OU-Tulsa Learning Center (4502 E. 41st Street, Tulsa, OK 74135) Room 231 & Perkins Auditorium

Registration: $50* (includes 35 CEU credit hours for Social Work and Behavioral Health)

Morning and afternoon refreshments will be provided, lunch on your own.

Course description: ChildFirst® Oklahoma is an in-person five-day course in which students learn the ChildFirst® Protocol for forensic interviewing. Registration is limited to 40 professionals who are Oklahoma-based MDT Professionals  who have applied and been accepted by ChildFirst® Oklahoma faculty.

Finding words can be difficult for a child victimized by abuse. Conflicting emotions of fear and love for the alleged perpetrator may cause a child to be reluctant to reveal abuse. If a child tries to speak of abuse, they may lack the verbal skills to adequately communicate the event to an adult.

Finding words can be difficult for a police officer, social worker, or prosecutor who must speak to a child about abuse. In order to communicate competently with a child, the interviewer must be able to speak in a manner consistent with the child’s linguistic and developmental abilities.

Finding words can be difficult for an investigator or prosecutor forced to defend an interview from an attack by defense counsel that the child was “led” into making a false accusation.

ChildFirst® Oklahoma is the ideal course for multidisciplinary child abuse team investigators and prosecutors seeking to enhance their ability to speak to and for abused children in Oklahoma. ChildFirst® Oklahoma supports a multidisciplinary approach (MDT) to child maltreatment cases and satisfies statutory training requirements for new core MDT members.

*Please note the payment transaction will appear as “Haruv Institute” (mahon harov) and the confirmation may take several hours to appear in your email.

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FREE CEUs available for Social Work and Behavioral Health (6 credit hours for both sessions)

Workshop Description: Reflective Parenting interventions show much promise in improving mental health outcomes through increasing a caregiver’s ability to mentalize. Mentalizing involves the ability to understand behavior in relation to mental states, such as thoughts and feelings, and typically develops within the context of secure attachment. It is the skill of being able to see yourself from the outside and others from the inside. The ability to be a reflective parent and successfully mentalize, has been positively connected to to better caregiving, healthier relationships, increased parental satisfaction and lower parenting stress. For children, having a parent who can use this skill, positively impacts children’s emotional/social development as well as their ability to regulate their behavior. This training will examine this ability in more detail, including how it relates to healthy parenting and positive child outcomes.

Presenter’s Bio: Tina Adkins, MA, MSc, PhD, LPC is a psychotherapist in private practice, who spent a decade as a professor in the School of Social Work at University of Texas in Austin. Dr. Adkins is also a Research Fellow with the International Psychoanalytic Association. She has an MSc in Developmental Psychoanalytic Psychology and PhD in Psychoanalytic Studies from University College London and the Anna Freud Center. She has worked most of her life within child welfare, first as an investigator and later as a clinician and researcher. Her work in family trauma centers around developing and implementing impactful interventions within the field of child welfare, which has resulted in an evidenced-based group mentalizing intervention for foster/adoptive parents called Family Minds.

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April 23, 9am-11am CDT at Circle of Care: 1616 N Gilcrease Museum Rd, Tulsa, OK 74127

Registration: $20* (FREE CEUs available for Social Work and Behavioral Health – with registration)

Workshop Description: this training addresses the heavy emotional toll caregiving can take, including feelings of hopelessness, overwhelming stress, and persistent guilt. Participants will learn how to compassionately support caregivers who feel emotionally exhausted or stuck, validate their experiences without judgment, and offer practical strategies that restore hope, resilience, and connection within the family system.

Presenter’s Bio: Tara Glenn, LCSW, IMH-E® (III)– Tara is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and is an endorsed infant mental health clinician by the Oklahoma Association of Infant Mental Health. Tara’s work has focused on treating childhood sexual abuse and trauma, treating families with infants/young children who have experienced scary and confusing things or have experienced attachment disruptions, and serving adults with complex trauma histories. Tara is an EMDR trained therapist as well as Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), and Circle of Security. Tara believes we are created for connection and with a purpose and wants to serve people so that any barriers to that fulfillment can be diminished.

The event is open to the general professional audience.

*Please note the payment transaction will appear as “Haruv Institute” (mahon harov) and the confirmation may take several hours to appear in your email.

The post Parenting Through Emotional Strain: Supporting Families Facing Hopelessness, Stress, and Guilt appeared first on haruv.

