Webinar series: Beyond the threat: How to tip the balance toward safety in schools while considering the needs and challenges of individual students

October 2 and 16, November 6 and 13, and December 4, 2020

In this 10-hour webinar series, Dr. Nancy Rappaport (and several guest experts) will deepen our understanding of how to respond to students with threatening behavior in substantial ways. She’ll also help us explore the necessary cultural changes we need to make in order to effectively support students and keep our communities safe and connected.

Questions to be considered:

  • How do we as educators/clinicians build relationships with dysregulated kids?
  • How do we teach schools about the impact of structural racism and implicit bias which impact student achievement?
  • How do we support the patterns of kids on the spectrum who are perseverative on violent themes or who express themselves in provocative ways?
  • How do we appropriately implement safety assessments and build a culture of safety?
Special Guests:
Session 2, October 16: Sarah Goodrum, Ph.D.
Dr. Goodrum is Research Associate with the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado Boulder. Sarah is a sociologist with an emphasis in criminology, and she conducts research on domestic violence, homicide and school violence. In 2016, Sarah co-authored a report on a 2013 school shooting, and the findings from that report are currently being used to develop lessons learned on information sharing and threat assessment for three federally funded projects on school safety.
Session 3, November 6: Dr. Deborah M. Weisbrot
Dr. Weisbrot is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at Stony Brook University and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Weisbrot’s current clinical work is focused on her full-time role as a consulting child and adolescent psychiatrist for several therapeutic schools for children and adolescents. She is active on a national level in school consultation issues and has extensive expertise in clinical and research interest in threat assessment in youth.
Session 4, November 13: Michelle Garcia Winner, MA, CCC-SLP
Michelle specializes in the treatment of individuals with social learning challenges and is the founder and CEO of Social Thinking®, a company dedicated to helping individuals from four through adulthood develop their social competencies to meet their personal social goals. Michelle coined the term “Social Thinking” in the mid-1990s and since that time has created numerous unique treatment frameworks and curricula that help educators, clinicians, professionals of all types, and parents/family members appreciate that social capabilities are integral to a person’s success in life, socially, academically, and professionally.
Session 5, December 4: Dr. Meredith Gansner
Dr. Gansner is an instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and attending psychiatrist at Cambridge Health Alliance. Her research focuses on problematic digital media use in adolescents and has been awarded the Dupont Warren Fellowship Grant, Livingston and Shore Faculty Development Awards through Harvard Medical School.

Clinical Consultation Breakfast: Engaging Students and Supporting Educators in Schools: Learning through Case Discussion

To best determine appropriate accommodations for dysregulated students, child and adolescent psychiatrists need to be familiar with systemic interventions that schools implement, how those may impact their patients, and how to assess students who have made threats. Participants learn strategies for engaging families in a collaboration with schools to best support their students; and understand how evidence-based, systemic interventions can improve school climate, prevent bullying, assess safety threats, recognize school avoidance, and support students returning to school after hospitalization. Participants are more prepared to assist with systemic interventions, realize the importance of relationship building between students and school adults, and acquire strategies to support collaborative planning.

Clinical Consultation Breakfast: Family is the Best Medicine: Strengthening Family Therapy Skills to Support Children in Crisis

Presented by Nancy Rappaport and John Sargent.

As participants discuss the challenges they face when working with families, they gain the ability to address clinical problems as “tasks” for the family to resolve in the clinical setting and develop skills that enable this family-therapist collaboration. There is a focus on encouraging interactions within and with families that promote effective family function, build hope, enhance flexibility, and leverage the family’s capacity to heal. Participants become familiar with common themes for families that are “stuck” and learn both approaches and interventions that enhance closeness, encourage effective limits, and build understanding and support in the family.

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Personal Experiences of Safety Assessment: Student and Family Voices

Dr. Rappaport will present Personal Experiences of Safety Assessment: Student and Family Voices as part of a Clinical Perspectives presentation: Impulsive Behavior or Legitimate Warning?: Preventing, Assessing, and Responding to Student Threats.

 

 

REMOTE WORKSHOP – Dancing with the prolonged pandemic anxiety: How to have the tough talks, support your students and keep your families grounded

Back by popular demand, Dr. Rappaport will build on the strategies and information from her May webinar. She will discuss supporting children with histories of trauma, how we can anchor ourselves in hope, how to answer children’s difficult questions, strategies for children who may withdraw, and how we continue to strengthen our resilience as we prepare ourselves, our students and families for the long haul in unpredictable circumstances and with an uncertain endpoint.

Remote Workshop: Strengthening Our Resilience in an Uncertain Time: Practical Strategies and Inspiration for You and Your Family

Description: In this interactive webinar, Dr. Nancy Rappaport will share practical tools for supporting your children and loved ones through this unsettling time. She’ll also facilitate an in-depth discussion about how supporting your children and families starts with focusing on yourself and building your own resilience.

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Webinar: Parenting/Teaching During a Pandemic

Dr. Nancy Rappaport and Dr. Robert Brooks are teaming up to support parents and teachers who are feeling the stress of today’s challenges (health concerns, parenting, financial, and remote education).
Wednesday 4/1 9-9:45am
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4892473106677222155
Friday 4/3 9-9:45am
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/8744984829032287499
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Good Grief Spring Institute: Grief After Suicide

Dr. Rappaport will present the keynote: “The Words to Say It: Supporting Children After Suicide”.

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Keeping Our Schools Safe: What Every Educator Should Know About Safety Assessment 2020

This webinar presents an overview of a comprehensive school safety assessment approach for students whose behavior raises concern about their potential for violence. This presentation will draw from Dr. Rappaport’s research and clinical work as a child psychiatrist consulting to schools to present a model that can help prevent school violence while getting students and families the services they need. Targeted school violence is rare, making schools relatively safe places. However, every school must assess be familiar with basic concepts for quickly and comprehensively assessing the safety of students who are volatile and may make threats, write a hit list, destroy property, or post concerning content online. The safety assessment model emphasizes understanding the context of the behavior and helping adults mobilize the resources needed to address the student’s and family’s needs and enhance the student’s safety, connection, and well-being. The content will draw from Dr. Rappaport’s publications, research, and experience with safety assessments in schools, as well as the work of the Safe Schools Initiative, Cornell & Sheras, and others.

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Online Program: Safe Communities: Violence as a Public Health Crisis

We are living through an epidemic of acts of major violence in our community, heightening fear, revulsion, and anger. This is a public health issue, an assault on our communities, rather than many individual acts. We struggle with responses that range from building defenses against these acts and actors to dealing preventively with the conditions and maladaptation that leads to this violence. Our speakers bring much research, experience, and thought to this catastrophe, and will help us to understand and respond.

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Resilience