Engaging Families in Services: The Family Recovery Program

Paradise Ballroom B


 

Speaker(s):

Likcani, Adriatik, PhD, LMFT

Larkin, Nicole, MS, CDAC, SMFT

Rapp, Sherry, AAS

Description

Dr. Likcani developed the Family Recovery Program with the support of the Department of Mental Health, and the contributions of a team of colleagues at Recovery Lighthouse and the University of Central Missouri. This presentation will focus on specific interventions on how to engage families and how to partner with them when they have a loved one struggling with SUD/OUD. Participants will learn concrete interventions they can use in their communities to engage families, promote family recovery, reduce stigma, and increase their knowledge on family systems-based interventions for family therapy, psychoeducational groups with families, and how to develop local support groups for families. The three main Family Recovery Program goals are to: 1) Help families get their loved one into services and in recovery; 2) Coach families to use their strengths and resources as a healthy support system for their loved one; and, 3) Help them develop a vision of a healthy relationship and improve family structure & functioning. Goals are accomplished through a comprehensive approach focusing on the following five overarching program components: 1) Family Education Workshops; 2) Open Support Group for Families; 3) Family Therapy; 4) Immediate Access to Resources; and, 5) Public Relations and Service. Participants will learn about program goals, components, and implementation strategies of the Family Recovery Program at their agencies.

Objectives

1. Discuss strategies how to engage families in services.
2. Explore ways to integrate family systems-based interventions in alcohol and drug treatment and recovery support programs.
3. Review concrete ideas for implementing the Family Recovery Program.
4. Discuss qualitative and quantitative research outcomes of family engagement in services.

Psychotherapy with Black Clients: Rumbling with Theory, Feelings, and Meaning-Making PART 2

Parasol I


 

Speaker(s):

Boddie, Courtney, PhD

Thompson-Gibson, Lisa, MA, MA

Description

From theories of human development (Erickson, Piaget, Kohlberg, Vygotsky) to models of personality and change (Freud, Rogers, Beck, Ellis), most clinicians are taught from a euro-centric worldview. As grounded in Ellis and Deitz’s (2018) contribution of community and environmental factors to the ACES framework, it is imperative that we rumble with the conceptual and affective gaps a euro-centric perspective creates when attempting to work with specific communities, like Black-identified clients.

Expanding on the previous year’s presentation advocating for updates to the ACES framework, part one will support participants in conceptualizing discrimination as a broad community/environmental factor that can disrupt human development and examining the influencing role of discrimination in early childhood development (e.g., access to resources, help-seeking tendencies, development of self-regulatory processes, parenting practices).

In part two, participants will be supported in examining personal biases that are a byproduct of under-education on and underexposure to Blackness. Through the use of art-making, participants will explore personal feelings and meaning to prepare for the refinement of clinical skills.

Objectives

1. Critically examine the clinical implications of the absence of Blackness in the training of mental health providers
2. Grapple with feelings that may impede capacity to humanize Black clients
3. Explore personal meaning surrounding counseling Black clients

Boddie Presentation

Psychotherapy with Black Clients: Rumbling with Theory, Feelings, and Meaning-Making PART 1

Parasol I


 

Speaker(s):

Boddie, Courtney, PhD

Thompson-Gibson, Lisa, MA, MA

Description

From theories of human development (Erickson, Piaget, Kohlberg, Vygotsky) to models of personality and change (Freud, Rogers, Beck, Ellis), most clinicians are taught from a euro-centric worldview. As grounded in Ellis and Deitz’s (2018) contribution of community and environmental factors to the ACES framework, it is imperative that we rumble with the conceptual and affective gaps a euro-centric perspective creates when attempting to work with specific communities, like Black-identified clients.

Expanding on the previous year’s presentation advocating for updates to the ACES framework, part one will support participants in conceptualizing discrimination as a broad community/environmental factor that can disrupt human development and examining the influencing role of discrimination in early childhood development (e.g., access to resources, help-seeking tendencies, development of self-regulatory processes, parenting practices).

