Suicidal Behaviors in Children
How DBT-C Can Mitigate Suicidal Behaviors in Children
Virtual via Zoom
Fee: $10 full members; $25 partial members and nonmembers
Continuing Education Hours: 2.0
Course Description
This session will serve as an introduction to DBT-C (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for Children) for clinicians. DBT-C (DBT for children ages 7-12 and their parent/caregiver) assists in mitigating risk of self-harm, suicidal ideation, suicidal actions, harm to others, and other high-risk behaviors by first focusing on parenting strategies before bringing the child in to treatment. DBT-C is unique in that only parents/caregivers are engaged in the first 8-12 weeks of treatment, meaning that commitment from the child is not needed (or even sought after) during this time period. During that time, parents/caregivers are engaged to learn both acceptance and change strategies to become the therapist for their "supersensers." They are taught behavioral management strategies as well as validation strategies to assist with understanding and decreasing the potentially harmful impacts of invalidation. Therapists also engage families in safety planning to assist in having structure in place to both minimize risk as well as respond when risky behaviors take place.
Learning Objectives:
- Therapists will learn how to teach parents navigating suicidal ideation from their children, and how to respond when children express suicidal ideation and/or engage in self harm
- Therapists will learn how to assess the parent's role in their child's environment and why life threatening behaviors are occurring
- Therapists will be able to identify the benefit of function over form and know when to be flexible in treatment approach
About the Trainer
Lisa Dunham, LCSW
Lisa Dunham has her MSW from UW-Milwaukee and has been practicing as an LCSW since 2011. For most of her career, she has worked in mental health, with specific focus on children and adolescents. Lisa has been formally trained in DBT and DBT-C. Lisa attended a DBT-C training and felt like it filled a missing piece regarding how to practice DBT with young children and their families. Notably, she was impressed with how the practice involves engaging parents more so than children, and changes the family system. Lisa has particular interest in ACE’s and trauma-informed care, and feels like much of DBT-C follows a trauma-informed, strengths-based approach to engage children and caregivers, ultimately decreasing impulsive and dangerous behaviors.