Family Historical Information Gathering and Life Cycle Development within Efforts to Support System Involved Youth

Pamela Parkinson, Ph.D., LCSW

Training Description

We can’t know how to develop plans to support system involved youth if we don’t understand fully the youth’s context including family relationships, historical trauma, and intergenerational influences. Learn how the history of the biological families of our system involved youth impacts their current functioning and how a family’s life cycle developmental challenges are intricately related to a youth’s own developmental challenges and attachment issues. We will review the importance of creating family trees and timelines with families in order to learn about their culture/stressors/life experiences and other important values. This information guides our case planning and service provision of all kinds. Without context, we cannot possibly understand what the behaviors of our kids in the Continuum of Care mean or how we might go about healing the pain and achieving positive outcomes.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

· Explain the Family Systems Theory and the importance of the historical/cultural context when supporting system involved youth.

· Identify at least 2 child development theories and learn the 4 questions of Pain in the Heart Theory, which was developed while working with youth in out of home placement and in the juvenile justice system.

· Identify 3 strategies for examining the impact of family life cycle development on youth attachment.

Agenda

10:00 – 10:15AM  Sign In

10:15 – 10:45AM  Section I: Systems theory, and the importance of family history/culture in understanding the symptoms of our system involved youth.

10:45 – 11:0AM  Small group break-out discussions for exploring the specific theory.

11:00 – 11:15AM  Advantages of family trees in understanding trauma.

11:15 – 11:4AM  How to develop a time line of important family events, and how they impact the development of our system involved youth.

11:45AM – 12:00PM  BREAK (CE Hours will not be offered for this time)

12:00 – 12:30PM  Section II:  Building the family tree with the family in the room! Also, small group practice and then sharing back with the larger the 

conventions of the family tree (genogram).

12:30 – 12:45PM  Q & A regarding the importance of family history before developing a plan for our system involved youth.

12:45 – 1:00PM  The intersection of trauma and youth development.

1:00 – 1:30PM  LUNCH (CE Hours will not be offered for this time)

1:30 – 2:00PM  Examples and discussion of cognitive and psychosocial developmental milestones.

2:00 – 2:15PM  Adding the family lifecycle developmental process to our understanding of our SIY.

2:15 – 2:45PM  Small group work, and then large group application of the impact of trauma on the developmental process of our SIY.

2:45 – 3:00PM  Overview of important family relationship patterns to understand when working with SIY.

3:00 – 3:15PM  BREAK (CE Hours will not be offered for this time)

3:15 – 3:45PM  PITH theory introduction, and then break out groups to apply this thinking to some specific youth.

3:45 -- 4:15PM  Sharing our strategies from small group work with the large group. Identifying specific examples of how trauma has impacted the secure 

attachment of the youth for which we previously created family trees.

4:15 – 4:30PM  ADJOURNMENT

Meet Our Trainer

Pamela Parkinson, PhD, LCSW, is a clinical psychologist and clinical social worker, whose specialty area is working with youth and their families. Dr. Parkinson has spent most of her career working with youth in our Continuum of Care (foster care, juvenile justice, mental health and the kids struggling in our school systems). She is a certified PCOMS evidence-based practice trainer. Pamela currently works as a child/family consultant to CBO’s in the Bay Area and has worked in level 14 residential, NPS, hospitals, and a variety of community-based settings including outpatient clinics, schools, diversion, kinship, etc.

This course meets the qualifications for (5.5) 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.