In part two, participants will be supported in examining personal biases that are a byproduct of under-education on and underexposure to Blackness. Through the use of art-making, participants will explore personal feelings and meaning to prepare for the refinement of clinical skills.

Objectives

1. Critically examine the clinical implications of the absence of Blackness in the training of mental health providers
2. Grapple with feelings that may impede capacity to humanize Black clients
3. Explore personal meaning surrounding counseling Black clients

Boddie Presentation

Supporting Employment: Helping People with Employment Recovery Goals

-Cancelled-

Parasol II


 

Speaker(s):

Lynde, David, MSW

Description

Evidenced-based practices like Supported Employment (SE) are not always available to all people in services. This session provides participants with the opportunity to learn about and explore strategies for helping providers of services to be respectful, responsive, and supportive regarding people in services with employment recovery goals. The session will also include lessons learned regarding enhancing agency leadership support for people in services with employment-related recovery goals.

Objectives

1. Describe how some of the practice principles of Supported Employment can be effectively applied in settings where access to Supported Employment is not available.
2. Identify key strategies and techniques for supporting interest in employment services by people in services.
3. Explain the important roles that team members play in helping people in services to be successful with employment-related recovery goals when Supported Employment is not available.

Lynde Presentation

Supported Education: Helping People with Education and Training Goals

-Cancelled-

Parasol II


 

Speaker(s):

Lynde, David, MSW

Description

This workshop provides an overview of the principles of Supported Education.  The workshop will address some of the strategies and techniques used to support people with mental illness in developing and obtaining their educational goals.

Objectives

1. Participants will identify the basic principles of Supported Education
2. Participants will be able to describe useful educational interventions and strategies.
3. Participants will be able to describe some of the challenges and associated strategies for engaging and working with local secondary school systems.
4. Participants will be able to identify some of the challenges and associated strategies used to help people with mental illness to be successful with post-secondary educational programs.

Lynde Presentation

Adverse and Protective Childhood Experiences: Risk and Resilience

Leeward 76-77


 

Speaker(s):

Welch, Tim, PhD, LMFT

Burgen, Kailey, BS

Description 

This presentation will first provide a definition of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and discuss relevant research on the association between exposure to multiple ACEs and numerous negative physical, emotional and mental health outcomes in adulthood. The presentation will examine exposure to ACEs through the lens of the Family Stress and Resilience theoretical framework. This approach highlights the role and value of enhancing protective factors to promote resiliency in the context of exposure to ACEs. This presentation will describe modern approaches to addressing the impact of adverse childhood experiences and discuss evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies for clinical and mental health practitioners including utilizing a trauma-informed framework when working with individuals exposed to ACEs.

Objectives

1. Define adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
2. Describe the negative effects of exposure to ACEs in adolescence and adulthood
3. Identify relevant protective factors to the harmful effects of exposure to ACEs
4. Describe evidence-based strategies for addressing the effects of of ACEs

Welch_STI_2023.pptx

Contemporary Ethical Issues: Personal Worldview and Professional Acculturation

Paradise Ballroom C


 

Speaker(s):

Larkin, Nicole, MS, CDAC, SMFT

Likcani, Adriatik, PhD, LMFT

Woolery, Amber, BSW, CRADC

Description

This presentation on ethics is beyond the ‘typical’ topics of dual relationships and abuse of power with clients. It is about us as professionals and our personal worldview and professional acculturation. Why do ethical codes exist? What to do when my values and morals conflict with ethical codes? How to deal with ethical dilemmas? Can I talk about faith and spirituality with my clients? How do I apply evidence-based treatment with diverse populations? This session will help you find the answers to any of those questions and address other questions you may have. This is a session about ethics, values, morals, personal worldview and professional acculturation in the practice of treatment and recovery support for mental health and substance use disorders. Participants will learn about the ecology of substance use treatment and recovery support and issues that arise with scientific discovery such as evidence-based practices and effective interventions, medication assisted treatment/recovery, integration of faith-based approaches, etc. Such contemporary issues tend to challenge the stability of any professional and require of them to affirm or resist change. They will learn models of working through dissonance and finding a new stability. They will identify external and internal influences that impact their emerging worldview, personal and professional acculturation. Discussion with participants will be based on morals, values, sources of power and influence in the acculturation process, and the ethics of providing value-sensitive care and due care to individuals and families.

