Systems theory informs case conceptualization and practice, not only in EcoSystemic Structural Family Therapy (ESFT) but in all models of family therapy.  Systems theory directs therapists to focus on the social context and interactions between people in the family and the larger ecosystem.  Therapists who are new to systems thinking often struggle with making the shift from a more linear perspective which privileges an individual's intrapsychic dynamics or behavior over that of the relational context. This course is designed to facilitate this shift for therapists new to family therapy by clarifying the elements of systemic and nonsystemic treatment mindsets. 

1.0 Hours CE Credit

This four-part webinar series provides an introduction to attachment theory and how it can be applied to the family treatment .of children and adolescents with serious social and emotional issues. It is comprised of four modules. The first describes the role of an attachment focus in the operationalized version of ESFT and identifies clinical competencies involved in helping caregivers become a more reliable source of emotional support to their children. The second webinar describes the nature of attachment problems.  In the third webinar, the attachment system and how it creates an internal working model is explained.  The fourth webinar describes the nature of secure attachments, with a particular emphasis on how the concepts of attunement and intersubjectivity can be utilized to deepen therapeutic relationships

6.0 Hours  CE Credit

Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance and their Families (Updated 2-1-19)

 This course describes the population served by intensive in-home family-based programs – children and youth with Severe Emotional Disturbance (SED) and their multi-stressed families.  These children and their families often share a history of chronic trauma, family instability and loss, which can make treatable mental health issues become more chronic. In this course, insights about the experience of mental illness are shared both from the perspective of adolescents and that of their caregivers.  Multi-generational patterns that leave families vulnerable to crises are highlighted.  A webinar identifies common patterns found in multi-stressed families which maintain or exacerbate SED and the implications these patterns have for treatment. The objectives of this course are achieved through a combination of readings, brief videos, and a webinar. 

 3.0 Hours CE Credit

Histories of adversity and trauma are common among families served in intensive, in-home programs.  Although therapists may know the child’s trauma history, the caregivers’ current and past experience with adversity and trauma too often remains in the background, yet is equally as important for informing clinical decision-making.  The caregivers' histories of trauma have a major impact on family structure, parenting, and response to treatment.  This training introduces participants to current science and conceptualizations of complex developmental trauma, describing what it is and how it impacts brain development and brain functioning in children and caregivers.  Clinician-friendly concepts from neuroscience (e.g. Siegal’s “hand model” of the brain and Porges’ concept of neuroception) are introduced to help therapists gain a basic understanding of how trauma and chronic adversity shapes emotional availability and parent-child relationships.  Bruce Perry's neurobiology-informed neurosequential model of therapeutics is described as a useful tool for clinical problem solving. 

3.5 Hours CE Credit  

The first stage of treatment in ESFT is Creating the Therapeutic System.  It is all about establishing working relationships with family members and, as needed, extended family members and other professionals in the community.  This course describes in detail the four clinical tasks comprising this treatment stage.  These tasks include: 1) orienting families to ESFT and explaining how it works, 2) using the ecomap to identify important people to include in treatment, 3) cultivating the therapeutic alliance, and 4) gaining buy-in and engaging family members in treatment.  Successful completion of these four treatment tasks requires therapists to adopt a relational, collaborative approach to working with families.  This course demonstrates how to employ "partnership talk" with families to create a collaborative treatment context and to solidify working relationships within the therapeutic system.

2.0 CE Hours

The experience of emotional safety is a key component of a therapeutic alliance in family therapy, particularly when working with family members who have trauma histories, like those typically treated in intensive, in-home programs.  This course describes five therapist actions, that if enacted each session, leads to a sense of safety for both children and their caregivers.  These actions, which are described in some detail,  include: 1) creating a predictable structure for each session, 2) attuning to family member distress and acting as a co-regulator as needed, 3) humanizing family members, 4) maintaining a strength-focus, and 5) interrupting judgment, blame, and hostility. 

2.0 CE Hours

Genograms have a long and rich history in family therapy practice, both as an assessment tool and as a tool for reframing problems and their solutions as relational.  In this course, Dr. Browning introduces the basic three generation genogram which identifies in pictorial form members of the larger family system and the pivotal events shaping the life of the family and integrates it with a structural map.  A detailed symbol legend for describing the qualitative interactional dimension of relationships between different family subsystems is introduced and demonstrated, as is a method for quantifying the genogram. Together, the webinars in this course show how the interactional/relational genogram can be used to construct a systemic case conceptualization that focuses systemic intervention.  

2.0 CE Hours

In ESFT, treatment is guided by an assessment of how the NIP and the family's relational structure maintains or exacerbates the child's presenting problems.  This course focuses on family structure.  Family structure, a concept introduced more than 50 years ago by Salvador Minuchin, provides a framework for describing how a family organizes its relationships to meet the basic functions of being a family.    This course describes family relationships along the three primary structural dimensions of family organization:  subsystem boundaries, hierarchy and power, and closeness distance.  Excerpts from two films are shown and discussed to help participants sharpen observations of family interactions, translate these observations into a structural family map, and demonstrate how family structure shapes treatment.

