The training aims to empower participants in critically examining the predominant Western ideologies that have created a foundation for the mental health service delivery. We will explore alternative approaches to the conceptualization of services through a liberation lens, including engagement strategies, assessment, and treatment. This training will discuss ideas and concepts brought forward from the book De-Colonizing Therapy by Jennifer Mullan.

This course examines the relationship between collective grief and sociopolitical trauma for professionals working with youth and families. System-involved youth and families are directly impacted by legislature that is out of their control. This leads to traumatization and overwhelm when imagining their futures and access to care. As providers working with this population, it is easy to take on that trauma and overwhelm when trying to continuously provide quality care. We will explore how continuous exposure to global and local crises contributes to secondary trauma and moral distress. The session will focus on the unique ways systemic stressors impact marginalized communities and the impact of providers witnessing these experiences. Lastly, we will discuss strategies on how providers can engage in tools for reducing vicarious trauma and communal healing to help maintain their own well-being while navigating shared spaces of grief and social stress in child welfare.

Reunification is often treated as the finish line at the moment the case closes, the placement ends, and the system declares a success. But for families, it is the beginning of one of the most neurologically and emotionally demanding transitions they will face. This training honors the strength and resilience of families who have navigated separation and reunion within the child welfare system and acknowledges the professionals who walk alongside them. Through the lens of trauma-informed practice and multidisciplinary (MDT) collaboration, participants will examine what happens in the critical 6–12 months after reunification which is a window of high vulnerability that systems are often structurally unprepared to support. We will explore attachment disruption as a two-way experience for children, the often-unacknowledged grief of foster parents, and the specific coordination gaps between disciplines that leave families without a net at the moment everyone assumes the work is done. This is a training about what comes after success and how we strive towards increasing resilience beyond that finish line - together.

This training will offer an overview of current research regarding the impact of social media on child and adolescent development, with particular attention to system-involved youth. We will examine the potential effects of social media use on mental health, including risks such as anxiety and sleep disruption, while also reviewing the positive impacts often found through digital connection. Lastly, the session will conceptualize how algorithmic influence and confirmation bias shape the social development and identity formation of children and youth.