Advocacy and Training Alliance, LLC – 19th Annual Conference

CE Credits: Each day is 6 hours of continuing education

CE Eligibility:

To be eligible for a certificate, you must attend the entire live training and complete an evaluation form within 24 hours following the live event.

Workshop Descriptions:

Using Language to Avoid Landmines: How to Convey Scientific Facts and Cut Through Myths When Discussing Stigmatized Populations: How can we convey important scientific information to folks who are not interested in ‘statistics’ and would rather listen to their ‘gut’? How can we cut through the widespread myths and misperceptions the public has about individuals with sex crime convictions, to promote fairer and more effective policies? This presentation will examine some of the right (and wrong) ways to communicate information about controversial and stigmatizing topics to the public and policymakers, so that the underlying message has the best chance of being listened to and acted upon.

Teaching Consent for Sexual Wellness for Adolescents with Problem Sexual Behaviors: Developing consensual sexual relationships can be a challenge particularly in the context of clients with problem sexual behaviors. However, it can be difficult to teach consent in a context where we are all-too-often asking our clients to only say no to their impulses. Using a model developed by a comprehensive sexuality educator (Vernacchio, 2014) along with the Circles of Sexuality (Dailey, 1981), we can offer innovative and informative psychoeducational methods to teach consent. Consent includes such properties as clear communication, cognitive acuity, and enthusiastic affirmation. In their absence, sexual expression is not consensual. In this highly interactive training, we’ll discuss ethical dilemmas and tools to navigate consent. A great emphasis of this training will be on the application of principles to participants’ work with adolescents.

Sexual Wellness: Why It Matters for Adolescents with Problem Sexual Behaviors: Bringing discussions of healthy sexuality to our clients necessitates candor and a comprehensive sexuality education approach. Yet how do we create an atmosphere of positive, non-coercive, and pleasurable sexual expression for individuals with problem sexual behaviors? Using a public health model which incorporates sexual health, sexual pleasure, sexual wellbeing, and sexual justice (Mitchell et al., 2021) and the Circles of Sexuality (Dailey, 1981), we can offer our clients an opportunity to develop the tools they need for consensual sexual and intimate relationships. This session will offer participants the most up-to-date research on effectiveness of comprehensive sexuality education, two models of comprehensive sexuality education for psychoeducational groups, ample time for application of these approaches, and the opportunity for frank discussion about the challenges our clients face.

Developmental Perspectives in the Treatment of Violent Adolescents Who Are Charged with Sexual Offenses: TBD

Living on the Intersections: Why Racial, Ethnic, Gender, and Sexual Identities Matter for Adolescents with Problem Sexual Behaviors: For adolescents with problem sexual behaviors, adolescents who have been marginalized because of their racial, ethnic, gender, or sexual identities have additional concerns. For many of these adolescents, arriving at a community or correctional residential program can evoke fears and concerns about harassment, bullying, or discrimination. This program will offer clinicians up-to-date information on language, biopsychosocial challenges, and information about activities for psychoeducational groups to allow these adolescents an opportunity to express their fears, hopes, and desires in a unique environment of inclusion.

Speakers:

Dr. Kelly M. Socia, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the School of Criminology and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he is also an assistant director for the Center for Public Opinion. His research interests include punitive views, sex offense policies, public opinion, and policymaking.

Dr. Jane Fleishman, PhD, MEd, MS, is an educator, writer, researcher, and author of The Stonewall Generation: LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging. She presents regularly to organizations working to prevent sexual violence, is on a mission to promote sexual wellness, and doesn’t shy away from the difficult and complex realities of making that happen. She co-hosts a regular podcast on sex and aging, Our Better Half. Her TEDx talk, Is It OK for Grandma to Have Sex? has reached almost 70,000 viewers. Her new course, designed for older adults to view at home, Sex After Sixty: Challenging Ageism One Sexual Pleasure at a Time, is available online now. Contact her at www.janefleishman.com.

Dr. Michael F. Caldwell, Psy.D. is recently retired from positions as a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and a Senior Staff Psychologist at the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center and as a Co-Investigator with the MIND Research Network at the University of New Mexico. He has served as a consultant to the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Juvenile Justice, the National Academy of Sciences International Scientific Forum on Neuroscience and the Law, Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law at Arizona State University, the Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas, the Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in St. Paul, among many others. He was a psychotherapist for 35 years and has published over 45 research publications or book chapters on the assessment and treatment of violent adolescents. He received his Master’s in Counseling Psychology from Kansas State University in 1976 and his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver in 1988.

Objectives:

This conference is designed to help you

1. Utilize strategies for improving communication of statistics to the courts and clients we serve.

2. Describe the informative psychoeducational methods to teach consent to youth who have engaged in sexually harmful behaviors.

3. Understand what tools youth who engage in sexually problematic or harmful behaviors need in order to develop healthy consensual relationships.

4. Understand how developmental perspectives impact the treatment of youth who adjudicated with a sexually harmful crime.

5. Identify ways that each treatment program can allow for opportunities for racial, ethnic, gender, and sexuality to be addressed in psychoeducational groups.