Session Seven - Collaboration, Advocacy, and Working with Other Involved Professionals

May 28, 2025

Session Description
This module acknowledges the challenging, yet essential role, of mental health providers as they advocate and educate within child serving systems. Key principles in this module include: 

  1. Effective communication and collaboration throughout the many milieus in which a child lives, learns, and plays with an emphasis on shared practical solutions
  2. Advocating for exceptions and/or creative solutions around funding and systemic restrictions to ensure effective and ethical treatment of complex trauma and dissociation
  3. Ethical decision-making, role definition, comportment, and meaningful education within the legal system
  4. Leveraging the family system, specifically non-offending caregivers, as therapeutic partners and learning “abuse-proofing” in family systems entangled in the on-going possibility of continued abuse


Readings

  1. Silberg, J. (2022). Interfacing with Systems: The therapist as Activist. In The Child Survivor: Healing Developmental Trauma and Dissociation (pp. 284-297). Routledge.
  2. Forner, C. (2022). The Power of Care: The healing that comes from teaching non-offending parents how to regulate their child after physical and sexual abuse. In V. Sinason & R. Potgieter Marks (Eds.), Treating Children with Dissociative Disorders: Attachment, Trauma, Theory and Practice (pp. 98-115). Routledge.
  3. Findley, E., & Praetorius, R. T. (2023). Points of foster parent stress in the system: A qualitative interpretive meta-synthesis. Children and Youth Services Review, 150, 106966
  4. Middleton, J., Harris, L. M., Matera Bassett, D., & Nicotera, N. (2022). “Your soul feels a little bruised”: Forensic interviewers’ experiences of vicarious trauma. Traumatology, 28(1), 74–83 
  5. Brown, L. S. (2021). Institutional cowardice: A powerful, often invisible manifestation of institutional betrayal. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 22(3), 241-248

Additional Materials

  1. ISSTD Child and Adolescent Fact Sheets – Caregivers, School, Medical, and Child Welfare

Webinars

  1. Waters, F. S., & van Eys, P. Perception is reality: Helping systems view childhood dissociation through a complex lens. Against the Grain: Shifting the Societal Denial of Dissociation (2023 Annual Conference). Virtual. 
  2. Shesadri, S. Public Child Mental Health Approaches to Childhood Trauma. 2024 ISSTD Webinar Series. Virtual. 

Timed Outline
30 minutes: Discussion of Reading 1 and Webinar 1 – Advocating within systems
30 minutes: Discussion of Readings 2 and 4 and Additional Materials – Working with caregivers and the child protection system
30 minutes: Discussion of Reading 4 and Webinar 2 – Working with the justice system.
30 minutes: Discussion of Reading 5 – Working with institutions
30 minutes: Discussion of case study and case materials applying the above readings to disguised cases
 

Learning Objectives

After the completion of this class, participants will be able to:

  • Discuss therapists’ essential role in collaborating with multiple parts of the child’s milieu in treatment
  • Identify ethical responsibilities, boundaries, and education strategies for interfacing with the legal system 
  • Describe practical and/or creative strategies to ensure sufficient treatment length, continuity of care, and funding for child clients with complex trauma/dissociation
  • Discuss specific techniques to employ with non-offending parents to gain their understanding and assistance as therapeutic partners
  • Analyze and describe “abuse-proofing” strategies and resources 
Course summary
Available credit: 
  • 2.50 APA
    The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
  • 2.50 ASWB ACE
    The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), #1744, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 08/20/2024 – 08/20/2027. Social workers completing this course receive 2.50 continuing education credits.
  • 2.50 ISSTD Certificate Program
    This program is eligible for 2.50 credits in the ISSTD Certificate Program. No certificate of completion is generated for this type of credit.
Course opens: 
11/01/2024
Course expires: 
07/31/2025
Event starts: 
05/28/2025 - 5:30pm EDT
Event ends: 
05/28/2025 - 8:00pm EDT
Part of: 
The Assessment and Treatment of Traumatic Dissociation in Children and Adolescents | Hosey 2025
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Available Credit

  • 2.50 APA
    The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
  • 2.50 ASWB ACE
    The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), #1744, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 08/20/2024 – 08/20/2027. Social workers completing this course receive 2.50 continuing education credits.
  • 2.50 ISSTD Certificate Program
    This program is eligible for 2.50 credits in the ISSTD Certificate Program. No certificate of completion is generated for this type of credit.
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