March 26, 9am-11am CDT at Circle of Care: 1616 N Gilcrease Museum Rd, Tulsa, OK 74127

Registration: $20* (FREE CEUs available for Social Work and Behavioral Health – with registration)

Workshop Description: this training equips clinical and program staff with a trauma-informed framework for supporting caregivers as they navigate children’s survival-based behaviors. Participants will learn how trauma impacts behavior, how to reframe challenging responses as adaptive survival strategies, and how to coach caregivers in responding with safety, regulation, and connection rather than punishment.

Presenter’s Bio: Valerie Isaacs, LPC-S, is a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor, endorsed Infant Mental Health Specialist, and Clinical Mentor, speaker, and trainer specializing in trauma-informed, attachment-based work with infants, children, adolescents, and families. Her work centers on early relational trauma, caregiver–child relationships, and the use of reflective practice to support healing and resilience across developmental stages. Valerie is the founder of Valiant Counseling and Consulting, LLC, a private practice in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she provides counseling, supervision, and consultation grounded in principles of infant and child mental health. She is also the co-founder of the Infant Mental Health (IMH) Training Cohort in Oklahoma, supporting workforce development through interdisciplinary, relationship-centered training. Valerie regularly facilitates trainings for clinicians, educators, nurses, and other helping professionals, translating neuroscience, attachment theory, and trauma research into accessible, practice-informed learning. She is the co-host of the Whole Person Parenting Podcast, where she explores parenting from a psychological, relational, developmental, and spiritual perspective.

The event is open to the general professional audience.

*Please note the payment transaction will appear as “Haruv Institute” (mahon harov) and the confirmation may take several hours to appear in your email.

The post Trauma-Informed Parenting: Helping Caregivers Understand and Respond to Survival Behaviors appeared first on haruv.

Oklahoma City MetroTech at Springlake (1900 Springlake Dr, OKC, OK 73111)

FREE CEUs: 7 credit hours for Social Work and Behavioral Health, 8 hours CLEET

Link to agenda

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TCC Southeast Campus, Building 9, room 9100, The Chat Room (10300 East 81st Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74133)

Presenters’ bios:

Mackenzie “Mack” Jantsch graduated from Oklahoma State University with a Master’s of Science specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy. Mack is licensed in Marital and Family Therapist and an LMFT approved supervisor for the state of Oklahoma. Mack worked at Youth Services of Tulsa both as a counselor then coordinator for the family counseling department prior to moving to Laureate’s Eating Disorder Program. Mack is certified in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Currently working on training and/or consultation for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy and Certified Eating Disorder Specialist. Mack has a passion for using family systems, trauma-informed care and, experiential techniques to help families navigate how to handle stress and challenges of raising an adolescent in today’s world.

Valerie Grogan graduated from Oklahoma State University with a bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Sciences, and from the University of Memphis with a master’s degree in Clinical Nutrition. She is a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist. She was formerly with Laureate Psychological Clinic and Hospital, working as the clinical dietitian for the Adolescent Eating Disorders Program. She also has experience as a Supervisor for dietitians all over the country seeking this certification as well.  She focuses on nutrition education centered on combating messages from dieting and wellness culture, highlighting the impact of nutrition on mental health and helping clients to reintegrate into life outside of their illnesses. She is passionate about books, cheese and anything Star Trek.

Workshop description : In this presentation, three major aspects of child and family well-being will be discussed in the realm of nutritional and body awareness. In our clinical experience working within an inter-disciplinary eating disorder treatment team, nutritional awareness, family support and, stress health are major aspects that impact eating issues within families. Nutritional awareness will include basic nutrition education, how nutrition impacts fetus and child development, wellness culture and “food and bodies as a celebration”. Family support will dive into how attachment, family meal times, picky eating and,  multi-generational healing of body image can improve eating factors within the family system. Finally, we will review how stress impacts holistically both emotional and physical well-being and some mindful strategies to navigate through stress within our bodies.

The post Haruv USA for TCC: Nourish to Flourish – Enhancing Child and Family Well-Being Through Nutrition appeared first on haruv.

FREE CEUs available for Social Work, Behavioral Health, and CLEET

Presenter’s Bio: Mary Twis, PhD, LMSW-AP is a tenured social work professor and mixed-methods researcher with nearly 40 publications and expertise in trauma, violence, and rights-based practice with human trafficking victims. She teaches and consults internationally, with experience working in both the U.S. and abroad on issues related to human trafficking and forensic social work.

