February 26, 9am-11am CST on Zoom

Registration: $10

CEUs available for social work and LPC: $20 for 2 credit hours

Victor Vieth, J.D. has trained thousands of child-protection professionals from all 50 states, two U.S. Territories, and 17 countries on numerous topics pertaining to child abuse investigations, prosecutions, and prevention. Victor gained national recognition for his work in addressing child abuse in small communities as a prosecutor in rural Minnesota, and has been named to the President’s Honor Roll of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. Victor earned an MA in theology from Wartburg Seminary. Victor is the Chief Program Officer of Education and Research for the Zero Abuse Project, a public charity based in St Paul, MN, committed to education, training, and survivor support in order to eradicate child sex abuse.

Workshop Description:

In this workshop, attendees will receive an overview of the impact of trauma on children with a special focus on how sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other forms of trauma impact boys. Research suggests boys who have endured trauma are more reluctant to disclose abuse and, when they do, less likely to receive services. In light of these dynamics, the workshop offers suggestions for improved medical and mental health services for boys, as well as suggestions for forensic interviewers and investigators responding to cases of abuse or neglect involving boys.

Learning Objectives:

1. Articulate factors identified by researchers that make boys particularly reluctant to disclose child abuse and neglect.
2. Articulate concrete steps for more sensitive responses to male victims during forensic interviews, police or child protection investigations, as well as medical and mental health screenings.

The post Understanding the Impact of Child Abuse on Boys appeared first on haruv.

The 10th Patricia Van Horn Memorial Lecture

Monday, January 29, 10am – 12pm CST on Zoom

Registration: $12

CEUs available for social work and LPC: $20 for 2 credit hours

Greetings: Prof. Asher Ben-Arieh, General Director, Haruv Institute

The post Engaging Relationships to Treat Early Trauma appeared first on haruv.

OU-Norman, Zarrow Hall (Community Room) 700 Elm Ave., Norman, OK

CEUs available for LCSW and LPC: $15 for 1.5 credit hours

Lunch will be provided, starting at 12:30pm

Sandra White Hawk, Founder and Director of First Nations Repatriation Institute, Director of Healing Programs, National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

Prof. Sabine Andresen, Head of the Educational Science Department at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main

We are incredibly fortunate to have Sandra White Hawk and Professor Sabine Andresen join us for the 2023 Melton Visiting Professor events. Both have led national efforts to address and facilitate justice and healing for survivors of childhood trauma. Sandra White Hawk is a Sicangu Lakota adoptee from the Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota. Abused in her adoptive home, Sandra White Hawk has been a national leader in organizing Truth Healing Reconciliation Community Forums to help First Nations people impacted by foster care or adoption return home, reconnect, and reclaim their identity. Professor Andresen led a similar effort in her home country of Germany, but with a different structure. She co-founded German’s Independent Commission for Child Sexual Abuse Issues from a roundtable created after numerous children came forward with horrifying accounts of childhood sexual abuse by trusted adults and institutions. Professor Andresen is now the head of the Educational Science Department at Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main. A report in English on the German inquiry can be found here.

The post Truth-telling Initiatives for Survivors of Child Abuse (OU-Norman) appeared first on haruv.

OU-Tulsa Learning Center (Founders Hall): 4502 E 41st Street, Tulsa, OK

CEUs available for LCSW and LPC: $15 for 1.5 credit hours

Lunch will be provided, starting at 12:30pm

Sandra White Hawk, Founder and Director of First Nations Repatriation Institute, Director of Healing Programs, National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

Prof. Sabine Andresen, Head of the Educational Science Department at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main

We are incredibly fortunate to have Sandra White Hawk and Professor Sabine Andresen join us for the 2023 Melton Visiting Professor events. Both have led national efforts to address and facilitate justice and healing for survivors of childhood trauma. Sandra White Hawk is a Sicangu Lakota adoptee from the Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota. Abused in her adoptive home, Sandra White Hawk has been a national leader in organizing Truth Healing Reconciliation Community Forums to help First Nations people impacted by foster care or adoption return home, reconnect, and reclaim their identity. Professor Andresen led a similar effort in her home country of Germany, but with a different structure. She co-founded German’s Independent Commission for Child Sexual Abuse Issues from a roundtable created after numerous children came forward with horrifying accounts of childhood sexual abuse by trusted adults and institutions. Professor Andresen is now the head of the Educational Science Department at Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main. A report in English on the German inquiry can be found here.

