On February 11th, Family Paths clinicians were led in a powerful training offered by Taqueila Washington of EmpowerMe! Services. The topic of this 5 ½ hour training was "Working with African-American Youth and their Families," and it encompassed a variety of issues that directly affect many African-Americans. Topics up for discussion included the slave trade's creation of a legacy of multi-generational trauma, the inner-city experience, and the link between poverty and issues surrounding diet and nutrition.
As Family Paths strives to be a local leader in culturally competent mental health and family support programming, we know that the importance of trainings like this one cannot be overestimated. Expert-led trainings guide clinicians in the self-examination processes that are so vital to providing the highest-quality treatment to a diverse clientele.
Sam Markewich, our Clinical Training Coordinator, says, "Family Paths clinicians will benefit from this because they now have a culturally sensitive and depthful knowledge base and tool box to help them best get to know, understand, and help African-American youth, parents, and other family members in order to help them to thrive."
EmpowerMe! Services offers educational workshops and trainings on a variety of different topics, including Cross Cultural Counseling and the Family, Culturally Inclusive Therapy, The Undocumented Experience, Self Care for Service Providers, Teen Dating Violence, and Working with "at risk" youth. Learn more about Taquelia Washington and EmpowerMe! Services here.
Our commitment to cultural competency
LGBTQ Foster Youth Training! June is LGBTQ Month!
In supporting our goal of continuously cultivating a multiculturally competent agency, Family Paths staff recently attended a training session on the issues surrounding LGBTQ foster youth. The training took place at the California Endowment on June 1st, and was presented by the Y.O.U.T.H. Training Project, a dynamic multi-year collaboration between current and former foster youth, social work professionals, social work training academies, foundations and others committed to the empowerment and futures of California foster youth. This dynamic and informative training focused on the ways in which clinicians can be allies to, advocate for and better meet the needs of LGBTQ youth in the foster care system.
Foster LGBTQ youth often face difficulties that surpass those of straight foster youth, and clinicians and therapists often hold a crucial role in the lives of these youth at the very times that they are in the process of self-acceptance and/or coming out. This is why it is important that clinicians be trained about the important intricacies of their role in the lives of LGBTQ foster youth. This training, led by former foster youth who identify as LGBTQ and as Allies, was extremely helpful supporting clinicians' work by providing a space in which to think creatively about best practices, various ways one can be an LGBTQ Ally, and ways to best advocate for this particular population. "I was so excited to be able to hear from former foster youth themselves," said Barbra Silver, Clinical Director at Family Paths.
You can learn more about the Y.O.U.T.H. Training Project here.
Developments in Neuropsychology
Family Paths is committed to awareness and comprehension of the newest developments in the areas of psychology and neuropsychology that directly relate to working with people exposed to significant trauma. When new research offers implications for the therapeutic process, it is especially important that we are engaged in creating learning opportunities for our staff.
Barbra Silver, MFT, Family Paths' Clinical Director, participates in an ongoing reading group with neuropsychologist Allan Schore, Ph.D., whose activities as a clinician/scientist include theoretical work on the enduring impact of early trauma on brain development. Additionally, eleven Family Paths staff members and interns are currently involved in a nine-month remote-learning "webinar" program for mental health professionals. This program, hosted by Massachusetts-based clinical psychologist Janina Fisher, Ph.D., focuses on developing greater comfort and expertise in working with complex trauma and dissociation and staying current with the most recent treatment advances. Topics covered include integrating neurobiological research into trauma treatment, using mind-body techniques in traditional talking therapy, and working with dissociative symptoms and disorders.
Clinicians Phyllis Lorenz, MFT and Gwynne Gilson, MFT Intern, are two Family Paths employees who regularly participate in neuropsychology trainings.
Phyllis has given several presentations on trauma and dissociation at Family Paths. Her main focus is on how a child's developing brain is impacted by trauma and chronic stress. She emphasizes the importance of early care-giving experiences on the development of the child. Simply put, experience shapes the brain. In a safe and attuned environment, the infant develops a sense of self in relation to others, while a history of trauma and chronic stress can affect the developing brain of a young child, specifically the ability to regulate emotion in response to stress. Phyllis' trainings include information on how individuals learn to manage the trauma they have encountered, specifically dissociation. She teaches "Structural Dissociation", a model developed by Janina Fisher, Ph.D., which outlines the creative and brilliant ways individuals learn to survive the stress and trauma of their lives.
Gwynne is currently a participant in the three-year Somatic Experiencing training program, offered by the Foundation for Human Enrichment. Through these trainings, Gwynne has gained an understanding of how the nervous system responds to trauma, including the reasons why symptoms remain "stuck" in the body, sometimes for years. Somatic Experiencing techniques are designed to restore the body's innate ability to heal and are especially useful as an adjunct to traditional talk therapy.
Family Paths remains committed to utilizing the latest research developments as we work to heal the effects of trauma and violence in our community. We know how important it is to bring up-to-date treatment options to the families in Alameda County who need it most.
Finding Your Authentic Voice When Working With Challenging Family Dynamics Training at Family Paths
This training will take an in-depth look at the issues that typically bring up the hardest emotional blocks for people who work to help multi-stressed and at-risk families. Fear, inadequacy, frustration, anger, hopelessness, urges to rescue, even desperation. These are all strong emotional experiences which, while potentially interfering with good work with families, may also be transformed through braving closer and honest examination on the part of the helper into the very keys to successful work with families. Compounding those hard emotional issues is the effect of the superstar status of “The Masters” of family work, which can make this work seem an ever herculean pursuit and set up for permanent feelings of being not-good-enough. This training will teach participants how to examine and utilize these issues to break through blocks and resistance to the work. Participants will learn how and begin to discover their own best styles for helping families while also sifting through and borrowing from the core foundations of what has thus far been shown to be effective in the field. Particular attention will be given to how to free oneself from the grip of the masters and get comfortable in one’s own flow. The ultimate goal will be to find and invite in the most authentic You, thus enhancing your ability to honor and steer the truest individuality and potential of even the most difficult families in the service of their healing. Learning will take place in large and small group, theoretical and hands on practical settings.
Registration is required by October 15th and is on a first come first serve basis.
To register send an email to smarkewich@familypaths.org or call (510) 893-9230 ext.207. If you do not register you may not be allowed in at the door.
Date: Friday October 23rd
Time: 9:30-3:30
Location: Family Paths, Inc.
Conference Room
1727 MLK Jr. Way
Oakland, Ca.
Registration and Breakfast 9:00-9:30 Lunch will be provided
This course meets the qualifications for 6 CEUs offered for MFTs and LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences and is provided by Family Paths In partnership with Chabot-Las Positas Community College
District and Alameda County.
This workshop is free to those who work with foster youth in Alameda County.