The Brief Family Mirror Seminar with an Emphasis on Family Attachment and Trauma: A Four Session Seminar

Pamela Parkinson, Ph.D., LCSW

*This is a four-week training and attendance is required for all four sessions. The sessions will be held on the following Thursdays 6/3/21, 6/10/21, 6/17/21, and 6/24/21. 

Training Description

This training teaches how to understand family dynamics from a relational perspective that will allow us to develop case plans for our system-involved youth using a strength-based lens with the Pain in the Heart Healing (PITH) Questions. These questions were developed specifically to utilize structural and attachment-based family theories in an applied way for kids in our continuum of care who have experienced multiple serious trauma and attachment ruptures in their lives. We will explore the link between past trauma, current feelings about the past trauma, and the fear of what might happen in the future. Since our kids are acting out these traumas in their behavioral symptoms, it is important to be able to understand these from their perspective so that we can more easily respond to the healing necessary to increase positive outcomes using evidence-informed principles.

Learning Objective

• List the PITH questions and how they reflect systemic concepts including emotional boundaries, attachment and, of course, trauma.
• Be able to answer the PITH questions as a means of developing case plans for youth in our systems of care from a strength-based perspective.
• Discuss specific scenarios via case discussion utilizing time-lines with which to better understand the ineffective family relational patterns, attachment ruptures, and the interaction of stressors in a family’s life on these patterns.
• Develop at least 2 ways that we can help to facilitate the improvement of these family relational traumas.

Agenda 

Week 1:

4:00 PM – 4:10 PM    Sign In and welcome

4:10 PM – 5:00 PM    Review of what Zoom mirror work looks like and remote implications.

5:00 PM – 5:15 PM     Review of the benefits of live observation and the research on in-vivo training with coaching

5:15PM  – 5:30 PM    BREAK (CEUs will not be issued for this time)

5:30 PM – 6:00 PM   Small group work to Identify the 4 PITH Questions and the family systems relational issues to which they are related.

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM   Paired practice on how to invite a system-involved family to participate in a “live” observation via Zoom.

Week 2:

4:00 PM – 4:10 PM    Sign In and welcome

4:10 PM – 4:30 PM    Follow-up questions regarding structure of the training.

4:30 PM - 5:30 PM     Case presentation and application of the PITH Questions.

5:30 PM – 5:45 PM    BREAK (CEUs will not be issued for this time)

5:45 PM – 6:50 PM    Walk through of Zoom techniques as we role play the case presentation family.

6:50 PM – 7:00 PM  End and check out

Weeks 3 –4:

4:00 PM – 4:30 PM    Sign-in and brief overview of the family and their historical time-line who is coming in for the strength-based mirror consultation today.

4:30PM – 5:30 PM    Observation via the Zoom remote one-way mirror of the family meeting that is occurring.

5:30 PM – 6:00 PM  Strength-based reflection team feedback for the family while they get to “watch us” through the Zoom one-way mirror.

6:00 PM – 6:30 PM  Family response to the feedback and suggested “tasks” for the family to try over the next week if they are willing to.

6:30 PM – 7:00 PM    Family leaves and team debriefs the relational issues what occurred within the family, why, and potential next steps to help the family continue their progress!

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 being served by our continuums of care with an emphasis on the importance of family engagement and the healing of traumatic attachment ruptures. Dr. Parkinson is also a certified Partners for Change Outcome Management Systems (PCOMS) evidence-based practice trainer. She currently works as a child/family consultant to Community Based Organizations (CBO’s) in the Bay Area and Pamela has worked in level 14 residential, Non-Public Schools (NPS), hospitals, and a variety of community-based settings including outpatient clinics, schools, diversion, kinship, etc.

This course meets the qualifications for 11.5 CEUs BBS CEUs 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.