The post Truth-telling Initiatives for Survivors of Child Abuse (OU-Tulsa) appeared first on haruv.

CEUs available for LCSW & LPC ($20 for 2 credit hours)

Presenter’s bio

Jordan Gustin, LPC & Supervisor, IMH-E®(III) has been with DVIS since October of 2015. She started out as a Children’s Trauma Therapist then moved into the Children’s Trauma Program Manager and is now one of the Vice Presidents of Clinical Services. After receiving a B.A. in Psychology from Northeastern State University, Jordan earned an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Regent University in Virginia Beach. While in Virginia Beach, she also completed training to become a Certified Traumatologist through the Green Cross Academy.  Throughout her career, she has primarily worked with children and adults who have experienced domestic and/or sexual violence, physical abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, and other traumas or stressors.

The post Domestic Violence Through A Child’s Eyes appeared first on haruv.

Estep Center at ECU 1100 E 14^th Street, Ada, OK 74820

FREE CEUs available for LCSW and LPC

Workshop description

Caregivers are the most powerful agents of healing for children who have traumatic experiences.  Attendees will learn how to support caregivers in talking with children about trauma. Through lecture, reflection, and discussion, participants will explore the following topics:

Why should we talk with children about trauma?

Why are adults hesitant to talk with children about trauma?

How do we talk with children about traumatic experiences?

Presenter’s bio

Ashleigh Kraft, LPC-S is the owner of Balanced Perspectives LLC where she provides consultation and training in the areas of infant mental health, non-profit leadership, and trauma informed care.  The major areas of focus in her professional experiences have included working with survivors of domestic violence, child maltreatment, and interpersonal trauma.  She is trained to provide Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Circle of Security and Reflective Supervision.  She is a state-wide trainer for CPP in Oklahoma and is endorsed through Zero to Three as a provisionally certified state trainer for DC:0-5.  Ashleigh is passionate about the power of relationships, supporting the professional growth of therapists, and the importance of early relationships.

The post Haruv USA and ECU Present: Talking to Children and Their Caregivers about Trauma appeared first on haruv.

Registration fee: $8

CEUs available for LCSW & LPC ($20 for 2 credit hours)

Lecturer: Paula David, PhD

Paula David, PhD, clinical social worker, is a Director of Training Programs at Haruv Institute, Jerusalem, Israel. Private practice with children and adults. Dr. David has worked in both the Israeli welfare system and in residential treatment and was responsible for importing CPP (Child-Parent Psychotherapy) to Israel, as well as creating trauma-informed training programs for a wide variety of professionals working with traumatized children.

The post Talking with Children about Trauma: Why is it important, and why is it so hard? appeared first on haruv.

CEUs available for social work: $15 for 1.5 credit hours

Description of the session:

The Israeli Independent Public Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, leading by the Haruv Institute, was established in 2020 in order to learn from the testimonies of survivors of child sexual abuse, all in the purpose to change and improve policy in Israel. The inquiry’s strategy is based on gathering evidences from survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The inquiry puts the survivors at the center of the discussion and learns from their life experiences and stories. Within less than a year, the inquiry heard and collected testimonies of over 500 men and women who were sexually abused in their childhood and bravely chose to share their stories.

In the current session, three members of the inquiry in Israel will take part and present their experience in participating in the inquiry, two of them are survivors of child sexual abuse and social activists. Major conclusions and findings from the inquiry work will be presented. The session will also include a USA expert in the field of child sexual abuse.

Presenters:

Prof. Carmit Katz, a faculty member at the Bob Shapell School of Social Work at Tel Aviv University and Director of Research at the Haruv Institute in Israel. Prof. Katz is the founder and Director of the Public Inquiry. Prof. Katz has been studying child abuse and neglect for many years, and has been involved in promoting social change for survivors of child abuse and neglect. Prof. Katz won the Inspirational Scientist Award from Tel Aviv University in 2016 and the Bob Shapell Award for Contributing to Social Policy in 2017. She is also the founder and the director of the International Group of Scholars Protecting Children from Maltreatment during Covid-19, the editor-in-chief of the International Journal on Child Maltreatment and associate editor of the journal Child Abuse and Neglect.

