Upcoming Live Webinars
C.A.S.E. Webinar Series
The Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.) is a national leader in mental health services. For the months of March and April, they are offering all 13 of their webinars at no cost, with the promo code HOME.
When: Available now to Thursday, April 30
Cost: No cost with promo code HOME
Registration: Watch here
Responding to the Alarm: Addressing Black Youth Suicide
Hear from experts on black youth suicide during an interactive roundtable webinar hosted by the Office for Disparities Research and Workforce Diversity at the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Office of Behavioral Health Equity at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.This webinar will feature the co-authors of Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America, a report from the Congressional Black Caucus’s Emergency Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health. Panelists will discuss the alarming rise in suicide and suicide-related behaviors in black youth and strategies to engage and care for these youth.
When: Tuesday, April 21, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Cost: No cost
Registration: Register here
Domestic Violence and Youth in Care
Hosted by Illinois CASA, presenter Aiden Ethington is a Clinic Domestic Violence Specialist service the central region of Illinois DFPS. This webinar will address issues of domestic violence and their unique impact on children and families in the child welfare system
When: Tuesday, April 21, 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Cost: No cost
Registration: Register here
Investing in Fatherhood to Reduce Re-offending, Recidivism, and Violence in Tribal Communities
Fathers are a critical necessity for the future of our children and communities. This webinar will provide a general overview of fatherhood programs and how they can be an effective means to the reduction of re-offending, recidivism, and violence in addition to creating healthy families and communities. Webinar presented by the National Criminal Justice Training Center of Fox Valley Technical College.
When: Wednesday, April 22, 1:00 to 2:30 p.m.
Cost: No cost
Registration: Register here
Would My Child Benefit from Medication?
Parents are often wary about placing their child on psychotropic medication to treat a mental health/behavioral issue. When prescribed for ADHD, anxiety, depression or another diagnosis, parents are understandably concerned with side effects and the long-term impact of medication. C.A.S.E. Consulting Psychiatrist, Dr. Lisa Cullins will explore what parents need to consider and the questions they should ask of their treatment providers when making decisions about appropriate use of medication for their child. Medication used in conjunction with mental health treatment will also be addressed.
When: Thursday, April 23, 12:00 to 1:30 p.m.
Cost: No cost with coupon code MEDICATION (normal price $15)
Registration: Register here
Missing Children on the Autism Spectrum: Do’s & Don’ts of Response & Interaction
This webinar will provide a basic overview of autism and how it relates to wandering/elopement behaviors. Attendees will learn the reasons behind wandering, how to respond when a child with autism is missing, and the do’s and don’ts of searching for – and interacting with – this population.
When: Wednesday, April 29, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Cost: No cost
Registration: Register here
Steps Toward Change: Replacing the trauma bond with healing relationships
Join the Texas Network of Youth Service for a webinar that offers an opportunity to better understand the connection between trauma exposure and sexual exploitation. How does poor attachment actually increase risk and trauma-coerced bonding? As caregivers or providers, how can we help children experiencing blocked trust, build connections and heal from the trauma of exploitation?
When: Thursday, May 7, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Cost: No cost
Registration: Register here
Webinars Available Anytime
Adverse Childhood Experience Implications for Policymakers and Practitioners
David Murphey, research fellow and DataBank director at Child Trends, will review the science of childhood trauma, and the prevalence of childhood experiences that can create it. Trauma, or toxic stress, can have lasting harmful effects on multiple body-systems, affecting lifetime health and well-being. Drawing on recently released data collected nationwide, the presentation will highlight implications for those who work with children and families, or on their behalf.
Watch video: Click here
Advocacy for Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing Children
This hour-long Texas CASA webinar was recorded in May of 2019 and features speakers Dr. Jon and Shelly Bergeron. Jon Bergeron is a clinical psychologist who specializes in working with foster and adoptive families struggling with attachment and trauma-related difficulties. Shelly Bergeron is the Statewide Family Services Coordinator in the Educational Resource Center on Deafness at the Texas School for the Deaf.
Watch video: Click here
Anxiety Disorders in Children
Dr. Charles Hallmark, Grace Psychological Services, discusses anxiety disorders in children, including the different types and identifiers that parents can look for, along with a focus on anxiety in children with dyslexia and other specific learning disabilities.
