Events

‘Understanding Adolescent Trauma Through Authentic Connection’ is a one-day symposium designed for professionals in the addictions and behavioral health fields — primarily addiction/mental health counselors, social workers, psychologists, and family therapists.

2:00–3:30pm
Managing Challenging Behavior: Helping Struggling Adolescents
Nancy Rappaport, MD
Nancy Rappaport is a board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and is currently a part-time associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her research, teaching, and clinical expertise focus on the collaboration between education and psychiatry. Working as a science teacher at an innovative elementary school in Harlem, NY where she advocated for support for struggling families was a life-altering experience and inspired her to enter medical school. Dr. Rappaport received the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s Sidney Berman Award for the School-Based Study and Treatment of Learning Disorders and Mental Illness in 2012. She also received Cambridge Health Alliance’s Art of Healing Award in 2013—an award given to one who “transcends boundaries, joyfully embraces humanity, and profoundly inspires the healing of body and spirit.
Many children face adversity with traumatic abuse, neglect, or special needs that often leads to apathy, learning problems, or aggressive behavior. Dr. Rappaport, author of the influential book The Behavior Code: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students, will present the FAIR plan method: a comprehensive, accessible, and flexible framework for intervention with traumatized children and their caregivers. This method of understanding and improving behavior in challenging students looks at the function of the behavior, accommodations, interventions, and nurturing responses to traumatized children, with an emphasis on building relationships.