Yael Sherer, the Director of the Lobby for the Fight against Sexual Violence; Documentary director and writer; Director of the project “Her Own Street” and former director of the social organization “One out of One”. Yael was sexually abused by her father during childhood. She is a groundbreaking social activist in the field of sexual violence and dedicates her life to changing the public discourse and national policy in the field. She won the “Women Changing the World” award on behalf of the Israeli Parliament, and just recently was appointed by the Government to light a beacon in Israel’s Independence Day national ceremony.

Effi Harow, a public speaker and advocate against the sexual abuse. Effi was born in Los Angeles in 1984 to parents he never met. At one week old he was adopted by a family with four biological children and two adopted kids, who later that year made Aliyah to Israel, to settle in Karnei Shomron, a small community in the West Bank. It was supposed to be a safe place to raise children, but at ages 11-15 Effi was sexually abused by a good friend of his older brother, and later was abused by another adult offender in his neighborhood. He kept his secret and paid the price of silence – he started acting out, engaged in risky behaviors and was expelled from 9 different schools. At age 16 he was referred to Retorno, a center for addiction prevention and treatment, where he finally found the help he needed to reveal and to treat the abuse he suffered. Today Effi is married with 2 kids. He is suffering from post-trauma and experiencing difficulties in maintaining a job. He decided to dedicate his time to telling his story in the effort to raise awareness and prevent child sexual abuse.

Jimmy Widdifield, Jr., MA, is a Program Manager at the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth in Oklahoma City, OK.  He is responsible for ensuring that the more than 35 Freestanding Multidisciplinary Teams comply with Oklahoma statute and administrative code pertaining to MDTs through providing training and technical assistance.  Mr. Widdifield is a Licensed Professional Counselor and trained in evidence-based treatments that address the impact of child maltreatment, adversity, and trauma.  His primary experience is in clinical assessment and treatment of children ages 3-12 and adolescents with problematic (including illegal) sexual behavior.  Mr. Widdifield provides local, national, and international training to multidisciplinary professionals and the general community primarily on the research and treatment of children and adolescents with problematic sexual behavior and, also, LGBTQ+ youth.

The post “I LIVED BUT I WASN’T ALIVE”: Lessons Learned from the Israeli Independent Public Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse appeared first on haruv.

CEUs available for social work: $10 for one credit hour

Description: Early life stress (ELS) is a major public health crisis that results in significant disruptions in neurobiological processes and long-term psychiatric and health consequences, yet very little is known about interventions that may prevent them and the optimal time to do so. Not only is ELS associated with earlier onset and greater severity and comorbidity of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse, but these individuals also evidence significantly poorer responses to psychological and pharmacological interventions when treated for these conditions. Mindfulness training promotes emotional awareness and regulation by enhancing the development of control over one’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and is thus well-suited to target neurobiological processes involved in psychological stress responses in ELS-exposed youth. This presentation will review the consequences of ELS, mindfulness training and its proposed neurobiological underpinnings, as well as present data describing the feasibility and tolerability of mindfulness training with ELS-exposed youth and the associated neurobiological findings.