Watch video: Click here
The Beginning of Life
Using breakthroughs in technology and neuroscience, this series available on Netflix, examines how environment affects infants – and how infants affect our future. Each of the six episodes is 45 minutes long.
Watch video: Click here
Best Practices for Communicating with Victims of Sex Trafficking
This webinar, hosted by the National Criminal Justice Training Center, provides an overview of trauma-informed techniques for communicating with victims and survivors of sex trafficking. Gather strategies for building rapport and fostering open communication for the various professionals that victims of sex trafficking interact with in justice, advocacy, and recovery.
Time: 1 hour
Watch video: Click here
Building Trauma-Informed Services for Children, Youth, and Parents Impacted by Domestic Violence
This is a 10-part recorded webinar series that can be accessed at any time. Topics include: Children and Domestic Violence, Caring for Others While Caring for Ourselves, Children Grow in the Context of Their Relationships, Understanding Children’s Responses to DV and Other Trauma, Responding to the Needs of Children and Families Impacted by DV, Engaging and Supporting Parents
Watch video: Click here
Calming Children in Crisis
A major challenge in working with children who have experienced trauma is helping them manage the strong emotions often experienced as a result. Feelings of emotional pain resulting from maltreatment and loss often present as anger. Children may feel overwhelmed by their feelings and express anger in a way that places themselves and others at risk. This course provides skills for helpers to assist children in identifying and managing their feelings in a healthy manner. Specific skills taught include helping children identify and label their feelings, cope with feelings of anger, develop a “Safety Plan,” and learn how and when to use the plan. The skills taught in this course are helpful for persons working with children in a wide variety of settings including family foster care, and residential and educational facilities.
Watch video: Click here
Child Sexual Abuse: What Investigators Need to Know
WI CAN Educational Series presents a one-hour video with Dr. Rita Ventura from Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin about what investigators on child sexual abuse cases need to know.
Watch video: Click here
Connecting the Dots to Prevent the Sexual Abuse of Children Through Collaboration
This webinar explored how the collaboration of child welfare organizations can strengthen and fortify efforts to prevent child sexual abuse. Representatives from two such organizations discussed their methods and successes in research, promoting community awareness and involvement, training and education, juvenile justice, funding strategies, and more.
Watch video: Click here
Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center (DCAC)
Keeping Your Children Safe in the Real and Digital World (1 hour)
REPORT: Best Practices for Professionals Responding to Child Abuse (1 hour)
Recognizing and Reporting Child Abuse – Texas Edition (1 hour)
To access any of the DCAC courses, email Lindsey O’Hare to receive a username and password
The Effects of Prenatal Methamphetamine Exposure
In 2017, it was estimated that there were over 5,000 drug-exposed infants born in California. In this webinar, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center’s Dr. Lynne Smith discusses the effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure including: effects on somatic growth and neurodevelopment and prenatal and postnatal environmental factors that influence the effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure.
Watch video: Click here
“Faces of Human Trafficking” Video Series
The series is intended to be used for outreach and education efforts of service providers, law enforcement, prosecutors, and others in the community. The series includes information about sex and labor trafficking, multidisciplinary approaches to serving victims of human trafficking, effective victim services, victims’ legal needs, and voices of survivors.
Watch video: Click here
The Family First Act: What Juvenile Justice Advocates Need to Know
The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently partnered with Casey Family Programs to host Implications of the Family First Act for Juvenile Justice Advocates, a webinar highlighting the services and resources that the landmark law provides to support youth involved with the justice system.
Time: 1 hour
Watch video: Click here
Infants with Parental Substance Exposure
This webinar provides an overview the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital initiative to improve the quality of care of infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. Dr. Matthew Grossman highlights research findings, including the methods and results of the hospital study published in Pediatrics. The interventions include non-pharmacologic therapies and a simplified approach to assessment for infants exposed to methadone in utero.
