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 Case Managers, non-clinical and other frontline staff (i.e.: those that provide front desk services, maintenance, security, food preparation, rent collection, and recreational activities) are consistently in contact with service recipients who have a range of behavioral health needs.  This training provides an overview of the experiences of people living with special needs, including mental illness, substance abuse, and HIV/AIDS.  It also offers information on how co-occurring disorders interact with one another and impact how persons respond to services.  Special emphasis is placed on understanding staff roles in supporting persons with special needs and managing everyday problematic situations.  Well-trained clinical staff matched with well-trained non-clinical staff makes for an ideal team that work collaboratively to provide optimal services. 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: 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:  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 Statistics indicate that illegal substance use complicates adherence to treatment for both physical and mental health disorders and puts persons at risk for involvement with the criminal justice system.  Despite this, substance use remains high.  This training offers an overview of the Stages of Change model, developed by Prochaska, DeClemente, and Norcross.  This model explores the modification of addictive behavior involving the progression through five defined states: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance.   Attendees receive a detailed explanation of each stage, interventions that best match where the person is at in the recovery process, and strategies to effectively respond to relapse.  Strategies for working with resistance and denial, resolving ambivalence, building motivation for change, and preventing and managing relapse are presented.  Attendees will leave this workshop with a better understanding of how to match their interventions to the level of awareness and motivation to change of the persons with whom they are working.   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 Though statistics vary, there is a consensus in the field that most consumers of mental health services are trauma survivors and that their trauma experiences shape their responses to outreach and services.  Trauma Informed Care is an engagement technique that recognizes the presence of trauma histories and acknowledges the role of trauma in the lives of survivors.  This training offers an overview of the new diagnostic criteria from the DSM-5 of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other trauma related disorders, as well as other symptoms and behaviors that can result from trauma.  Assessment, safety issues, medication and symptom management are explored both on case management and programmatic levels.  The training explores vicarious trauma issues.  Attendees will leave with a better understanding of Trauma Informed Care and the clinical skills needed to support persons healing and recovering from trauma histories.   Read more