Events

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.

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.

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.

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.