The training begins with a section on bias and inclusivity, engaging attendees in an examination of our implicit biases, actions, and responses and focusing on how attendees can utilize appropriate self-disclosure and encourage productive dialog in order to promote optimal learning and improved insight. Dr. Warner provides useful strategies for responding to microaggressions and offers techniques to avoid unintentionally perpetuating covert forms of discrimination. Personal self-care strategies will also be discussed. Finally, the training focuses on enhancing workplace culture by boosting organizational practices to create a more inclusive culture.

Social media is the method of communication preferred by adolescents and young adults, and many social media apps have become a primary means for viewing sexually explicit media. Rather than searching for content that matches their developing sexual interests, many adolescents simply scroll through whatever is on their feed, often finding sexually explicit material. This workshop will address the impact pornography and social media are having on teens.

In this online training, veteran author and practitioner Timothy Kahn provides education on how best to understand and help children and adolescents who have sexually abused. Drawing on nearly five decades of experience in the field, he reviews what all professionals need to know and why, drawing upon key recent research studies. He will first focus on “risk points” within adolescent development that can lead to abusing as well as discuss issues such as sexting, pornography, and the eroticization of children. Along the way, he will also discuss the necessity of self-care skills, including a healthy sense of humor. The training then focuses on understanding the course of treatment and secrets of effective group therapy, with extensive discussion of establishing professional boundaries. 

Global and local issues, as well as the aftermath of the pandemic, have affected professionals and clients alike. Professionals are providing services to disenfranchised people and populations while enduring unprecedented stressors. The presenters have a long history of studying self-care at the front lines of challenging environments and helping professionals to develop their skills in caring for themselves. 

The U.S. has witnessed a dramatic increase in premeditated attacks on schools, resulting in immeasurable physical and emotional harm. Consequently, parents, caregivers, teachers, school counselors, therapists, and other stakeholders are grappling with how to prevent such tragedies. Fortunately, 20 years of empirical research show that school attackers do not simply “snap” and that school shootings are preventable.

The field of assessing women who have committed sexually motivated offenses continues to grow and evolve. The extant research literature provides an empirical basis for assessing women from a gendered perspective. This perspective is a person-centered strength-based approach that takes into consideration how gender affects patterns of offending for women (Pflugradt el al., 2018). As such, women who perpetrate sexually motivated offenses require risk and treatment assessment approaches that differ from approaches used with their male counterparts. This workshop provides empirically supported guidance related to assessing women who have committed sexually motivated offenses. 

Individuals convicted of CSAM offenses have unique offense-related needs that differ from other offenders who have engaged in sexually abusive behaviors. Supervision and treatment professionals (including probation and parole officers) who work with these individuals need specific training to address their cluster of needs. This training offers specific skill-based interventions based on current research that supervision professionals can utilize with their clients during office visits. This training further discusses current research which can help inform policy and procedure around supervision of these individuals.

Although much has been written about surviving and thriving after abuse, there are very few resources for addressing the needs of Black women. Dr. Tyffani Dent begins this training by discussing the historical and current failures of victim services to meet the needs of Black women. She discusses the resulting mistrust of systems that claim to assist survivors. She then directly addresses the legacy of slavery and the myths about Black women that continue to cause harm and contends that the failure to attend to this history and these myths has consequences for treating survivors.

This four-hour training explores implementing a program based on the 4th edition of the workbook, The Road to Freedom, for people who have committed sexual offenses. The RTF4 program is strengths-based, client-centered, trauma-informed, and based on the principles of risk, need, and responsivity. The training focuses on using the workbook in treatments that aim to reduce dynamic risk. Dr. Levenson will further discuss the RTF4 sex offending treatment goals in the context of facilitating broader change in clients’ lives. For instance, the training will provide information on enabling client accountability (not simply offense culpability), understanding the development of the problematic behavior (with a focus on developmental trauma), addressing problematic cognitive schemas about self and others (not just distortions about sexual abuse), enhancing general, sexual, and emotional self-regulation skills (which translates to relapse prevention), engaging in positive relationship-building and healthy communication skills (reducing intimacy deficits), and improving the ability to be empathic and understand the perspectives of others. The training provides a review of the RTF4 chapters and exercises and offers ideas for incorporating the workbook into group and individual therapy sessions. Participants will learn how to individualize the program in a client-centered way, and how to utilize workbook topics to facilitate engagement and progress in treatment. The workshop will allow ample time for discussion.