Strength-Based Diagnosis: What the Heck is this and How do I do it for Youth in our Continuum of Care?

Pamela Parkinson, Ph.D., LCSW

Training Description

Strength-based, strength-based, strength-based! Wow, this seems to be an important mantra in our field! This is NOT a training on how to use the DSM 5 and, since all of us diagnose in our own ways, I hope that anyone working with youth and their families in our continuum of care will attend (this is not only for clinicians)! This training is about how we can remain strength-based when we have to use pathologizing and stigmatizing labels in order to get paid. While I hope that we are all advocating (in our own ways) for important changes in our field that will allow us to be more strength-based and client-directed, what do we do NOW to make sure that these negative labels don’t follow our youth in the system of care (foster care, juvenile justice and mental health)?

This training is meant to help us see the difference between DSM disorders and actual diagnosis and how they go together; the significant importance of diagnosis and how we can do it; and, ways that we can decrease the negativity of labels on our clients and still get paid! If we can get better at this, it will be a win-win for our clients and our organizations with better outcomes that can come through allowing our diagnoses to guide our treatment/service delivery to our youth in our continuum of care!

Learning Objectives

•  Describe and understand what strength-based does and does NOT mean and to articulate at least 3 principles of strength-based work that we can use with youth in our continuum of care.
• Identify what diagnosis is and how it is differentfrom DSM Disorders that list symptoms. Learn how these work together and the history behind this confusion that has stigmatized those most are risk (our kids in the system of care)!
•  Apply our diagnosing in a meaningful way by integrating/honoring:

                -  The role played by environmental risk factors related to stress and trauma that most of our kids in the continuum of                     care have experienced 

                 - The role played by Cultural Relativism.

Agenda

10:00 AM – 10:30 AM  Check in and Defining/understanding what strength-based and diagnosing are.

10:30 AM – 11:00 AM Group work and brainstorming on specific DSM disorders what they tell us.

11:00 AM –11:15 AM BREAK (CEUs will not be issued for this time)

11:15 AM – 1:00 PM Identifying what the DSM is really trying to communicate albeit in a confusing kind of way.

1:00 PM – 1:30 PM LUNCH (CEUs will not be issued for this time)

1:30 PM – 2:00 PM Culture and Environmental factors in diagnosing: Applying these as the core factor.

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM  Group work on identifying reducing the use of stigmatizing labels.

3:00 PM – 3:15 PM  BREAK (CEUs will not be issued for this time)

3:15 PM – 3:45 PM Review of theory and what this actually is? I almost never hear anyone discussing theory in depth. It can’t guide our interventions if we don’t know what it is!

3:45 PM – 4:15 PM Final group work on applying theory to guide out services/treatment. Let’s do this!

4:15 PM – 4:30  Check out and 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 with an emphasis on the importance of family engagement and on the healing of traumatic attachment ruptures in work with youth, especially youth who we serve in our continuum of care: child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health and the school systems. Dr. Parkinson is also a certified PCOMS evidence-based practice trainer. She currently works as a child/family trainer and consultant to CBO’s in the Bay Area and Pamela 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 CEUs for LCSWs and MFTs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences & is provided by Fred Finch Youth Center, CAMFT Provider #045295.