Providing Beyond the Fence: Challenges in Home-Based and Wrap-Around Care

Location:  Billerica, MA - Courtyard by Marriott, Billerica

As mental health and child welfare practitioners, we often reach out to underserved youth and families by providing more home-based care and flexible, wrap-around services. With the advent of the Children's Behavioral Health Initiative in Massachusetts, mental health and child welfare practitioners need even more skills in engagement, retention and empowerment for these youth and families. Building resiliency by using strength-based, narrative interventions are some of those skills.

At the same time that we need to get better at maintaining connections, we also need to get better at monitoring safety for providers and families. Being in families' homes demands new skill sets in monitoring boundaries as a practice of emotional safety and monitoring safe environments as a practice of physical safety.

This workshop integrates evidence-based and promising strategies for engagement, retention and empowerment of families with concrete tools for assessing and managing safety in the home-based, community environment. Participants will leave the day with practical skills and a plan for how to start using them immediately! Workshop participants will:

• Examine an integrated model of engagement and retention strategies that empower youth and families through strength-based work
• Develop new skills in monitoring and providing for emotional and physical safety in the home-based environment
• Enhance skills in creating resiliency with youth, families, and staff by using narratives including metaphor, humor, connection, and competence

This workshop will be of interest to mental health and child welfare practitioners who work in a home-based or community environment. Workshop format includes lecture, case examples and discussion. Please bring your most challenging cases!

Instructor:

Mary Bettley, M.S.W, LICSW, Clinical Director at the Cardinal Cushing Schools has over 25 years of experience working with youth, adults, and families in outpatient, home-based programs, residential care, state hospitals, and schools. She is an adjunct professor at Lesley University, has been on the faculty at Harvard Medical School's Attachment Conference, and trains nationally on issues of attachment, trauma, and strength-based mental health care. Ms. Bettley is known for her humor and practical examples.