Continuing Education

The Foundation for Understanding Mental Health

Posted on by

Qur-an Webb, MSW and colleagues from Welcome2Reality
Register for CE programs now
Wed, Oct 20, 2021
2 pm – 4 pm
2 CECs

$40 – UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors
$50 – All Others

This webinar was created to provide a base level understanding of mental health challenges and disorders from stigma to trauma to treatment and more. The training will be delivered in an interactive format by including activities, promoting discussion and creating a safe space for to engage in critical conversations around mental health and what we can do to promote better mental health wellbeing and functioning.

We will discuss the factors that puts someone at risk or protects them from developing a mental illness, including the influence of trauma. We will examine the effect of stigma on the perception of mental illness on the individual and societal levels, including how this is often internalized. We will explore some of the most common mental health disorders and then bridge into discussing treatment methods, how to identify signs versus symptoms, barriers to treatment and ways in which we can work to eliminate stigma, promote treatment engagement and emphasize the importance of self-care.

Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the prevalence of mental health challenges and disorders
  • Explore risk and protective factors for developing a mental illness
  • Discuss the impact of trauma and the physiological manifestation of signs and symptoms as they influence mental health
  • Discuss the impact that stigma has on the perception of mental illnesses on the societal, communal and personal level
  • Learn some tips for eliminating stigma, engaging in treatment and the importance of self-care

Finding and Improving a Trauma-Informed Workplace Using Brain Science

Posted on by

Patricia D Wilcox, LCSW

Register for CE programs now

Friday, Sept 24, 2021
10 am – 12 pm
2 CECs

$40 – UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors
$50 – All Others

Webinar link will be emailed when your registration is complete.

Our growing awareness of the importance of trauma-informed care goes beyond clinical work with individuals. It includes the organization and practices of the whole agency system. Helpers cannot treat their clients any better than they themselves are treated. In addition, as we consider the high toll that working with trauma survivors can take on treaters, it is increasingly clear that self-care practices are not enough. In  this era of staff shortages and high turnover, the agency must take action to sustain the hope and energy of its workers. What are these actions?

When staff feel they are connected with each other and the agency, and are using and developing their best selves, they are calmer and more effective. Trauma-informed care means using the relationship as the primary vehicle of change. Staff cannot have open-hearted relationships with clients unless they feel safe and connected. We will share strategies for developing a protective social environment.

Participants will be able to:

  • Define a trauma-informed workplace and list five components.
  • Develop a list of questions to ask in a job interview to learn more about organizational practices.
  • Critique their current organization through a polyvagal and trauma-informed lens.
  • Appraise and discuss their own personal contributions to a culture to sustain employees and develop a plan for future action.
  • Utilize polyvagal theory to examine staff reactions to safety and danger and develop an action plan to increase staff connectedness and safety either as an employee or as a supervisor.

More details about the webinar:

This webinar will first address the process of seeking a job in an agency that takes care of its workers. What should the interviewee look for? What questions should they ask?

The webinar will then address the role of the individual employee in creating and enhancing a trauma-informed system. What can one person do? The new field of polyvagal theory will help participants understand how safety and danger affect their own behavior and that of their co-workers, including the role of implicit bias. A tool to develop insight into one’s own experiences of safety at work will be introduced. A sense of safety is greatly enhanced by connectedness. Participants will also examine how the racist climate influences our sense of safety and danger, and how self-awareness and specific strategies can help us bring anti-racism into our treatment. Other areas that have been shown to be essential for worker job satisfaction are voice and choice and a sense of purpose and efficacy. Participants will explore actions they personally can take to evaluate and improve these factors in their work settings.

The webinar will also address the role of supervisors and leaders in creating a sustaining workplace, including a checklist of possible action steps.

How Our COVID and Re-entry Experience Can Help Us Be More Powerful Healers

Posted on by

Patricia D. Wilcox, LCSWRegister for CE programs now

Wed, July 14, 2021
9 am – 11 am
2 CECs

$40 – UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors
$50 – All Others

Webinar link will be emailed when your registration is complete.

We have all had to endure many changes and stressors during the pandemic crisis. How can we use our experiences to enhance our clinical compassion? Participants will examine their experiences during this crisis and consider what they can learn from them in areas such as:

  • Living with a sense of constant danger
  • Being cut off from loved ones
  • Ever-changing and difficult to understand rules and advice
  • Loneliness
  • Loss
  • Being unable to access resources
  • Handling multiple stressors at once
  • Lack of resources
  • Uncertainty and fear of the future
  • The complexities of returning to the world

Now, we are re-entering our worlds and moving towards our new normal. What have we learned that we want to keep? How can we observe our own responses in trying to achieve a sense of safety, and learn from them about the journeys that our clients take? How can we translate this new awareness into changed practices for our work and our lives?

