Henry Maier Practitioner in Residence Program: April 11-13, 2013
This year’s Henry Maier Practitioner in Residence is Matthew Selekman, MSW, LCSW.
All events will be held in The Commons, Room 305, at the School of Social Work, 4101-15th AVE NE, Seattle. Registration Info. to follow.
Thursday, April 11, 2013, 5:30 – 7 pm
Keynote Address: Changing Self-Destructive Habits: Pathways to Solutions with Families
Description: This presentation will discuss key aggravating factors that are contributing to the increase in self-destructive habits among youth and adults today, such as: self-injury, substance abuse, eating-distressed behaviors, problem gambling, and Internet and cyber-sex abuse. Research on self-change studies in these habit areas will be discussed. Strategies for transforming self-destructive habits into positive affirming habits through targeted interventions at the adolescent, family, and social network levels are covered. Open to the SSW community.
Friday, April 12, 2013, 9:00am – 4:00 pm
Field Instructor Workshop: Pathways to Solutions with Challenging Children and Adolescents: A Collaborative Strengths-Based Brief Therapy Approach
Description: Children and adolescents presenting with longstanding difficulties with explosive and angry, highly oppositional, school disruptive, self-harming, eating-distressed, and substance-abusing behaviors can be a nightmare for even the most seasoned of therapists to work with. Many of these children and youth come from families where they have experienced a great deal of emotional invalidation and disconnection, marital discord or post-divorce parental conflicts, and multiple treatment failures. Due to the chronicity and severity of their behaviors, they often attract an army of helping professionals from larger systems who have differing opinions regarding the causes of the presenting problems, treatment goals and expectations that only serve to further perpetuate the clients’ difficulties.
In this “hands on” practice-oriented workshop, participants will learn a collaborative strengths-based brief therapy approach that capitalizes on the strengths and resources of children and adolescents, their families, key resource people from their social networks, and involved helpers from larger systems to co-construct solutions. This approach is generalizable to a wide-range of settings including schools, social service agencies, and residential treatment centers. A special emphasis will be placed on the creative use of self to co-create with children, adolescents, and their families compelling future realities. A $15 fee will be collected to reserve a spot (covering costs to offer complimentary parking, lunch, and 6 CEUs).
Saturday, April 13, 2013, 9:00AM-3:30PM
Workshop for School of Social Work Students: Pathways to Solutions with Self-Destructive Adolescents: A Collaborative Strengths-Based Therapy Approach
Description: In today’s highly toxic digital era of extremes, economic upheaval, and high stress, we are seeing increasingly more adolescents in our practice settings presenting with multiple self-destructive behaviors like self-injury combined with substance abuse, bingeing and purging or overeating, and excessive Internet use, for violent on and offline gaming and gambling, and cyber-sex, all or in any combination can contribute to their experiencing serious psychological, physical, family, school performance consequences. However, since these self-destructive habits are emotionally and physically rewarding and serve many functions for adolescents, they will protect their habits at all costs, making it quite difficult for us to engage and retain them in treatment.
To further complicate matters, these high-risk youth attract multiple helping professionals from larger systems like a magnet. Often, these helping professionals not only do not regularly communicate with one another but they may not see eye-to-eye regarding problem views, the best treatment methods to pursue, and may end up establishing highly unrealistic treatment goals and expectations that are unattainable for these high risk youth and their families to achieve. Thus, family-helping systems knots develop, which further perpetuates the adolescent’s difficulties.
In this hands-on, practice-oriented workshop, participants will learn a collaborative eco-systemic approach that harnesses the strengths and resources of adolescents, their family members, concerned resource people from their social networks, and involved helping professionals to co-create a context for change. This approach is generalizable to a wide-range of settings including schools, social service agencies, and residential treatment centers.
Brief Biography: Matthew Selekman
Matthew D. Selekman, MSW is a family therapist and addictions counselor in private practice and the co-director of Partners for Collaborative Solutions (www.partners4change.net), an international family therapy training and consulting firm in Evanston, Illinois, USA. Matthew specializes in the treatment of self-injury, eating disorders, substance abuse, school disruptive behaviors, oppositional defiant disorder, and anger management difficulties of children, adolescents, and adults. He is an Approved Supervisor with the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Matthew received the Walter S. Rosenberry Award in 2006, 2000, and in 1999 from The Children’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado for having made significant contributions to the fields of psychiatry and the behavioral sciences. Matthew is the author of numerous family therapy articles and five professional books: Collaborative Brief Therapy with Children, The Adolescent and Young Adult Self-Harming Treatment Manual: A Collaborative Strengths-Based Brief Therapy Approach, Working with Self-Harming Adolescents: A Collaborative Strengths-Based Therapy Approach; Pathways to Change: Brief Therapy with Difficult Adolescents (Second Edition), and with Thomas Todd, Family Therapy Approaches with Adolescent Substance Abusers. His latest book, with Mark Beyebach, Changing Self-Destructive Habits: Pathways to Solutions with Couples and Families, will be published in 2013 by Routledge. He has presented workshops on his collaborative strengths-based brief therapy approach with challenging children, adolescents, and adults and their families extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand.
These events are brought to you by the Henry W. Maier Practitioner in Residence Program: The Henry W. Maier Practitioner in Residence Program has been established at the UW School of Social Work to honor the remarkable life of Henry Maier and his unique approach to social work. The Practitioner in Residence Program provides the opportunity to bring students, faculty and community together to engage with a master clinician and teacher in further developing their skills in teaching and working with children and families. http://socialwork.uw.edu/programs/henrymaier
