2-Day Family Trauma Treatment Certification Training: Clinical Interventions That Move Children, Teens and Their Families Toward Hope and Change

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Nathan Croy, LCMFT, CFTP Related seminars and products

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Nathan D. Croy, LCMFT, CFTP, is a clinically licensed marriage and family therapist with extensive experience working with families, teenagers and children impacted by trauma, depression, anxiety, addiction and abuse.

Nathan has been designated a Clinical Fellow by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and is a Certified Family Trauma Professional (CFTP) through Evergreen Certifications. He is also trained in Trauma Systems Therapy, Parent Management Training and EMDR.

In addition to private practice, Nathan has extensive experience working in outpatient and inpatient settings including in foster care systems, a psychiatric hospital and as a therapist at The University of Kansas Hospital. He earned his master’s in marriage and family therapy from Bethel Seminary.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Nathan Croy has an employment relationship with Existential Family Therapy, LLC. He receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Nathan Croy has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Objectives

1. Investigate Bowen’s conceptualization of chronic stress and its effects on the individual and family unit.
2. Analyze the clinical implications of caregivers’ responses to trauma driven behaviours children and adolescents.
3. Investigate how common systemic models of family-based treatment can be utilized in a clinical setting.
4. Assess for domestic violence and other risks in at risk families.
5. Use family sculpting techniques in session to reveal dysfunctional family dynamics that can inform treatment approach.
6. Develop a trauma treatment plan from a family and relational systems perspective.
7. Apply safety planning to stabilize families for treatment.
8. Employ strategies with caregivers, kids and adolescents to improve engagement in treatment plans.
9. Utilize psychoeducation techniques to teach caregivers to depersonalize trauma driven behaviours.
10. Employ in-session psychoeducation approaches to help clients become aware of problematic behaviours.
11. Use evidence-based strategies in trauma treatment to help families enhance self-regulation.
12. Utilize clinical techniques to help families set and reinforce healthy boundaries.
13. Employ specific therapeutic tools in sessions to facilitate forgiveness of self and others in the family system.

Outline

How Trauma is Created and Maintained in Families

• Neurological substrates and sources of trauma
• Trauma as a disruption of trust
• Personal innate resiliency
• Impacts on family culture
• Responses of the people around the person experiencing the trauma
• Maintenance of trauma effects (re-traumatization, dismissive of actual trauma, ignorance)

A Systemic Approach in Trauma Treatment:
How Treating Families Instead of Individuals Improves Outcomes

• Families as the source of healing for trauma
• Create secure connections and increase resiliency
• Build trust as it relates to anxiety, fear, threat
• Bowenian Family Therapy, Emotionally Focused Family Therapy and other systemic models
• Research, risks and treatment limitations

Stabilize Families for Treatment with Safety Planning:
A Clinician’s Guide to Establishing Physical and Emotional Safety

• Risk Assessments
• Systemic Safety Planning
• How to customize the safety plan
• Managing physiological responses
• Integrating with treatment

Early Session Strategies to Enhance Family Engagement

• When it’s a bad idea to include the whole family
• Assessing for DV and other risks
• Use family sculpting to reveal family dynamics
• Working individually in order to work systemically
• Games and activities to:
  • Assess a child’s self-esteem and world view
  • Increase open communication
  • Identify themes to be explored in future sessions

Family System Self-Regulation:
Coping Skills to Modulate Emotions and Trauma Responses

• Implementation
• How to notice warning signs early
• Using coping skills for calm
• Identifying primary emotions

The Key to Making and Maintaining Progress:
Teach Caregivers to Depersonalize and Better Respond to Trauma Driven Behaviours

• Identifying reactions
• Scripts
• Case studies
• Role-plays to ensure proper implementation

Solutions for Defenses, Deflections and Frustrations:
Effective Strategies and Interventions to Overcome Resistance and Help Families Grow

• Preparing families for resistance to growth
• Tips for reframing the problem as the solution
• Effective ways to deal with deflection and defences
• The difference between deflection, projection, and transference
• Ego defence mechanisms or personality disorder?
• FAIR intervention to mitigate frustration
• Three phases of family growth (Protect, Prepare, Participate)

The Trust and Connection Toolkit:
How to Improve Communication, Set Healthy Boundaries and Rebuild Trust

• Practical tips for educating families on boundaries
• The House Metaphor for understanding boundaries
• Reinforcing boundaries after setting them
• Boundaries vs rules – the benefits of agreements vs. control
• Rebuilding trust – what works and what doesn’t
• Trust Equation – an online assessment

Shame, Guilt and Judgement in Family Trauma Treatment:
Exercises to Facilitate Forgiveness, Build Empathy and Move Families Forward

• Addressing shame in family systems
• Overcome the impact of survivors’ guilt on families
• How family members can stop “shoulding” themselves
• The Forgiveness Triangle (Empathy, Grief, Meaning)
• Exercises to facilitate the forgiveness of self

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Addiction Counselors
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Psychiatrists
• Physicians
• Nurses
• Other Professionals Who Work within the Mental Health Fields