Boundaries and Counter-Transference with System-Involved Youth

Sonja Lenz-Rashid, PhD, LCSW

Training Description

The training will take a developmental approach, focusing on the various emotional and physical boundaries that inevitably arise with working with system involved youth and children in foster care. This training will also utilize case vignettes and small group sharing to dig deep into the various counter-transference experiences we may face when working with system involved youth and children in foster care and how counter-transference may impact our information gathering efforts and strategies to support them.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify at least 3 types of boundary and ethical dilemmas that can arise within efforts to support system involved youth.

2. Explain at least one way trauma may impact a system involved youth's experiences with boundaries and identify at least one way Counter-transference can impact information gathering and strategies to support system involved youth.

3. Identify 3 techniques to use when boundaries are being tested by system involved youth.

Agenda 

1:30-1:35pm Check in, Introductions and Agenda

1:35-2:30pm Section I: Overview of Types of Boundary Dilemmas

(Emotional, Physical, Professional Boundary types)

2:30-3:15pm Section II: Case Vignettes and Discussion

3:15-3:45pm Section III: Counter-transference (CT) when working with Foster Youth

3:45-4:15pm Section IV: CT Case Vignette and Discussion

4:15-4:30pm Check out and Wrap-up

Meet Our Trainer

Dr. Sonja Lenz-Rashid, LCSW, is a Professor of Social Work at San Francisco State University and a Co-founder and Faculty Research Evaluator of the SF State Guardian Scholars Program (GSP). Launched in 2005, the GSP serves over 100 current and former foster care youth on campus and has an annual budget of over $1 million (and is a non-profit on campus). Dr. Lenz-Rashid has studied the outcomes of, and best practice models for, former foster care youth at the national, state and Bay Area levels. Her research and publications have provided valuable feedback to child welfare administrators, legislators, and program developers in how best to serve these disenfranchised young people using evidence-based practice. She is also a consultant, trainer and clinical supervisor at a number of Bay Area non-profits serving children and youth being served by the foster care, juvenile justice, and behavioral health systems. She has over twenty-five years serving vulnerable youth in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This course meets the qualifications for (3.0) BBS CE Hours for LCSWs, LMFTs, LPCCs, and LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences & is provided by Fred Finch Youth Center, CAMFT Provider #045295.