Lecturer: Namik Kirlic, PhD

Dr. Kirlic was born and raised in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He earned his B.A. in Psychology from Middlebury College in Vermont in 2005, where under mentorship of Dr. Adela Langrock his senior thesis focused on the cumulative effects of perceived war- and post-war stress on current psychological functioning. Following his undergraduate studies, he spent two years in the laboratory of Dr. Hans Breiter and Dr. Anne Blood at the Massachusetts General Hospital managing studies on addiction and movement disorder, as well as learning neuroimaging methods and technology. Taking leap of faith, he moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2010 to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Tulsa (TU) and Laureate Institute for Brain Research (LIBR). Under mentorship of Dr. Elana Newman at TU and Dr. Ruben Alvarez at LIBR, Dr. Kirlic focused on individual differences in neural responses to predictable and unpredictable threats, effects of prenatal drug exposure and postnatal adversity on biological stress responses in children, and effectiveness of interventions for youth survivors of natural disasters and war. His clinical practice in graduate school, as well as during his clinical residency at the University of New Mexico Hospitals and New Mexico VA, centered on the assessment and evidence-based treatment of mood, anxiety, stress and trauma-related, and emotion dysregulation disorders. Dr. Kirlic returned to Tulsa for his postdoctoral fellowship at LIBR in 2016. Under mentorship of Dr. Robin Aupperle, he trained in the use of translational behavioral and neuroimaging methods to identify reliable predictors of resilience and treatment responses. Additionally, he had an active role in the delivery of the related evidence-based interventions. In January of 2019, Dr. Kirlic became an Associate Investigator at LIBR. In addition to his research activities, Dr. Kirlic supervises the clinical work of clinical psychology graduate and postgraduate trainees at LIBR. Dr. Kirlic serves as the co-chair of the Genetics and Neuroscience Special Interest Group for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, Consulting Editor of the Adversity and Resilience Science Journal, and Member of the Editorial Board of the European Journal of Psychotraumatology. Finally, Dr. Kirlic plays an active role in disseminating finding from his research and discussing stress and adolescent mental health more broadly with various stakeholders within the greater Tulsa community. Dr. Kirlic’s research is currently funded by the National Institute for General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and William K. Warren Foundation.

The post Mindfulness Training for Resilience in Early Life: a Neurobiological Perspective appeared first on haruv.

* This course will build skills in competency areas for those seeking infant mental health endorsement at the Infant Mental Health Specialist category

4 sessions of 3 hours each, Mondays, 9:00 am – 12:15 pm Central Time (on Zoom)

Dates: April 25, May 9, May 23, June 13

Fee: $45, CEU for social workers available for a total of $15 for 12 hours, LPC pending.

Background:

Childhood trauma is a common presenting problem for children referred for mental health treatment, and these experiences can lead to long term negative impacts on both physical and mental health.  Therefore, high quality, early intervention is critical to help children heal and support their return to a normal developmental trajectory.  For children up to age twelve, the task of talking about trauma continues to be important. There is widespread agreement across child and family serving systems about the need for trauma-informed care. However, in practice, professionals often struggle to find ways to talk about trauma with children and their caregivers.

The current workshop  will help professionals working with traumatized children  learn how to talk to children directly about trauma. The course will help them learn effectively how to gather essential information at the beginning of treatment, diagnostic considerations, case conceptualization and intervention with an emphasis on children age birth to twelve and their caregivers.

The course will include a blend of didactic and experiential methods of learning and learners will have the opportunity to apply the information learned to their own case material. Learning activities will include small and larger group discussion as well as skills practice.

Course topics:

Definitions and prevalence of child trauma; developmentally appropriate ways to “talk” about trauma in treatment; domains of assessment for trauma in children and how to find, select, and use quality tools; the importance of caregiver involvement in treatment for children who have experienced trauma and strategies for engagement; theoretical frameworks: attachment, trauma, development, relationship-based practice; the intersection between parent and child trauma; how to integrate the impact of historical trauma and racism.

Lecturer’s bio:

Ashleigh Kraft, LPC-S, IMH-E® supports implementation of Snyder’s Hope theory in practice within behavioral health organizations in her work at the Hope Research Center at OU-Tulsa.  She also provides training and consultation in the areas of infant mental health, non-profit leadership, and trauma-informed care.  The major areas of focus in her professional experiences have included working with survivors of domestic violence, child maltreatment, and interpersonal trauma.  She is trained to provide Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Circle of Security and Reflective Supervision/Consultation, and is endorsed as an Infant Mental Health Mentor, Clinical.  She is a state-wide trainer for CPP in Oklahoma and is endorsed through Zero to Three as a certified state trainer for DC: 0-5.  Ashleigh is passionate about the power of relationships, supporting professional growth of therapists, and the importance of early relationships.

How to apply?

Clinicians are eligible for enrollment in this class if they are currently working with children and families.

Number of participants: Max of 35.

The post Talking to Children and Their Caregivers about Trauma: Assessment, Case Conceptualization and Treatment Planning appeared first on haruv.