Workshop Description:  Law enforcement and affiliated professionals (victim advocates, prosecutors, etc.) will learn about Trauma- and Violence-Informed Care (TVIC) and how it can be adapted for work with human trafficking victims who encounter justice systems. The training is split into three brief sessions. Following Session 1, attendees will be able to articulate what TVIC is, and why it is important for justice system engagement with human trafficking victims and survivors. Following Session 2, attendees will be able to explain “emerging guidelines” and “promising directions” for TVIC with human trafficking survivors involved in the justice system. Finally, in Session 3, attendees will assess and apply trauma- and violence-informed principles to decision-making under real-world policy and operational constraints.

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Wednesday, February 4, 2026, 9:00 AM-11:00 AM CST on Zoom

FREE CEUs available for Social Work and Behavioral Health

Presenter’s bio: Lauren Garder is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a decade of experience in mental health and victim services. The focus of Lauren’s career has been chronic trauma and victimization. Lauren has worked at across the spectrum of services from hotlines to therapy to working in administration for the ODMHSAS overseeing trauma services and outpatient treatment for suicidality across the State. Lauren is now “back in the chair” in private practice in Oklahoma City providing therapy, expert witness, and consulting in her areas of expertise.

Workshop description: A thoughtful exploration of vicarious trauma—the cumulative emotional and psychological impact of bearing witness to others’ trauma.

The post Haruv USA for A WAY HOME for Tulsa: Vicarious Trauma – When Care Takes a Toll (February 4, 2026) appeared first on haruv.

OU-Tulsa Learning Center, Room 136 (4502 E. 41st Street, Tulsa, OK 74135)

Morning refreshments provided, lunch on your own

Registration: $10* (includes CLE and CEUs for Social Work and Behavioral Health)

Limited number of OFR scholarships available – first come first serve, contact Allyson McCormick, allyson.mccormick@laok.org for more information

With Timothy Michaels-Johnson, J.D. & Tessa Chesher, DO, IMH-E

Having earned his Juris Doctorate with Honors from the University of Tulsa College of Law in 2011, Timothy Michaels-Johnson focused his career in child welfare. He joined the District Attorney’s Office of Tulsa County and prosecuted deprived child cases for nearly 5 years. In July 2016, Michaels-Johnson joined Tulsa Lawyers for Children representing children and training TLC’s volunteer attorneys. He subsequently served as TLC’s third Executive Director until April 2024. Michaels-Johnson now assists with the development and roll out of Oklahoma’s new central office of parent and child representation as the Region 5 Managing Attorney for Child Representation with the Oklahoma Office of Family Representation. In addition, Michaels-Johnson has returned to the University of Tulsa College of Law as an adjunct professor teaching Juvenile Law and serves as a Commissioner on the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth.

Dr. Chesher is a child and adolescent psychiatrist interested in pediatric trauma, infant and early childhood mental health, and behavioral health integration into primary care. She is from Oklahoma and went to medical school at Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Chesher completed a psychiatry residency at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Tulsa followed by a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship and an Irving Harris Fellowship in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health at Tulane School of Medicine. She was on faculty at Tulane School of Medicine as an instructor, OU School of Community Medicine in Tulsa, OK as an assistant clinical professor and the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine as an associate and then full clinical professor. Dr. Chesher is the Medical Director of the Children’s Specialty Program at Oklahoma Complete Health. Dr. Chesher owns TC², offering consultation and training in infant and early childhood mental health.

Workshop description: QIC-ChildRep is an evidence-based best practice model of child representation. This training was developed to advance the QIC-ChildRep Best Practice Model and integrates key aspects of Oklahoma child welfare law and practice, including Oklahoma practice standards, with the goal of advancing high quality legal representation for attorneys representing children in Oklahoma child welfare cases.

*Please note the payment transaction will appear as “Haruv Institute” (mahon harov) and the confirmation may take several hours to appear in your email.

The post Creating Champions for Children: Best Practices for Oklahoma’s Attorneys appeared first on haruv.

FREE CEUs available for Social Work and Behavioral Health

Juliana E. Karras, Ph.D.

Juliana Karras, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the A.R.C. Lab dedicated to Advancing the Rights of Children through psychological science at San Francisco State University. She completed her: postdoc in Human Development & Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles; Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at the Graduate Center City University of New York; and M.A. in Human Development & Social Intervention at New York University. Dr. Karras’ work straddles both developmental and social research areas by focusing on the social development of children and adolescents in context. Specifically: the intersection of race, inequality, and civic development; attitudes towards and conceptions of children’s human rights; and ethnic/racial inequality across contexts. The goal of her work is to advance the human rights of children through actionable science by generating empirical knowledge that researchers, practitioners, and policymakers can use to identify and rectify social systems that reproduce inequality in development.

The post Children’s Rights: What Are They and Why Do They Matter? (November 20, 2025) appeared first on haruv.