Date: September 13, 2024
Times: 10am-5:30pm Eastern (Find the time for your location)
Instructor: Mary Jo Barrett, MSW
Location: Live in Waltham at the First Parish Church and Live on Zoom (synchronous). This event will not be recorded.
Credits: 6 CEUs
Working with Family Estrangement: A Workshop for Individual, Family and Couple Therapists
We are living in a time of intersecting pandemics of family estrangement, individualism, and loneliness which are contributing to much dis-ease. There are old discourses that have always contributed to family disconnections. We also see changing relational expectations as generational norms shift. Clinicians can become unwitting participants in the problematic dissolution of relationships. It is tricky to navigate this terrain as an individual therapist when only one story is in the room. Holding multiple stories as a couple and family therapist in which there is family estrangement is also a challenging path.
In addition to helping us provide spaces for relational repair, understanding more about how estrangements occur, and the litany of detrimental effects on all involved, this workshop will help clinicians prevent cut offs when possible. Helping clients discern appropriate boundaries and communication as well as enhancing resilience to tolerate differences will be attended to in the context of minimizing and preventing family estrangement.
This workshop will explore the origins of various types of family estrangements. We will define three common ways that family estrangements happen and how they play out. Next, we will discuss how to potentially restore relationships. Participants will learn step-by-step Mary Jo Barrett’s reconciliation mediation program, The Family Dialogue Program. This model was created to help families recover from estrangements and to prevent further cutoffs. The Family Dialogue provides a variation of reconciliation to restore family interaction. It is used to work with adults and their relationships, primarily but not exclusive to their family. The Family Dialogue Process is based on Barrett’s Collaborative Change Model, a relationship intervention model for treating complex developmental trauma. Family Dialogue is a practical and unique process in which the clinician mediates/coaches with a step-by-step approach to help families sit together to talk and hear one another.
You will learn the best ways to help given your role. You will learn to make assessments that help you design the best approach for each situation. You will understand a three-phase process to create the potential for participants to reconnect. The course methods will be a combination of didactic lecture, discussion, and experiential exercises which include a demonstration of family dialogue.
Mary Jo Barrett, MSW
Mary Jo Barrett, MSW, is the Founder and Director of The Center for Contextual Change, located in Metro Chicago. CCC is a clinical Training Center specializing in The Collaborative Stage Model-a component phase model working with individuals, families, and groups. Mary Jo was previously a long-time adjunct faculty member of the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, the Family Institute of Northwestern University and The Chicago Center for Family Health. She holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Illinois Jane Addams School of Social Work.
Ms. Barrett is a nationally prominent expert in the treatment of trauma and traumatic violence in the family and in our communities. Her model is a collaborative, resilience-oriented approach which helps families create healing plans that can provide lasting change. Mary Jo also works extensively with helping therapists prevent Compassion Fatigue and heal from Vicarious Traumatization. She is a leading authority on family violence, including the physical and sexual abuse of children, neglect, incest, and spouse abuse, as well as neighborhood gun violence and has been working on these issues in since 1974.
Ms. Barrett has co-authored a new book Treating Complex Trauma: A Relational Blueprint for Collaboration and Change with Linda Stone Fish (2023). Ms. Barrett has co-authored two books with Dr. Terry Trepper: Treating Incest: A Multiple Systems Perspective (2014) and The Systemic Treatment of Incest: A Therapeutic Handbook (1989). She is working two handbooks: Systemic Treatment of Trauma and Interpersonal Violence and a handbook addressing compassion fatigue. Her other publications focus on systemic and feminist treatment of women, adult survivors of sexual abuse and trauma, eating disorders, couples therapy and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Ms. Barrett provides consultations, workshops, and courses, nationally and internationally to families, lawyers, psychotherapists, social service providers, staff of residential treatment facilities and staff of governmental agencies.
Schedule:
- In person registration/breakfast 9:30 am
- Zoomers get link/sign in 9:30 am
- Begins: 10:00 am
- Break 11:45 am-12:00 pm
- Learning: 12:00 pm-1:30 pm
- Break: 1:30pm-2:30 pm
- Learning: 2:30 pm-4:00 pm
- Break: 4:00 pm-4:15 pm
- Learning: 4:15 pm-5:30 pm
Learning Objectives
1. Identify three major variables that contribute to family estrangements.
2. Apply a three-phase mediation model for reconciliation in families.
3. Design personal Family Dialogue steps applied to specific cases.
4. Describe how to work with family estrangement in the role of individual therapist.
Target Audience
This learning event is designed for helping professionals including, but not limited to, social workers, mental health counselors, and marriage & family therapists. People who attend from professions other than those we are able to provide CEs for may request a Certificate of Attendance.
Cost
- Individual Registration: Regular Rate—$145; Early Bird Rate:: $125
- Early Registration Deadline: July 8, 2024
- NEAFAST Member Rate: $110
- Black Therapists Rock, National Association of Black Counselors and all BIPOC clinicians may access an equity rate of $100.
- Please contact us for discount codes. No application is required.
- 6 CEUs will be available at an additional cost of $25 paid upon registration for social workers, mental health counselors, and marriage & family therapists
Location
Live in Waltham and Live on Zoom (synchronous)
Additional Information
Participants MUST attend 100% of the program to earn the 6 CEUs approved for eligible professions.
CEU certificates will be downloadable within three days of each event after participants complete the workshop or course and fill out the online evaluation.
- Therapy Training Boston is approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6707 for Mental Health Counselors. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Therapy Training Boston is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CEUs FOR MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELORS - This activity has been certified by the New England Association for Family and Systemic Therapy, Inc., on behalf of the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Allied Mental Health & Human Services Professions for 6 LMFT professional continuing education units. PC- 042455 LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CEUs FOR MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS
- This program has been approved for 6 Social Work Continuing Education hours for relicensure, in accordance with 258 CMR. NASW-MA Chapter CE Approval Program Authorization Number D 92829. Please click here to contact us. LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CEUs FOR SOCIAL WORKERS
- Check with your state board to determine whether our approved CEUs meet the criteria for your license
Read detailed information about CEUs here.
No refunds are available for cancellations by participants regardless of the reason or time frame. If participants cancel 30 days or more prior to the event beginning, they may apply the fee to a future program. Workshops may be cancelled by Therapy Training Boston if minimum enrollment requirements are not met or in the case of other unexpected circumstances. If this occurs, a full refund will be provided.