Watch video: Click here
International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN)
Child Abuse and Children with Disabilities: Prevention & Protective Factors (1 hour)
Children’s Rights and Child Protection (1 hour)
Education and Learning in the Context of Abuse, Neglect, and Related Stressors (1 hour)
Neurobiology of Stress and Trauma in Children and Adolescents (1 hour)
Parental Burnout (1 hour)
National American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC)
Adoption Assistance and Eligibility Benefits (1.25 hours)
Improving Messages in Kinship Care, Foster Care, and Adoption (1 hour)
Parenting Tough Behaviors (1.25 hours)
Positive Identify Formation and Community Connectedness for Children and Youth in Transracial Placements (1.5 hours)
National CASA/GAL Program
Psychotropic Drugs 101 (2.5 hours)
All Children All Families: Improving Practice with LGBT Youth and Families (1 hour)
Building Strong Families and Healthy Communities: The Safe Babies Project (1.25 hours)
National Children’s Advocacy Center Online Training
Previously recorded webinars that offer information pertaining to multiple aspects of CASA cases can be found on the National Children’s Advocacy Center website and can be viewed at any time with no cost. On their website, you will be directed to create a login account to access the webinars. Click here to view available webinars.
On the Global Coronavirus Crisis: Steering Ourselves and Our Clients Through New & Developing Traumas
Join Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of the New York Times #1 bestselling author The Body Keeps The Score and learn timely (and critically important) approaches for all of us in the helping professions. Dr. van der Kolk will give you specific and practical approaches, with your community, and with your clients to address creating connection and community in this global crisis as well as activities to share with clients that keep them attached and out of re-experiencing past traumas.
Time: 30 minutes
Watch video: Click here
Overcoming Uncertainty: A Conversation with ISF Former Foster Youth
For students who have recently exited the foster care system and aspire to continue their education, life can feel uncertain. How do I afford a meal plan? What if I lose my job and can’t afford to pay rent? Where will I sleep if I can’t be in my dorm room? You can meet the students who experience and overcome uncertainty. ISF Executive Director, Blair Ritchey, and a panel of our foster care students discussed how they are overcoming COVID-related challenges.
Time: 45 minutes
Watch video: Click here
The Power of Connection: How Resource Families Can Support Adolescents Through COVID-19 Crisis
This webinar is a conversation between national adolescent development expert Dr. Ken Ginsburg, MD, MSEd, Co-Director of the Center for Parent and Teen Communication at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Jennifer Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Youth Law Center. Dr. Ginsburg will be sharing the science behind why resource and foster families are so important to adolescents during this national crisis, and practical tips and guidance for the best ways resource families (and all families) can support youth in foster care right now to weather this challenge and thrive.
Time: 75 minutes
Watch video: Click here
Promoting Family Health Through the Parent-Child Feeding Relationship
Unhealthy foods are readily available, cheaper than healthy alternatives, and advertised directly to children. Parents play an instrumental role in helping children navigate this unhealthy food environment. This presentation will discuss characteristics of children and parents that put some families at risk for eating challenges and how developing a positive parent-child feeding relationship benefits both parent and child. Dr. Doris Luft de Baker’s lecture is now available to view on the UT Dallas website.
Watch video: Click here
Where it can be found: UT Dallas Center for Children and Families
Psychotropic Medication
This training explains Child Protective Services’ expectations for the safe and effective use of psychotropic medications by children in DFPS conservatorship. This training will help you to understand the expectations and policies regarding medications administered to children.
Watch video: Register here
Reducing the Risk of Child Sexual Abuse: A webinar with NCTSN
An hour and a half-long video on reducing the risk of child sexual abuse presented by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.
Watch video: Click here
Secondary Traumatic Stress/Compassion Fatigue: This is Hard AND We are Making A Difference
Secondary Traumatic Stress/Compassion Fatigue [STS/CF] is the emotional, physical, and personal response to frequent exposure to and empathic engagement with individuals and families struggling with significant challenges in their lives. It is often referred to as the “emotional cost of caring.” This webinar, hosted by the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare Information, explores STS/CF and other human services workplace stressors and how we can ultimately experience “compassion satisfaction,” which is the key to thriving in the midst of this difficult work that we do. Real-time, on-the-job strategies are examined, including self-awareness, self-regulation, emotional reflection, and the elicitation and amplification of good work.
