Working with System Involved Youth and their Families Using Evidence Informed Principles: An Overview

Pamela Parkinson, Ph.D., LCSW

Training Description

This training is targeted to those who support system-involved youth and their families within community settings such as schools and homes. We will focus on understanding unhealthy family relationship patterns and traumatic attachment ruptures via the use of the Pain in the Heart Theory (PITH). For youth in the continuum of care, their lives are very disrupted by these ruptures including, but not limited to, removal from their homes, losing placements, deportation, and incarceration. Once we understand the pain, we can identify where the healing needs to occur so youth who are system-involved, or at high risk of system involvement, can start experiencing positive outcomes including more likelihood of not being removed from the home, successful reunifications and more sustainable permanent placements!

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

· Identify at least 2 primary family systems concepts that create the basis for Pain in the Heart Theory (PITH).

· Identify 4 pain questions that underlie PITH and which family relational concepts each one addresses.

· Identify at least 2 strategies that can address and heal the relational pain system-involved youth are experiencing.

Agenda

Day One

10:00-10:15AM  Welcome and sign in.

10:15-10:30AM  Brainstorming and discussion of the reasons to work with families and the reasons that might we might be hesitant!

10:30-11:00AM  Defining secondary and primary emotions and clarifying the difference in identifying them when supporting system-involved youth (SIY)

11:00-11:30AM  Introducing the skills of Centralizing, and the intersection of Positive Reframing & Empathy: Can’t have 1 without the other

11:30AM-12:00PM  Getting to the heart of what PITH Theory is and learning the 4 questions for uncovering the family pain.

Day Two

10:00-10:15AM  Welcome and review of major principles learned last week.

10:15-10:45AM  Cultural impact on family trauma and describing what they will attend to in the upcoming videos.

10:45-11:15AM  Review of video clips of a real family, and practice identifying process and our own reactions to what the family is doing/saying.

11:15-11:30AM  Debrief of the video while applying the questions that will help us identify the pain of the SIY and his family.

11:30-11:50AM  Presentation of a real SIY so that we can apply our learning regarding the importance of including the family and ways that we might do this.

11:50AM – 12:00PM  Check-out process 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 (4) 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.