Training is available to small or large groups of professionals and others on the variety of topics listed below, and additional trainings specific to the needs of any group can be created. An Overview of most topics can be provided in a half-day seminar, and more specific training that involves practice application occurs in one- or two-day workshops. Laura’s style is dynamic and entertaining, uses numerous case examples and encourages participation and experiential learning whenever possible. Laura uses a variety of medium including power point, demonstrations and role plays, slide presentations, videos, participant activities and real examples of clients artwork and therapeutic exercises. All one- and two-day trainings focus on application, teaching how to readily implement numerous interventions in practice. A packet of handouts accompanies each workshop. Most trainings have already, or can be approved for Continuing Education Credits in social work. Fees are negotiated depending on time, location, topic, etc. Trainings include:

*Introduction to Sexual Abuse Issues
Learn general information on sexual abuse including current trends, myths and facts, signs and symptoms and effective interventions.

*Assessment and Therapy with Sexual Abused Children and Their Families
Learn current protocol in assessing children, adolescents and their families for sexual abuse therapy and designing effective interventions.

*Forensic Interviewing in Child Sexual Abuse Cases
Learn specific interviewing protocols for careful interviewing based on children’s developmental levels and special circumstance in child sexual abuse cases.

*Stages in Sexual Abuse Therapy
Explore current models in trauma recovery that describe the healing process in stages. Aspects of and interventions for each stage are explored.

*Cycles of Abuse
Learn how abusive cycles permeate trauma theory and the way that trauma
manifests in behavior, including the cycle of offense, the cycle of
victimization, the cycle of PTSD and the cycle of professional responses to
trauma-based behavior.

*Creative Interventions in Healing Sexual Abuse and Other Trauma
Explore the use of creative interventions with child, adolescent and adult survivors including art, therapeutic activities, writing, parts of self methods, story and metaphor and the therapist’s creative use of self.

*Using Art to Heal: Creative Projects to Facilitate Growth
Explore various treatment interventions using paint, clay, markers, sculpture, writing, and collage that encourage a deeper awareness of self and recovery in people healing from trauma.

*Disclosure of Sexual Abuse
Trains therapists to understand four phases of disclosure and facilitate the process of disclosure with people who have been abused.

*Treating Sexual Abuse in Adolescents
Examine the unique challenges that adolescents present to the trauma recovery process and interventions that capture their attention.

*Sexual Abuse Therapy with Very Young Children and Their Families
Learn specialized interventions, advocacy and therapy techniques developed specifically to address the complicated needs of very young children and their parents in cases of sexual abuse.

*Therapy with Sexually Reactive Children and Youth
Explore how to assess normal vs. sexualized behavior in children and
Effective interventions with sexual abuse reactive behavior.

*We All Can Heal: Trauma Therapy with Cognitively Impaired People
Learn the special issues effecting cognitively impaired people and how to adapt practice protocols to better help this population heal from trauma.

*Stopping Lying and Stealing
Learn to distinguish normal from problem lying and stealing throughout
Development, and how to effectively intervene on problem behaviors.

*Effective Methods with Angry and Explosive Children and Youth
Learn a specific method designed to prevent explosive behavior and teach
flexibility and tolerance in children and parents.

*Intervening of Cutting and Other Self-harming Behaviors in Adolescents and Adults
Understand the motivations and characteristics of self-harming behavior and learn
to effectively assess and intervene.

*Positive Attachment in the Therapeutic Relationship
Explore the connection between abuse and insecure attachment and how to adapt models of secure attachment to the therapeutic relationship.

*Equity and Mutuality in the Therapeutic Relationship
Explore the power and control orientation of the abusive family and how to counteract negative assumptions in clients through the practice of equity and mutuality in therapy.

*Models of Empathy in the Therapeutic Relationship
Examine models of empathy and affect modulation in the helping relationship and
how to enhance empathetic responses.

*Attachment-Oriented Interventions with Children, Adolescents and Families
Explore cutting edge, attachment-oriented methods that are grounded in sound
theory, and diverge significantly from traditional interventions to heal disrupted
attachment.

*Cognitive and Behavioral Approaches to Trauma Therapy
Explore how cognitive and behavioral techniques including Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) are used to manage symptoms of PTSD and the effects of trauma.

*Sensorimotor Applications to Trauma Therapy
Understand current theory and application of sensori methods grounded in understanding central nervous system responses to trauma.

*Therapy with Resistant Teens
Trains therapists to assess the root of resistance in teens, and confront it with creativity, flexibility and an array of therapeutic interventions.

*Inner Child Work with Adolescents and Adults
Part I: Explore internalized parts of self, including the innocent and wounded child. Learn the theory, process and the techniques to access the child-self and explore real case examples of inner child work.
Part II: Participants learn the language and process of the inner child intervention through experiential discovery of their own child-self toward implementation with recovering people.

*Play Therapy with Traumatized Children
Explore methods of play therapy from non-directive to highly directive techniques toward and integration of the two approaches.

*Play Therapy with Adolescents
Learn play therapy techniques adapted to meet the unique needs of adolescents in individual and group therapy.

*Ceremonial Interventions with Children, Adolescents, Adults, Groups and Families
Understand and experience the impact of ceremonial interventions that mark therapeutic transitions and learn how to create and implement them in group and individual therapy.

*Rites of Passage
Learn how ceremonial challenges and rituals are implemented as therapeutic interventions to assist adolescents in the transition from childhood to adulthood.

*The Use of Myth and Story in Therapy with Adolescents
Learn to use specific well-know myths and stories to illustrate the tasks and
challenges of adolescent development including active, experiential activities.

*Navigating Adolescents
Explore the tasks of adolescent development, therapy and parenting approaches
that are developmentally effective with adolescents.

*Adolescent Sexuality
Understand the variables and norms of adolescent sexuality and how to help
teens with the challenges of sexual development and identity.

*Issues of Gender, Sexual Orientation and Sexuality in Adolescent Development:
Explore normal adolescent sexual development in the context of gender, sexual-
orientation and identity variance, and effective approaches to working with
identity issues in youth.

*Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth and Their Families
Learn about the special issues and challenges facing TBLG and questioning youth, and how to provide sensitive and effective services to these youth and their families.

*Girl Power!! Gender Sensitive Practice
Explore gender-specific issues and problems created by a gender-binary and -biased culture for the health and well-being of developing girls and and female-identified youth. Learn fun methods that empower youth in relationship to gender issues.

*Fostering the Sexually Abused and/or Traumatized Child
Foster care parents and professionals explore the challenges in fostering abused children and how to enhance the therapeutic effectiveness of the foster home.

*Dealing with Difficult Parents
Understand and learn effective methods to work with parents who present with anger, rigidity, confusion, a fear and developmental limitations in individual and family therapy.

*Adoption: Issues and Interventions
Adoptive parents and professionals explore the special dilemmas and therapeutic interventions for adopted children and their families.

*Promoting Positive Attachment in Foster and Adoptive Families
Learn the fundamentals of positive attachment and family interventions that build bonds of attachment even with older children.

*Parenting Traumatized Children
Understand the effects of trauma and the condition of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in children. Learn to create a home environment that enhances recovery.

*Cross-Cultural Social Work
Understand and practice effective cross-cultural social work from the perspective
of the dialogic self and the co-creation of culture between the helper and the
people being helped.

*Ally Identity Development in the Context of Social Work
Understand the concept and stages of ally identity development of dominant-
culture people to marginalized communities based on the oppressions of racism,
poverty, gender bias, gender binary, herteronormativity, religious bias, ablism,
agism, etc.