AASK offers monthly workshops and trainings presented by a variety of experts to help parents & professionals gain tangible family development skills. Topics vary and are intended to be highly practical including: behavior management, trauma, teen culture, cultural identity, attachment, etc. Most trainings and workshops are available to all families with children from the child welfare system and are free. Professionals are also welcome to attend to gain CEU’s and stay current on the most up-to-date support strategies.
Below is a description of some of our current offerings – for regular updates, please sign up for email blast to find out about upcoming services
Working with Challenging Youth for Parents & Mental Health Professionals
12 month series of 3 hour workshops – attend one or all!
Facilitated by Dr. Lisa Cohen Bennett
Specifically geared toward foster parents, parents who have adopted children from foster care, foster and adoption professionals, teachers, clinicians and others who work with Severely Emotionally Disturbed (SED) Youth and Families, this twelve session series examines the who, why, where, when and how of SED thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Through didactic, small and large group discussions, handouts, and case examples, participants will learn how to create a therapeutic alliance with this population in order to develop the best possible interventions and treatment plans at any given time.
Lisa Cohen Bennett, Ph.D. Licensed Psychologist #PSY12867 Biography
Dr. Bennett has been training Foster Parents, Probation Officers, Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Social Workers, Teachers and Group Home Staff around the country and in the San Francisco Bay Area for twenty years. She has worked in a variety of settings with Severely Emotionally Disturbed Youth and Families including Residential Treatment, Hospital, Juvenile Hall, Runaway Shelter and County Mental Health for over thirty years. Dr. Bennett also currently has a private practice in Lafayette, CA. where she specializes in trauma.
Learn more about this workshop
Register for an upcoming class
Family Foster/Adoption Training (FAFT)
Learn about your path to adoption and/or foster care by better understanding the child welfare system, diversity issues, how trauma affects children in the system, parenting techniques, basic child development, ways to talk to your kids about foster care/adoption/birthparents, and the matching process.
(Must be approved by an AASK social worker to attend)
Register for an upcoming class
Home Certification & Sexual Abuse Prevention Training
Participants learn the regulations and certification process to prepare their home for a chlld. They learn their responsibilities as certified parents and mandated child abuse reporters and participate in a sexual abuse training. Parents learn how to operate their home in a way that prevents problems with neighbors and regulators, and learn their rights as certified parents.
(Must be approved by an AASK social worker to attend)
Register for an upcoming class
First Aid/CPR Training
Offered periodically to acquire and renew certification. Fee is charged to compensate the instructor.
Register for an upcoming class
More topics for Working With Challenging Youth workshop series
How Trauma Affects Child Development
Participants will learn the Severe Emotional Disturbance (SED) Template developed by Dr. Bennett. The students will then study Erik Erikson’s Development Theory as it relates to healthy and pathologic child development. Through discussion, handouts and didactic presentation, the class will include theories by Mahler, Piaget and Driekurs to round out an understanding of why SED youth and families think, feel and behave the ways that they do.
How Trauma Affects Separation and Attachment Milestones
Participants will to differentiate between healthy and pathologic separation/attachment milestones along development stages. Using lecture, handouts and group discussion, the group will understand the impact of unhealthy separation and attachment. Therapeutic alliance and treatment will also be discussed
Grief and Loss
Participants will learn the continuum from losses to feelings to behaviors as seen in Severely Emotionally Disturbed (SED) youth and families. They will understand that what arrives at their agency/facility/home is the set of behaviors with the underlying feelings and losses to be discovered and worked through. Students will take some time with a questionnaire and small group discussion to explore their own experiences with grief and loss in order to better delineate what thoughts and feelings are theirs and which thoughts and feelings are their clients. The will then discuss tools for dealing with loss.
External Stressors for Families of Origin
Students will discuss the wide variety of external stressors placed on Severely Emotionally Disturbed (SED) families, (eg, poverty, lack of medical or child care, etc.). They will connect parental responses to these external situations and then add youth responses including Psychiatric diagnoses of childhood and adolescence. The group will participate in lecture and large group discussions.
How My Buttons Get Pushed
Participants will define and differentiate between External Stressors, Counter-transference and Secondary Trauma as they apply to working with Severely Emotionally Disturbed Youth. Through lecture, small and large group discussion and handouts, the group will understand symptoms and treatment for challenges working as a mental health professional with this population.
Challenging Behavior Management
After having the basic understanding, from previous trainings, of where, why and how SED behavior happens, this training will focus on when challenging behavior may occur and appropriate interventions from which to choose. Lecture, group discussion and case examples will be utilized.
Pre-Teens
Participants will learn the chronological and developmental stages considered “pre-teen” in America today. They will discuss the historic and current make-up of this group. Through didactic lecture, handouts, questionnaires, small and large group discussions, the students will understand the importance of self confidence, self worth and self identity for pre-teens and how adults can help provide an atmosphere for these qualities to grow.
Teen Culture
Participants will discuss the healthy adolescent development stage as it compares to stages before and after. The group will study adolescent goals, feelings and behaviors in pursuit of those goals. Therapeutic alliance will also be discussed. Lecture and group discussion will be used.
Cultural Identity: Creating a Safe Environment
Participants will define culture and discuss how it relates to everyone in society. The group will list and discuss the many ways in which we are all different from one another and the challenges that those differences can bring. Through lecture, large and small group exercises as well as case examples, participants will learn how to help create a culturally sensitive and safe environment for SED youth.
Emancipation: Helping Our Youth Leave Home
Students will study the differences between leaving home today and leaving home when they were “of age.” Through lecture, large and small group discussions, participants will discuss how best to assist SED youth gain self care skills needed to be on their own as adults in our society.
The Abuse Spectrum
Students will learn the abuse spectrum from neglect to torture and everything in between. Through lecture and group discussion, they will look at physical, emotional, developmental and intellectual affects of the various forms of abuse. Participants will also learn about how the cycle of violence affects youth and families.
Helping to Heal Childhood Wounds
After studying all the theories, the abuse spectrum, attachment trauma and external stressors, participants will discuss the core issues related to severe emotional disturbance and how it affects our youth and families. Through lecture and group discussion, students will learn “Dr. Bennett’s Paradigm for Treatment of Severe Emotional Disturbance.”
