Clinical Certificate Program in Relational and Multi-Contextual Treatment of Trauma 2012-2013
This certificate program is designed for professionals in urban settings, hospitals, community agencies, and private practices committed to understanding the impact of acute and chronic trauma on their clients’ attachment relationships, belief systems, behavior, and regulation of affect. It examines the often-overlooked multi-contextual, systemic forces that lead to increased exposure to trauma and violence for many children, adolescents, and adults.
The treatment of psychological trauma is among the greatest challenges that mental health, social service, forensic, and other helping professionals face today. It calls on professionals to integrate within their practices contemporary research and treatment approaches that reduce clients’ post-traumatic anxiety and behavior and support their strengths to resume paths of developmental competence.
The program examines somatic and neurobiological changes that accompany overwhelming psychological trauma and their resulting impact on development, memory, and attachment in both children and adults. It presents culturally sensitive models of assessment and treatment grounded in a commitment to phase-oriented trauma treatment and to evidence-based assumptions that individuals, groups, and communities grow and change when their strengths are nurtured within containing attachment relationships.
From a variety of perspectives instructors discuss the normal experiences of vicarious trauma and strategies of self-care, which promote safety and affect regulation for professionals, and ultimately for their clients.
The curriculum includes an exploration of:
- Strengths based treatment of traumatic experiences of racism
- Skills in assessment of trauma in children and adults
- Strategies of working with domestic and community violence
- The impact of traumatic losses on children and families
- Treating complex post-traumatic-stress-disorder and dissociation
- Promoting resilience in immigrants, refugees, and other trauma survivors
- Mind/body techniques to build internal resources of comfort
- Understanding and treatment of substance abuse and other addictions
Faculty:
Kevin Creeden, MA, LMHC; director of assessment and research, Whitney Academy; national consultant and trainer in child trauma treatment
Mary Gilfus, Ph.D, Professor, Simmons College SSW
Hugo Kamya Ph.D. Associate professor, Simmons College SSW, faculty, Cambridge Family Institute
Johnnie Hamilton-Mason PhD. Professor, Simmons College School of Social Work
Lynn Sanford, LICSW; clinical associate professor, Simmons College SSW; author, Strong at the Broken Places, NEARI Press
Candace Saunders, LICSW; clinical instructor and coordinator of trauma certificate programs, Simmons College SSW; private practice, Newton.
Linda Yael Schiller, LICSW; private supervision and psychotherapy practice, Watertown
Mimi Thein, MD; attending psychiatrist, Children’s Hospital, Boston; instructor in psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.
This program is approved for 75 CEs for social workers, counselors and psychologists. National Board of Certified Counselors Approved CE Provider #6426. American Psychological Association Approved CE Sponsor #2057.
Format and Schedule:
Classes meet Wednesdays, 5:30-8:45 p.m. and two Saturdays.
Classes begin on September 26, 2012 and will end on May 8, 2013.
Master’s degree in human services required.
Application deadline: August 27, 2012
Tuition: $1900; 75 social work CEs. National Board of Certified Counselors Approved CE Provider #6426. American Psychological Association Approved CE Sponsor #2057.
Payment must accompany application. Please download the application and pay online.
If you have any questions please contact the course coordinator by writing to candace.saunders@simmons.edu or calling 617-521-3958.
Clinical Certificate Program in Advanced Group Work Practice: Fall 2012
This certificate program is designed for professionals with a Masters degree in social work, counseling, human services, or psychology and are facilitating groups in diverse settings such as community agencies, hospitals, residential settings, school-based settings, and with children, youth and families.
As more agencies shift from individual to group focused treatment and increase their group services in order to better meet the needs of their clients, or out of fiscal necessity, practitioners are faced with the challenge of offering an expanded menu of groups, including more specialized groups. This certificate program will strengthen the skills that clinicians are already utilizing, while providing a more varied and sophisticated conceptual framework and tools with which to practice.