Learning objectives:

  1. Participants will identify and explore their own COVID19 experiences.
  2. Participants will connect these experiences to events that are common for their clients, and explore how clients manifest these stressors in ways that now makes more sense.
  3. Participants will identify the features of their own reactions to the loosening of restrictions and to assurances of greater safety, and through this gain a greater understanding of the body’s mechanism of danger and connection.
  4. Participants will translate this new understanding into changes they will make in their practice.

Social Justice Issues in Supervision

Posted on by

This webinar provides at least one hour of content on cultural competence

Register for CE programs now

Patricia D. Wilcox, LCSW and Aminah Ali, MSW
Mon, June 28, 2021
1 pm – 3 pm
2 CECs

$40 – UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors
$50 – All Others

This webinar focuses on trauma-informed supervision through a social justice lens, an approach to supervision that begins with the personal and extends to the professional. Personal histories, identities, characteristics and psychological experiences of supervisors, as well as structural and environmental conditions of the organization, are considered in supervision. This perspective promotes the role of the supervisor as a leader in establishing a culture within their team that is responsive to and inclusive of the positionalities and unique experiences of clients and colleagues. Supervisors are encouraged to remain vigilant in their commitment to social justice by leading their teams and organizations in achieving truly inclusive diversity.

Participants will be able to:

  • Define their social work values and create a plan to promote social justice in their roles as leaders within the organization
  • Find how to improve their interactions with supervisees by identifying the positionalities and unique experiences of supervisor and supervisee
  • Critique the culture of the organization by partnering with their supervisees
    Appraise and discuss implicit bias and how it impacts the supervisory relationship and work with clients
  • Discuss with supervisees the applications of racism and inter-generational trauma-informed perspectives in supervision and practice and prepare a plan to utilize this knowledge within their practice

 Webinar link will be emailed when your registration is complete

Boundaries in the Time of COVID-19

Posted on by

Jennifer Berton, PhD, LICSW, CADC-II
Tues, June 15, 2021Register for CE programs now
10 am – 12 pm
2 CECs

$40 – UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors
$50 – All Others

What do you do when you are experiencing the same thing that is causing the anxiety, depression, trauma, and general turmoil that your clients are needing you to help address? How do you maintain boundaries when we are collectively going through this challenge together? Where do clinical boundaries intersect with human boundaries? Come having a healing conversation about how COVID is straining your boundary skills and what to do about it.

Webinar link will be emailed when your registration is complete

Engaging Youth in Foster Care

Posted on by

This webinar provides at least 1 hour of content on cultural competence.

Qur-an Webb, MSW and colleagues from Welcome 2 Reality Register now for CE programs

Mon, April 25, 2022
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
2 CEC

$40 – UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors
$50 – All Others

Webinar link will be emailed when your registration is complete.

Children who enter the child welfare system face many obstacles and challenges. When they are separated from their families and place in foster care, their willingness to trust and make positive connections can be extremely difficult. This training will discuss how to improve engagement with youth in foster care of all ages, races, and sexual orientations and gender identities. We will explore risk and resilience factors emphasizing the importance of strength based-solution focused strategies to support and engage these individuals.

Extending Functional Assessment to the Consultation Arrangement: Strategies for Success

Posted on by

Solandy Forte, PhD, LCSW, BCBA-DRegister Now

Wednesday, May 26, 2021
10 am – 12 pm
2 CECs

$40 – UConn SSW Alumni and Current Field Instructors
$50 – All Others

Webinar link will be emailed when your registration is complete.

Providing behavioral consultation to teams within public and private settings requires a special set of skills that encompasses coaching and mentoring in order to motivate and promote change. Applying an effective and efficient consultation model will encourage buy in and follow through from consumers and will lead to achieving the ultimate goals established through the needs assessment.

This webinar will focus on effective consultation models and strategies as well as lead discussions regarding the use of a broad lens to examine expertise, resources issues, and organization cultural issues that impact consultation. The presentations will also review different approaches to collecting data in order to assess the consultant’s own effectiveness and to evaluate social validity in a consultative context.