Presented with Dr. Sarah Goodrum.

Child and adolescent psychiatrists are increasingly asked to make judgments about student safety and violence prevention in schools. Participants review the current research on assessing student threats, broaden their knowledge base of the safety/threat assessment process, and learn critical information necessary to complete a threat assessment. Topics covered include school violence perception, performing a safety/threat assessment, and developing programs to support students, families, and educators responding to school safety issues. Case discussions and question and answer periods are integral to understanding the level of risk, practicing case formulation, and planning next steps. Participants receive helpful tools and develop skills to assist them in working with schools to gather information, assess student safety, intervene appropriately, and make follow-up recommendations.

Presented with Dr. Sarah Goodrum, Dr. Farah Williams, Dr. Deborah Weisbrot, Dr. Saneliso Masuku, and Dr. Meredith Gansner.

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.

Trainees interact with prominent child and adolescent psychiatrists, Drs. Rebecca Klisz-Hulbert, Nancy Rappaport, and Andres S. Martin, as they share their journeys and career paths to leadership in the field.

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.

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.

Registration now open!

During this time of uncertainty and change, adults who work with children and families are rising to the challenge of finding new ways to connect with them, offering practical strategies for coping and thriving, and providing comfort and consistency – all while trying to care for themselves and their own families. Dr. Rappaport will share more practical concepts and tools that educators and social workers can use: maintaining connections, finding contributory activities, communicating in age-appropriate ways, validating questions and worries, balancing structure and rigidity, and supporting those with a history of trauma and challenging home lives. Her suggestions will be based on her many years of clinical experience and experience translating psychiatric concepts into easy actionable steps for educators and families. She will also discuss how taking care of ourselves and building our own resilience allows us to better continue to support children and families and allows us to boost our, and their, capacity to endure and perhaps even thrive.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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