Curriculum Overview and Competencies:
The course will be taught by a team of experienced group workers, each with a distinct area of expertise and with knowledge of best practices and cutting edge techniques. Course content will be delivered in five learning modules. Participants will leave the course with increased skills in the following areas:
- Group work with clients who live with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders.
- Cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavioral approaches to group work across settings and client populations.
- Mindfulness and stress-based reduction with children, adolescents and adults who have anxiety disorders.
- Conflict related to diversity in groups, and the importance of multi-culturally competent practice.
- Group work supervision and consultation: How to create a meaningful, safe and sustainable learning community through supervision and/or consultation.
Participants will develop and hone the following competencies:
- Group work with at-risk and diverse client populations.
- Facilitation of open-ended group, short-term and time sensitive groups with particular attention paid to group purpose, planning, group composition, member recruitment strategies, and contracting.
- Use of formal and innovative curricula, as well as activities and expressive modalities as vehicles for enhancing self-expression and communications skills.
- Review of key concepts and best practices for use in CBT and DBT groups.
- Definition and philosophical underpinnings of MSBR (Mindfulness and Stress Based Reduction) and the evolution of MSBR as a distinct practice approach.
- Review of critical skills and best practices for use of MSBR across the lifespan.
- Participants will learn how to conceptualize conflict as a normative and predictable dynamic, and to encourage careful resolution of conflict in ways that support group members’ collective strengths, abilities, and wisdom.
- Conflict rooted in diversity will be defined, and the worker’s role and use of self in surfacing and addressing conflict rooted in diversity will be explored.
- The Art of Co-facilitation: nurturing and addressing the challenges of partnership.
- Group work supervision as a necessary vehicle for ensuring quality of care, managing countertransference, accountability to clients and agency, advancing agency mission and objectives, and combating compassion fatigue.
Experiential Learning: Objectives and Competencies
Learning through action and reflection is the cornerstone of this clinical certificate program. Participants will have ample opportunities to put into practice concepts and skills. This will occur through role plays and during the in-class experiential component of the course.
Format and Schedule:
- Classes will meet on Wednesdays from 6-9 P.M for fourteen, three hour sessions equaling 42 contact hours.
- Classes will begin on September 11th, 2012 and end on December 18th, 2012. There will be no classes on September 26th and November 27th.
- Master’s degree in human service is required.
- Application deadline: August 15th, 2012
Faculty:
Ariel A. Botta, LICSW; Director of Group Therapy, Outpatient Department of Psychiatry, Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA. Lecturer, Simmons College School of Social Work. Lecturer, Boston University Graduate School of Social Work. Current member, and past member of the Board of Trustees of the MA Chapter, Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups. Certified Yoga Instructor.
Dana Grossman Leeman, PhD., MSW. Coordinator of the Post-Masters Certificate in Advanced Group Work Practice. Associate Professor of Practice, Simmons College School of Social Work, Boston, MA. Co-Chair of Symposia for the International Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups. Member of the Board of Trustees of the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups, MA Chapter, Consulting Editor, Social Work with Groups.
Jennifer, M. Putney, LICSW, ABD. Associate Professor of Practice, Simmons College School, Boston, MA. Coordinator of the Clinical Specialization in Mental Health and Addictions at Simmons College School of Social Work.
Patty Underwood, LICSW. Adjunct Instructor, Boston University School of Social Work, Boston, MA. Clinician, Riverside Community Care, Newton, MA. President of the MA Chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups.
Tuition: $995
If you have any questions please contact the course coordinator by writing to Dana Grossman Leeman at dana.leeman@simmons.edu or calling 617.521.3955
Simmons School of Social Work 2012 Divorce Mediation Certificate Program
There is a rapidly growing need for properly trained divorce mediators throughout the United States. This need is the result of difficult economic times in which divorcing spouses cannot afford traditional legal services as well as a growing recognition that divorce mediation is a superior method for resolving conflict in divorce and other family matters.
Until very recently, divorce mediation was viewed as an extension of family law and considered a job that only attorneys could do. Training in the subject has historically been geared toward attorneys. Consequently, non-attorney students of divorce mediation courses have been taught subjects like neutrality and empathy and they are given skills for dealing with people in states of high emotion or conflict. These are training topics that benefit attorneys, but not mental health professionals, who are already familiar with these issues.
