Trainings for Human Service Providers

Note:  Certificates will not be awarded to those who arrive later than 15 mins after the start of the course and who leaves before the course ends. NYS Social Work CE & LMHC Credit Hours: 5.0.  CASAC Renewal Credit Hours: 5.0 Change is difficult for most persons, yet change is the driving force behind most service planning and goal-setting.  Motivational Interviewing (MI), developed by Miller and Rollnick, is an intervention that helps people recognize and address problem behavior (present or potential), and is intended to help resolve ambivalence and to get a person moving along the path to change.  MI serves as an important prelude to other treatment and services by creating an “openness” to change, which paves the way for further important therapeutic work.  This training provides an introduction to the basic principles and skills associated with MI including OARS, expressing empathy, rolling with resistance, and avoiding common roadblocks to change.  It also offers a foundation for Motivational Interviewing Part 2, which expands these skills into actual “change talk” and promotion of commitment to change.  Staff members trained in MI are often able to work effectively with the change process that many service recipients go through in their personal journeys towards recovery. Motivational Interviewing part 1 is a two part series. If you are planning on attending MI part 2 you must attend MI part 1 first.   Read more

Note: Certificates will not be awarded to those who arrive later than 15 mins after the start of the course and who leaves before the course ends. NYS Social Work CE & LMHC Credit Hours: 5.0.  CASAC Renewal Credit Hours: 5.0 The philosophy and practice of recovery is transforming the way we look at mental health services, as well as how programs respond to persons who decompensate or relapse.  Utilizing the least restrictive intervention while ensuring that the client is both safe and having his or her mental health needs addressed can be complicated.  This training offers skills and strategies on responding to psychiatric crises, including assessing, engaging, and assisting persons at the earlier stage of decompensation to adhere to treatment.  In cases where the crisis has escalated, the workshop reviews strategies for voluntary and involuntary hospitalizations and for assisting persons returning from the hospital.  In addition, the workshop explores how to support persons recovering from substance abuse and to promote relapse prevention.  In cases where relapse does occur, the training offers strategies to maximize the learning experience and help persons gain motivation to re-engage in sobriety.   Read more

Note:  Certificates will not be awarded to those who arrive later than 15 mins after the start of the course and who leaves before the course ends. NYS Social Work CE & LMHC Credit Hours: 5.0.  CASAC Renewal Credit Hours: 5.0 Until recently, compulsive hoarding remained a misunderstood disorder about which little was known.  Current research and outreach strategies have transformed the types of services we can now offer persons with this disorder.  The training focuses teaching staff the skills needed to work collaboratively with a tenant to help him/her stay housed.  It offers an overview of hoarding, identifies the populations at highest risk, and helps distinguish hoarding from collecting.  Attendees learn how to assess, engage, and manage these behaviors in supportive housing, and will leave the training with a more complete understanding of how to create a healthy alliance with persons who hoard and assist them with a transition to a less cluttered life.  This training is a pre-requisite to Buried in Treasures: A Curriculum to Address Hoarding Disorder, an evidence-based curriculum based intervention targeted to both support services and property management staff interested in offering classes to tenants on the issue of hoarding and living less cluttered lives.   Read more

Note:  This training is a Webinar, you must complete the Full Day to receive your certificate. Certificates will not be awarded to those who arrive later than 15 mins after the start of the course and who leaves before the course ends. NYS Social Work CE & LMHC Credit Hours: (This training is not eligible for SW CE/LMHC Hours) CASAC Renewal Credit Hours: 5.0 Studies suggest that social service work can be very stressful, and that not addressing these stressors can impact service delivery.  This often translates to high turnover rates and programs having to invest in resources to train new staff.  This training acknowledges the level of stress in this field and uses the same strengths staff use in their daily work to engage in a series of dialogues about personal self-care and organizational issues that often go unaddressed.  The training also explores common sources of stress and provides strategies for managing and lowering stress levels.  Discussions focus on acknowledging and addressing issues of burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma.  A special emphasis is placed on self-care for staff.  Attendees will be offered information to support a renewed sense of purpose and will be better equipped to manage their stress. Read more

Note: Certificates will not be awarded to those who arrive later than 15 mins after the start of the course and who leaves before the course ends. NYS Social Work CE & LMHC Credit Hours: 5.0.  CASAC Renewal Credit Hours: 5.0   Effective human service work hinges upon competent supervision.   Supervisors often drive the mission of the organization and reinforce good practice standards, and the effectiveness of service delivery can be impacted positively or negatively through supervision.  This training addresses the skills necessary to effectively supervise, manage, and support staff.  Topics include the purpose of supervision, qualities of effective supervision, mentoring staff, identifying one’s supervisory styles, delegating, and scheduling.   Giving staff feedback and addressing performance and conduct issues are practiced through case studies.   Attendees will leave the workshop feeling better equipped to provide the support that staff members need to perform optimally. Read more

Note:  This training is a Webinar, you must complete the Full Day to receive your certificate. Certificates will not be awarded to those who arrive later than 15 mins after the start of the course and who leaves before the course ends. NYS Social Work CE & LMHC Credit Hours: 5.0.  CASAC Renewal Credit Hours: 5.0 Supervisors play a critical role in helping staff to successfully integrate Motivational Interviewing (MI) into their day-to-day practice.  This training provides supervisors with a forum to discuss and remove barriers to embedding MI into ongoing clinical practice. It also provides concrete strategies that supervisors can use to evaluate and strengthen the more advanced skills taught in Motivational Interviewing.   It provides tools and exercises that supervisors can use to evaluate staff member’s MI skills, practice skills together with staff, and embed MI practice into client interactions. By identifying multiple opportunities and methods for helping staff to build MI skills and avoiding common road blocks, supervisors learn practical ways to reinforce this evidence-based practice. The training is designed to help staff strengthen “change talk” and commitment to change, and to incorporate more direct methods for eliciting motivation to change after establishing a solid alliance.   Attendees will leave with the skills and strategies needed to embed MI into the culture of the workplace. Read more