2 Hours CE

This workshop addresses the often overlooked but highly impactful issues of power and privilege within the context of family therapy.  It is important to recognize and acknowledge power and privilege because in the lives of people of color these forces are powerful shapers of family member relationships to one another, with their communities, and with helping professionals.   Many of the children and families treated in intensive, in-home programs regularly experience marginalization based on social class, race, ethnicity, disability, religion, health status, and/or sexual orientation.  The webinars in this course are designed to help clinicians recognize and attune to “hidden” or unacknowledged systemic structural issues maintaining and promulgating marginalization. Particular attention is given to how these issues can impact the treatment of male youth of color.  Clinicians are helped to appreciate the cumulative impacts of microaggressions on family members who occupy marginalized positions.  Toward this end, the issues of power and privilege,  as well as stigmatized and disenfranchised loss, are discussed through a trauma-focused lens.  Protective factors are highlighted hat promote and build resilience in children and their families. 

4.5 Hours CE Credit

An ecosystemic case conceptualization both describes the interactional patterns creating and maintaining presenting symptoms and also explains why family members are so vulnerable to falling into these patterns.  It creates a story that humanizes family members and evokes empathy for all the key players.  The webinars in this course introduce a critical thinking clinical tool designed to assist therapists in developing a meaningful ecosystemic case conceptualization, the EcoSystemic Assessment Worksheet.  A step-by-step guide is provided on how to use it to understand the vulnerabilities and strengths of the child, the caregivers, and the family system.  When used together, the NIP (Negative Interactional Pattern) and the EcoSystemic Assessment Worksheet result in a case conceptualization.  A webinar is devoted to describing what an NIP is and how to map the different steps comprising it.   

2.0 Hours CE Credit

This course provides a guide to choosing and then creating meaningful, measureable goals and action steps that are systemically informed. Concrete examples are provided for demonstrating how to apply the SMART approach to the development of clinical goals and action steps, and how to keep them achievable by sticking to incremental, tiny habits. 

2.0 Hours CE Credit

Under-organized families are marked by inconsistency and chaos.  Life in the home can feel random and leaderless.  Children living in these families are at risk for abuse and neglect, and a wide range of behavioral and emotional problems within the family and community.  This workshop provides an eco-systemic framework for understanding under-organized families and the caregivers who head them.  Common traps are identified that helping professionals need to avoid when working with these families. Treatment guidelines are provided for addressing problems of caregiver engagement, maintaining a treatment focus, coordinating with multiple community agencies who may be working at cross purposes, and strengthening the caregivers’ executive functioning.  

5.0 Hours CE Credit

Despite the best efforts of therapists treating high risk teens in intensive, community based treatment programs, too many are still ending their lives through suicide.  This means that good treatment alone is insufficient to prevent teen suicide.  Also required is a sound knowledge about the nature of suicide, skills in assessing for suicide ideation and acute risk of suicide, and competency in co-developing effective safety plans with teens and their families.  This is the focus of this course. 

The content of this course is informed by published national core competencies in assessing and managing suicide risk (Suicide Prevention Resource Center, American Association of Suicidology, and SAMSHA).  The webinars are comprised of excerpts taken from two different live workshops given to Family Based therapists and supervisors.  Dr. Wintersteen's workshop was sponsored by the Philadelphia Child And Family Therapy Training Center in June, 2016, while Dr. Jones's workshop was sponsored by the Center for Family Based Training in May, 2016.

3 Hours CE Credits

Tailoring Supervision to the Individual Therapist

The focus of supervision needs to be informed by an assessment of the therapist's skill set, while the supervisor's approach to supervision needs to be informed by an understanding of the person of the therapist. This course presents a framework for thinking about the latter, exploring the influence of therapists' learning preferences, approach to handling emotional intensity, therapists' personal context (e.g. gender, race, life stage, values), and stage of professional development as a clinician.

2.0 Hours CE Credit

Supervising Two-Person Teams

One of the unique features of Pennsylvania’s Family Based Mental Health Services program is that it is team delivered. Not only must the focus be maintained on individual therapists’ development within the team, but also on development of the team itself. This course identifies the stages of team development and the most common team-based challenges supervisors face. The role of the supervisor in supervising two-person teams at each stage of development is highlighted, as well as supervisory strategies for addressing issues that arise.

2.0 Hours CE Credit

This is a resource folder for family based supervisors currently contracted with the Center for Family Based Training. It contains general annoucements, plus downloadable up-to-date training schedules, assessment measures, and supervisory tools/forms.

Resources for CFBT Faculty.

Foundations A Training Calendar