During the pandemic, adults who work with children and families have risen to the challenge of finding new ways to connect, 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 practical concepts and tools that participants can use to continue this work: 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 during uncertain and challenging times.

Participants will be able to:

1. Describe strategies for connecting with and supporting students, including those with trauma histories and those who are neurodiverse, during the pandemic
2. List strategies for building long-term resilience
3. Describe techniques for addressing children’s worries and anxieties and communicating in age-appropriate ways

During the pandemic, adults who work with children and families have risen to the challenge of finding new ways to connect, cope, and provide comfort and consistency – all while trying to care for themselves and their own families. Dr. Rappaport will discuss how we can nurture resilience in ourselves and in the children in our lives, boosting our, and their, capacity to endure and perhaps even thrive in uncertain and challenging situations. Based on her many years of clinical experience, she will share practical ways to build resilience: maintaining connections, building a meaningful narrative, finding contributory activities, communicating in age-appropriate ways, validating questions and worries, balancing structure and rigidity, and supporting others, particularly those with a history of trauma.

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”.

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.

This full-day workshop for individuals or school teams will allow schools to understand how a safety assessment team fits into a complete approach to school safety and will present a comprehensive school safety assessment approach for students whose behavior raises concern about their potential for violence. Role play and case studies will be used to deepen understanding.

Presented by Dr. Rappaport and Dr. John Sargent

Cultivating the ability to strengthen families is vital to supporting children and adolescents in crisis. Attendees gain the ability to look at clinical problems as challenges for the family to resolve with help of the child and adolescent psychiatrist and develop skills that enable them to foster this collaboration. In reviewing cases presented by attendees, presenters look at common themes of families that are “stuck” and discuss approaches that enhance closeness, encourage effective limits, and build understanding and support in the family. Attendees learn to use encouraging interactions within and with families to alter problematic relationships and promote effective family function and recovery.