Objectives

1. Discuss how participants can use existing Codes of Ethics, including AAMFT, NBCC and NASW, to inform and reflect upon their personal worldview and professional acculturation
2. Identify personal lenses that cause dissonance among professionals in their practice
3. Recognize professional acculturation process through the ecology of substance use treatment and recovery support approaches
4. Identify issues that threaten status quo of the helper, prompt resistance or create dissonance, and require them to find a new professional stability

We Understand Trauma for Patients…What About Us as Providers?

Leeward 74-75


 

Speaker(s):

Keeton, Zhanna, MBA, MA, LPC, CCTS, BA

Description

Let’s talk about how trauma affects providers in the behavioral health field and what we can do as peers and leaders of organizations.

Objectives

1. Describe the physiology behind trauma as it relates to providers.
2. Review realistic calming techniques in the workplace.
3. Discuss ways to shift towards supporting providers through policies and procedures.
4. Discuss expanding your perspective of compassion for fellow providers.

Keeton Presentation

Experiential Therapy Approaches to Reveal Dynamics and Resolve Anger, Grief, and Relationship Issues

Windgate 62-63


 

Speaker(s):

Carpenter, John, MSW, LCSW

Description

Clients often feel their situation emotionally more than being able to express it into words. By helping them show their feelings in safe and even playful ways, they can actually see their issues more clearly as well as what needs to happen to resolve or change their lives. Like play therapy, these visual, metaphoric, and imagery techniques create a safe path for exploring difficult emotions and relationships. And the solutions seem easier to find and comprehend as well.

This session will help you clearly assess the hidden dynamics of couples and families. Experiential exercises will help clients work through complicated grief situations, pent-up anger, difficult losses, long-standing frustrations, and other intense emotions that seem stuck inside your client with no easy method of release or relief.

Objective

1. Describe three experiential approaches for assessing couples and families.
2. Identify five ways a therapist can bring dynamics out with visual props.
3. Describe at least three methods for releasing difficult emotions safely.
4. Describe the use of metaphoric imagery with couples for treatment.

Carpenter Handout

Carpenter Presentation

Expanding Harm Reduction and Naloxone Access throughout Missouri – Overcoming Objections and Knocking Down Obstacles to Build New Paths Forward

Paradise Ballroom B


 

Speaker(s):

Green, Lauren, MSW

Connors, Liz, LCSW, CRADC

Description

Since third-party access to naloxone became legal in Missouri in 2017, naloxone access across the state has drastically increased. In 2018, the UMSL-MIMH team distributed nearly 11,000 naloxone kits through the Missouri Opioid/Heroin Overdose Prevention and Education (MO-HOPE) project and State Targeted Response (STR) grant. In 2022-2023 grant cycle, our team is on track to distribute over 197,000 kits through the following projects: Navigating Overdose Response Through Harm reduction (North*) project, State Overdose Response (SOR) grant, Expanding Naloxone Access and Community Training (ENACT) grant, Drugs Overdose, Trust and Safety (Connecting the DOTS) grant, and the Missouri Coordinating Overdose Response Partnerships and Support (MO-CORPS) grant. With this massive increase of resources, our programming can reach many more partners and sectors and better meet the needs of those we serve. This presentation will outline the various naloxone initiatives in Missouri and provide guidance on how both agencies and individuals in Missouri can get free access to naloxone and harm reduction training. Additionally, presenters will share their experiences expanding harm reduction programming across various sectors including obstacles they have encountered, lessons learned, and their strategies for overcoming common objections to harm reduction.

Objectives

1. Describe the plans for harm reduction growth across the state of Missouri
2. Review how to access naloxone in Missouri
3. Discover strategies for overcoming common objections to harm reduction
4. Describe implementation barriers that presenters have encountered and how they overcame them