Ruth Pearlman, LCSW, LICSW, M.ED

Wednesday, July , 2026
10 am – 12 pm (ET)
Live Webinar
2 CECs

Registration Fee: $50
10% discount for UConn SSW Alumni and current SSW Field Instructors

Webinar link will be emailed when your registration is complete.

Magical Thinking, the cognitive process of assigning direct cause and effect to life events, was once thought to only occur in young childhood. Recent research supports that Magical Thinking is present throughout the lifespan, especially when we are confronted with traumatic and/or grief events. This workshop will explore how the Magical Thinking of traumatic events in childhood forges a narrative of self-blame that the child brings into adulthood. We will explore how to clinically expose the destructive self-blame stories that clients have carried within themselves. We will explore ways to assist clients in reconstructing their narratives. This workshop will also examine elements of Magical Thinking that child perpetrators use to manipulate their victims into silence. Lastly, we will discuss the tendency for traumatically grieved clients to re-employ Magical Thinking in their guilt and shock over the deaths of loved ones.

Please note: This workshop will contain content regarding childhood sexual abuse and suicide.

Learning objectives:

1. Participants will be able to identify Magical Thinking throughout the lifespan
2. Participants will learn how to assist clients in reframing narratives that have been distorted by Magical Thinking Cause and Effect beliefs.
3. Participants will understand the role of Magical Thinking in the cognitive processing of grief.

Jennifer Berton, PhD, LICSW, CADC-II
Virtual
Monday, June 8
9 am – 12 pm (ET)
3 CECs

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

Clinical documentation is more than “notes for the file.” It’s a clinical tool, a continuity-of-care roadmap, and a legal/ethical record of the services you provide. This training gives mental health professionals a practical, real-world framework for writing documentation that is clear, clinically meaningful, and defensible—without turning notes into novels.

Participants will learn how to document with intention: capturing the clinical story, supporting medical necessity, reflecting sound clinical reasoning, and aligning with ethical standards and payer expectations. We’ll cover what to include (and what to avoid), how to write notes that are both professional and human, and how to create consistency across intake, treatment planning, progress notes, risk documentation, and discharge.

This training is designed for clinicians across settings (private practice, agencies, community mental health, integrated care) and is appropriate for both early-career and seasoned providers who want to tighten up their documentation habits.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the essential elements of clinically sound documentation across the full episode of care.
• Write progress notes that clearly communicate clinical reasoning, client response, and medical necessity using behaviorally specific, objective language.
• Develop treatment plan goals and objectives that are individualized, measurable, and aligned with the client’s presenting concerns and level of care.
• Discuss how to identify stakeholders, anticipate their interest and needs, and modify documentation as needed.

A Neuroscience- and Attachment-Informed Approach to Understanding Student Behavior

Regina Lester-Harriat, LMSW, Assistant Professor in-Residence
Monday, May 18
Virtual
9 am – 12 pm (ET)
3 CECs

Registration Fee: $75
10% discount for UConn SSW Alumni and current SSW Practicum Instructors

Webinar link will be included in your confirmation email.

This interactive training introduces school-based and clinical professionals to a neuroscience- and attachment-informed framework for understanding student behavior. Moving beyond traditional behaviorist interpretations, this session explores how the autonomic nervous system, trauma exposure, and attachment experiences shape students’ responses to stress, authority, and learning environments.
Participants will examine fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses as adaptive survival strategies, and learn how these responses often manifest in school settings as defiance, withdrawal, avoidance, or compliance.

Through case-based application and practical strategies, the training emphasizes the importance of co-regulation, relational safety, and culturally responsive, trauma-informed interventions.
Grounded in school social work practice, this session bridges theory and application, equipping participants with tools they can immediately integrate into their work with children, adolescents, and families.

Participants will be able to:

• Describe the role of the autonomic nervous system in shaping behavioral responses in children and adolescents.
• Identify fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses and how they present in school and clinical settings.
• Explain the connection between attachment experiences and nervous system regulation.
• Apply a neuroscience-informed lens to reinterpret student behavior and reduce mislabeling.
• Implement practical co-regulation and relationship-based strategies to support student engagement and emotional safety.