Wednesday, June 23

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Wednesday, June 23, 2021


12:00 - 1:00 PM Breakout Session 1
 Supervision Track
Embodying Inner Resources to Prevent Counselor Burnout in the COVID-19 Era
Presented by Laurel Shaler, NCC, LPC, LCSW, LISW-CP and Holly Johnson, LCMHCS, NCC and Jeff Boatner, LPC, LMFT, NCC
In the Covid-19 era, unprecedented changes have caused counselors to struggle to maintain work boundaries and foster their own emotional health and well-being. Many counselors find it challenging to face the same anxiety, uncertainty, and stressors as those who are seeking their services. This session provides insights, knowledge, and practical tools for understanding, responding to, and preventing compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and burnout in the lives of helping professionals. It provides strategies for finding hope in hopeless situations. The workshop is lively and experiential and will leave participants with optimism and an ability to experience their work as fueling and effective as they reconcile what they experience with the value of their work.
 Integrated Care Track | Practice Issues Track | Healthcare Reform Track
Performance of Mental Health Counselors in Integrated Care
Presented by Dogukan Ulupinar, Ph.D., LPC, NCC and Carlos Zalaquett, Ph.D., LMHC
Presenters examined the performance of 10 mental health counselors on the clinical outcome of 1,747 clients treated in an IPBH center. Analyses using growth curve modeling and pre-post test design revealed that mental health counselors were effective overall, but they differed in efficiency and client dropout rates in helping clients reduce their initial symptoms. Counselors who were the most effective varied in their efficiency but demonstrated the lowest client dropout rates. In this program, presenters will discuss the reasons of performance differences among mental health providers in IPBH settings as well as the implications for future research and counseling practice.

2:00 - 3:15 PM Breakout Session 2
Technology Assisted Treatment Track | Ethics Track
Technological Therapy in Tough Times
Presented by Susan Meyerle, LIMHP, CEAP, CFLE
Telemental health services exploded in 2020 catching many mental health counselors ill-prepared to transition from in-office sessions quickly and effectively. In an environment where health insurers expanded reimbursement of counseling services provided electronically, mental health counselors needed to learn how to provide these services promptly and ethically. Executive orders, as compiled by The Council of State Governments (“COVID-19 Resources for State Leaders, 2020), paved the way for telemental health services across state lines in many areas of the country hardest hit early in the pandemic. Not only did mental health counselors need to learn the nuances of providing electronic services, they also needed to stay on top of the current policies governing their practice. A summary of state statutes and regulations will also be reviewed. Some states have written clear regulations specifically addressing telemental health services while others have not. This presentation will look at the implications of the state regulations. Add in the complexity of how mental health counselors themselves were affected, and we end up with many challenges. The question many are now asking: What does the future hold for telemental health services? This presentation will review the challenges and opportunities facing the provision of telemental health services.
 Trauma Assessment and Treatment Track | Gender Identity and Sexual Identity Track
From Shame to Pride
Presented by Christopher Checke, MS LMHC
Although researchers have become more interested in the trauma-shame connection in recent years, counselors face challenges in building shame resiliency in their clients; thus, it is critical for counselors develop the skills necessary that will assist clients in moving from shame to pride. Research on the emotional experience of shame, the development of shame, shame-based identities, shame-based psychopathology, shame-proneness, and shame-resiliency has greatly added to our collective knowledge about the impact of shame; however, counselors need the opportunity to more deeply understand the intricacies of shame and learn how to deliver effective, clinical interventions, based on shame resilience theory. This workshop will take an in-depth look at the complexities of shame. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of what constitutes healthy shame and toxic shame. I address how shame develops early in the lifespan, how it becomes magnified via traumatic experiences, and how we can be re-shamed in trauma work. We will also examine the concept of shame-based psychopathology and how shame is often at the root of many behavioral health conditions. In addition to trauma as a source of shame, I will also highlight the cultural, familial, and other systemic origins of shame. Learning how shame interferes in relationships, including the therapeutic relationship, will be a key component of this presentation. Participants will also learn how to interweave shame language into their clinical work. I will demonstrate how to build shame resiliency in clients; reduce the risk of re-shaming clients in therapy; and, teach how to create pride-based interventions.

4:00 - 5:30 PM Breakout Session 3
 Military Track | Addictions Track | Substance Use and Co-Occurring Disorders Track
Impact of Military Culture on Mental Health and Substance Abuse
Presented by Katherin Williams, LCMHC, NCC, CTP
This presentation will offer participants an opportunity to explore the needs of a special population that can be misunderstood. Participants will learn about service branches, impacts of service on mental health and substance abuse, and the differences between civilian culture and military cultures. By providing this information, participants will increase familiarity with the various disciplines and systems in order to promote alignment of services, integration, and enhanced care coordination of a special population. Participants will also be able to learn effective strategies to address barriers to treatment (real or perceived) and understand their role in advancing the mental health and substance abuse care of military, veterans, and their families This is an educational opportunity that addresses the behavioral health policy and service needs of a special population and includes the needs of all ages within it.
 Supervision Track | Diversity and Multicultural Track
Addressing Religious-Based Values Conflicts in Clinical Supervision
Presented by Anita Neuer Colburn, PhD, LPC (VA), LMHCs (NC), BC-TMH, ACS, NCC and Keith Mobley, PhD, LMHC (WA), LCMHCS (NC), ACS, NCC
Counselors, clients and supervisors all hold deeply personal values and cannot divorce themselves from bringing those values into the the counseling or supervision office (Hook et al., 2017). At the same time, our AMHCA (2015) and ACA (2014) codes of ethics restrict counselors from imposing their values on clients. Additionally, the ACES (2011) Best Practices document implores supervisors to promote contextual sensitivity around multicultural factors. Values are culturally based, and can be imposed in simple and subtle ways, often an unintentional biproduct of implicit bias. More obvious ways of imposing values include referring a client out due to a seemingly irreconcilable values difference. Recent court cases (Ward v. Wilbanks, others) and literature ((Hook et al., 2017; Kocet & Herlihy, 2012; Priest & Wickel, 2011) confirm that counselors have had difficulty successfully navigating values conflicts. While supervisors are charged with assisting in resolving values conflicts, they frequently report feeling ill-prepared to assist supervisees in such a monumental task. Metacompetence is a clinician’s ability to assess what one knows and what one doesn’t know It requires Introspection about one’s personal cognitive processes and products and is dependent on self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-assessment (Weinert, 2001). Supervisors guide the development of metacompetence by encouraging and reinforcing supervisee’s development of skills in self-assessment (Falender & Shafranske, 2007).
 Supervision Track | Advocacy and Leadership Track
Creating School-Based Mental Health Collaborations in Rural Communities
Presented by Tracie Rutherford Self, PhD, LMHC and Eran Hanke, PhD, LMHC
The purpose of this presentation is to describe how counselor education programs can collaborate with rural schools to respond to the mental health needs of K-12 students and to better prepare counselors-in-training (CIT) to serve rural communities. While it is estimated over 20% of students in schools have diagnosable mental health conditions, up to 70% of those students receive little to no services; this is further complicated by students who live in rural areas where access to services are less than their counterparts in urban settings (van Vulpen, Habegar, Simmons, 2018). The presenters will identify the prevalence of mental health concerns of youth and the impact of rural culture. This will include information from a review of the literature, the results of screenings conducted within a rural school district in the Midwest and interviews with school staff and administrators. The presenters will then discuss models for providing school-based mental health services in rural communities and offer examples of how one counselor education program has taken steps to integrate these models into counselor training which addresses the availability and accessibility of mental health services among rural youth.