COURSE DESCRIPTION

Typically families in chronic crisis are angry, suspicious, untrusting, and have long histories of involvement with the police, courts, and social service. Understandably, mental health professionals intervening with this population can experience “compassion fatigue” and may feel greater pain and worry than the families themselves. This introductory course emphasizes identifying families/clients addicted to crisis, effective interventions with families/clients in perpetual chaos, and increasing your ability to avoid burnout.

TESTIMONIALS

Here are some comments taken from recent course evaluations...

TOPICS

•         Identifying Families Addicted To Crisis
•         Dealing With And Identifying Resistance Patterns
•         Engaging Families In Perpetual Crisis Patterns
•         Creating Metaphors To Deal With Families
•         Building On Family Strengths
•         Identifying The “Stages Of Change” And When To Intervene Effectively
•         Using Motivational Interviewing To Engage Clients

•        Reducing Power Struggles By Reducing Resistance

GOALS

At the conclusion of this program you should be better able to:

•         Understand the dynamics involved with the addiction to crisis cycle.
•         Establish rapport and intervene in more effective ways, with crisis-oriented families.
•         Work toward family strength building to reduce future interventions.
•         Reduce power struggles and increase client engagement.
•         Increase your ability to avoid burnout when dealing with crisis-addicted families.

SPEAKER PROFILE

Joanne Munro, Psy.D. is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (#MFT 32898). She is currently a trainer for Orange County where she provides instruction for Senior Social Workers in Children and Family Services and has worked for the County as both the Clinical Supervisor and as a supervisor in the Continuing Services Program. She also has worked as a therapist in the Child Sexual Abuse Program, Child Abuse Investigation and Court Investigation. She teaches Graduate Counseling at California State University, Fullerton, and is a faculty member at the University of Phoenix where she teaches courses in Chemical Dependency in the workplace, Adult Development, Cultural Diversity and Interpersonal Communication.