Certificate Program

Description of the Training Program. This is a hands-on clinical skills training for working with adults, children, and teens who have been exposed to significant trauma or loss. This in-depth extended training will cover trauma theory, impact of trauma and loss, therapeutic relationship, self-care for counselors/therapists, identification and assessment of traumatized individuals, working with parents and other care-givers to help traumatized kids, and directly helping clients to manage their symptoms, resolve their trauma/loss memories, and prepare to cope effectively with future challenges. The program is designed for mental health professionals (or advanced graduate students) with an active therapy caseload.

Participants will first learn a foundation model and skills, and over time add advanced interventions such as motivational interviewing, anger management training, and parent training. Each of the subsequent meetings will include new (or review) didactic/skills material as well as group consultation focused on participants’ ongoing cases. This program is designed to help participants learn and master the essential clinical skills for trauma-informed treatment with adults, children, and teens.

The training program involves lecture, demonstration, and in-class practice. This is an experiential training, and part of the learning is to practice the interventions with other participants. Although participants are always in charge of what they disclose, some individuals have reported that their participation led to facing personal issues.  Full documentation can be found here.