Month: May 2025

The Clinical Interview

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Jennifer Berton, PhD, LICSW, CADC-IIRegister Now for CE programs now
Wednesday, June 25, 2025 – New Date!
In-person on the UConn Hartford Campus
9:30 am – 4 pm
5.5 CECs

Registration Fee: $125
UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors receive a 10% discount

Classroom location, directions and parking details will be included in your email confirmation

Trainings on assessment and diagnosis typically focus on client symptoms and psychopathology. This training has the actual clinical interview at its focus, exploring how to gather the information you need from each client. Participants will learn how to prepare, what skills are needed, and where to focus each section of the interview.

Learning Objectives:

  • Identify the primary goal(s) of the clinical interview
  • Gather useful listening and verbal skills that support rapport
  • Explore how to direct and redirect clients and the path of the interview
  • Learn strategies to manage common scenarios that challenge the interview

Thich Nhat Hanh Meets Francine Shapiro: One Stone Meditation and EMDR

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Donald deGraffenried, LCSW
In-person at the UConn Hartford CampusRegister Now for CE programs
Friday, July 18, 2025
9 am – 12 pm
3 CECs

Prior EMDR training is not required to attend this training. EMDRIA Approval is pending for this training. EMDRIA credits will be available but only to individuals who have fully completed Part I and Part II EMDR Basic Training

Registration Fee: $75
UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors receive a 10% discount

Classroom location, directions and parking details will be included in your email confirmation

This three-hour in person training will explore the teachings of Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Participants will learn about his history with mindfulness, his advocacy for peace and social justice, and his connection to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Trainer Donald deGraffenried, LCSW will explain the origin of the “One Stone Meditation” and demonstrate how to use this powerful, yet simple experience of mindfulness with clients or for yourself.

This is a gentle introduction to the process of mindfulness and enhancing the greater ability to be fully in the moment. It has wide application for use with clients, especially in the management of stress and anxiety. Participants will also have the option via a practicum to enhance/strengthen their experience by using bilateral tapping which comes out of the work of Francine Shapiro, Ph.D. and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).

Please bring a small stone with you to the training. The stone should fit comfortably in the palm of your hand.

In this interactive and experiential seminar, participants will:

• practice the “One Stone Meditation”
• develop the meditative experience
• have the opportunity to practice and strengthen their experience by using bi lateral taping

New Perspectives on Sustaining Helping Professionals

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Patricia Wilcox, LCSWRegister Now for CE programs
Live Webinar
Wed, June 18, 2025
10 am – 12 pm
2 CECs

Recently social service agencies have been acknowledging the effects of working with, feeling empathy for, and having responsibility for trauma survivors. Whether this effect is referred to as vicarious trauma (VT) or secondary traumatic stress, there is no doubt that the work can influence the treater’s world view, their sense of safety, their own relationships, their sense of hope and their energy and enthusiasm for their work. However, agencies often take the approach that this is mainly an individual problem, to be solved by the treater on their own time and at their own expense with self-care and good boundaries.

This presentation will challenge some of the myths of vicarious trauma, such as that work is entirely depleting and that home life is entirely fulfilling; and that there is such a thing as work-life balance. The book Reducing Secondary Traumatic Stress: Skills for Sustaining a Career in the Helping Professions by Brian C. Miller (2022 Routledge) will provide the scaffolding for specific techniques that can help our workers retain and grow their hope and energy in the work, and thus reduce turnover. We will cover areas such as: debunking the myths of VT; developing skills to enhance our work lives; understanding that appreciating intensity rather than avoiding it helps us thrive; bringing joy into our work lives; developing radical compassion; and recovering from crisis. . We will also explore the assumption that trauma encounters are inherently fatiguing. We will investigate the premise that the cure for exhaustion is not rest- it is wholeheartedness. Participants will leave the workshop with action steps to bring to their agencies.

Participants will be able to:

  • Identify three myths about vicarious trauma and their alternative truths
  • List eight skills to sustain treaters in their jobs, and create agency plans to teach and support these skills
  • Develop three strategies to increase the joy in their workplaces
  • Identify three actions to create agency structures to support treaters in recovering from crisis.

Coming Home: Readjustment Reactions following Military Service and Deployment

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Register for CE programs now

Provides 2 hours of content on veterans mental health issues.

Christopher Morse, LICSW, MVF-ASW 

Saturday, June 14, 2025
10 am – 12 pm
2 CEC

Registration fee: $50
10% Discount for UConn SSW Alumni and Current UConn SSW Field Instructors

Webinar link will be emailed when your registration is complete.

While not all service members experience mental health issues, many will experience difficulties returning to the civilian world. Participants will learn about common readjustment issues faced by military and veteran populations. We will also examine the effects of trauma on readapting to life after deployment. In response to the many requests of participants who attended his trainings on Understanding Military Culture, Christopher Morse, LICSW developed this program to shed light on another important aspect of working with veterans and active military personnel.

This webinar will:

  • examine common readjustment reactions following military service and deployment to combat theaters
  • explore the effects of trauma on readjustment following combat service
  • introduce the use of common military cultural artifacts and concepts in translating therapeutic concepts into principles common to military service