and managers need to support workers, while ensuring that clients' needs are being met.

Organizations and professionals who do not acknowledge and prepare for the psychological impact are vulnerable to poor work performance, high turnover, boundary violations, ethical breaches, poor interpersonal work relationships, addiction, illness and difficulties in personal relationships.

This workshop will examine:

Who Should Attend:

Managers, administrators, executive directors. This training focuses on organizations and how through the development of practices, policies and procedures