Time: 1 hour
Watch video: Click here
Storytelling, Social Movements, and the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect
Topics covered are: how revised and reconsidered communications can promote the message of prevention of child abuse and neglect, why the general public has not been as engaged by previous prevention messages, and how professionals in child abuse prevention are changing the way they tell their stories to inspire and motivate the public to take action.
Watch video: Click here
TBRI® An Overview: Putting the Pieces Together
This short video explains the principles and concepts behind Trust-Based Relational Intervention®, a proven method for enriching the lives of at-risk, vulnerable children, adolescents, and their families. Trauma can impair language, sensory processing, and coping skills, and can lead to perplexing behaviors that are often mistaken for aggression or mental illness. This video features world-renowned experts who share research that documents how consistently positive experiences with loving caregivers can re-wire a child’s brain for lasting change.
Watch video: Click here
TED Talk: Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong
What really causes addiction? How can we overcome it? Johann Hari has seen our current methods fail first hand and began to wonder why we treat addicts the way we do.
Watch video: Click here
TED Talk: Why domestic violence victims don’t leave
TED talk featuring Leslie Morgan Steiner telling the story of her abusive relationship, correcting misconceptions may people hold about victims of domestic violence and explaining how we can all help break the silence.
Watch video: Click here
Teen Dating Violence: Cyber Abuse, Social Media, and the Courts
Webinar hosted by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. With more teens than ever using social media to connect with their friends, it is important that courts stay abreast of the latest trends and techniques used to abuse. Moreover, with nearly half of middle school students reporting they were victims of electronic dating violence, this webinar provides a better understanding of teen culture and the role technology plays in teen dating violence.
Time: 1 hour
Watch video: Click here
Texas CASA Training
Texas CASA has created an interactive e-learning course, Online Core Advocacy Skills Training (OCAST), to walk you through everything that happens when a child comes to the attention of CPS. Within the course, there are six modules that take one to two hours each to complete, with a quiz at the end of each module. Participants will receive a brief follow-up survey and will be able to print their grades as proof of completion
Watch video: Register here
Texas CASA has many courses and webinars available; the following are specifically recommended:
Advocacy for Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (2.5 hours)
An Overview of Issues and Policies Related to Transitioning Youth (1 hour)
Communicating with Children (1 hour)
Communicating Effectively in the Child Welfare System (1 hour)
Seven Habits of the Highly Effective CASA (75 minutes)
The Healing Families Video Series (up to 8 hours)
Trauma-Informed Advocacy for Children and Youth (1 hour)
Understanding Education Benefits for Foster Care Alumni (1 hour)
Watch videos: Register here
Training Series: Coping With the Unique Challenges of Kinship Care
More than 139,000 children in foster care are living in kinship placements with thousands more are in informal kinship care arrangements. As child welfare systems increasingly prioritize placing children with relatives, the Casey Foundation has created a video training series — Coping With the Unique Challenges of Kinship Care — as a resource for kin caregivers and the child welfare workers who supporting them.
Watch video: Click here
Trauma- Informed Care for Families Affected by Substance Use Disorders
The New England Addiction Technology Transfer Center (New England ATTC) has partnered with the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare (NCSACW) to develop a web-based series on effective strategies, practices and policies addressing families with substance use.
Watch video: Click here
Using Media Effectively with Young Children and Virtual Visitation
While in-person visitation is the best way to support families, it isn’t always possible during this emergency. Dr. Rachel Barr will share research on how to use remote and virtual communication to maintain and strengthen relationships. Dr. Barr is a professor at Georgetown University and has conducted research on media and young children for over 25 years.
Time: 1 hour
Watch video: Click here
Webinar Series: Trauma-Focused Interventions for Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence
Although research on trauma-focused interventions continues to grow, there are still only a limited number of interventions designed specifically for responding to the traumatic effects of domestic and sexual violence. This webinar series was designed to highlight some of these emerging and evidence-based approaches.
- Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction for Survivors of Trauma: An Introduction
- Beyond Trauma: A Healing Journey for Women
- Beyond Anger and Violence: A Program for Women
Watch video: Click here