This comprehensive, four day, 32 hour divorce mediation seminar is designed specifically for mental health professionals who have an interest in assisting divorcing spouses in finding a fair and equitable end to their marriage relationship through the process of mediation. It provides a comprehensive, nuts and bolts training curriculum that teaches mental health professionals how to become competent and effective divorce mediators and how to establish and run a successful divorce mediation practice.
Using a combination of lecture, Power Point and video presentations, individual and class exercises, role plays, demonstrations and local guest experts on financial considerations in divorce and divorce law, participants in this certificate program will develop and enhance their knowledge and skills in:
- Divorce Law 101 for the Mental Health Professional
- Identifying similarities and differences between divorce mediation and divorce litigation
- Writing legally effective parenting plans
- Calculating child support obligations
- Differentiating between marital assets and liabilities vs. non-marital assets and liabilities
- Mediating discussion about the marital home and other real estate
- Health, life and automobile insurance issues
- Financial considerations and decision options for marital cash assets and debt
- Options available to divorcing spouses with respect to their retirement plans
- Alimony considerations and options
- Minor, but necessary, issues that must be considered in every divorce case
- Writing effective Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs)
- Competently handling a mediation case from beginning to end
- Tips for opening and marketing a divorce mediation practice
Faculty
Susan Deveney - Course Developer and Chief Executive - Conflict Resolution Training, Inc.*
Head Instructor - MA, RI, CT, ME, PA, FL. Private Practice (Law and Mediation Office of Susan Deveney) Divorce and Business Mediator: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Florida. Founder, Consultant and Trainer: Divorce…Simply Done™ LLC and The American Association of Mediators, Inc.
Adam Waitkevich - CDFA™, CFP®, CRPS®
Massachusetts and New England area Divorce Financial Planner; Divorce Financial Solutions
Patrick Hess - Esq. - Instructor: Divorce and Family Law Conflict Resolution Training, Inc.
Business Law and Development Specialist
This program is approved for 32 CEs for social workers, counselors, psychologists and LMFTs. National Board of Certified Counselors Approved CE Provider #6426.
Psychology Continuing Education credit is provided by Commonwealth Educational Seminars (CES), 1020 West Barnstable Rd., Marstons Mills, MA 02648. CES is approved by the American Psychological Association to offer Continuing Education for Psychologists. Psychologists attending this program receive thirty Continuing Education Hours credit. CES maintains responsibility for this program.
This activity has been certified by the Massachusetts Association for Marriage & Family Therapy, Inc. for professional continuing education. Certification number pending.
Format and Schedule
Classes meet Friday and Saturday, June 15-16, 2012 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday June 22-23, 2012 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Tuition: $1350
Limited to 24 participants
Payment must accompany application.
To download the application and/or pay online, please visit: http://www.simmons.edu/ssw/professional/certificates.html. For application and registration information, please contact the Admission Office at 617-521-3939 or by e-mail at ssw@simmons.edu. You may contact the instructor/coordinator with questions at ConflictResolutionTraining.com or call 800-306-1020.
View video and written testimonials from mental health professionals who have completed this program
Simmons School of Social Work
Professional Development Institute
Confirmation, Cancellation and Refund Policy
Registration will be acknowledged via email. A program that has insufficient enrollment will be cancelled one week in advance. You will be notified if the program is cancelled and receive a full refund.
In the event you must cancel your registration, you will receive a full refund if you cancel at least ten days prior to the beginning of a program; if you cancel within ten days prior to the beginning of a program, you will receive a credit for the full tuition. Participants who withdraw from the program after it starts will receive a credit proportional to the number of weeks they attended the program; the maximum credit for withdrawal is 75% of the full tuition. A $100 administrative fee will be deducted from all refunds and credits.
Open Programs
Relational and Multi-Contextual Treatment of Trauma
Advanced Group Work Practice
Divorce Mediation
