Invitation to Change Workshop
for Professionals
A 17-hour workshop in the Invitation to Change Approach©, with CMC:Foundation for Change.
When
Jan 24, 2025(10am—5pm ET)
Jan 25, 2025 (10am—3pm ET)
Feb 1, 2025 (10am—3pm ET)
Where
Online - Zoom
(info and link emailed upon registration)
Who
Clinicians, Social Workers, Recovery Professionals
Cost
$500
(Sliding scale will be made available)
ITC Certification
Certificate of Completion
Continuing Edu.
14 Contact Hours through NASW, NAADAC, NBCC, and NYSED for Social Workers.
Description
We’re inviting professionals in the addiction space to participate in a 17-hour virtual training in the Invitation to Change Approach (ITC), a compassionate and science-backed model for recovery support work.
CMC:Foundation for Change is conducting a virtual training for therapists who would like to learn to support families in the midst of dealing with the challenges of substance misuse.
As we are all well aware, we as mental health providers have been given little to no academic or clinical training in substance use issues, and perhaps even less in working with families caught in the middle of this struggle. CMC:FFC has spent the last 10 years working with families and developing a model, the Invitation to Change Approach, that pulls together a variety of evidence-based approaches (CRAFT, MI, and ACT).
The Invitation to Change offers families a set of down to earth, compassionate tools for navigating through these very difficult moments in their lives, as individuals and families. We have spent enormous time working with families to make this approach as sensible, accessible, and straightforward as possible, and have found families to be deeply appreciative and moved by these ideas and practices.
We are now delighted to invite a wider circle of professionals to learn to work simply and effectively with families and feel confident in providing them with evidence-based behavioral, motivational, and compassion-focused strategies. Without needing to take a deep dive into family systems theory or resort to one-size-fits-all approaches such as Al-Anon or Nar-Anon, the ITC can be readily learned by any professional. We as clinicians have found that working with these families, while initially intimidating and emotional, is deeply satisfying, intense and rewarding, as well as terribly important and needed.
“I have talked to multiple participants that said it blew their socks off. ‘Life changing,’ ‘Wish I would have had this years ago,’ ‘Everyone needs this information,’ ‘Why aren’t more treatment providers offering this for their families.’ As a family recovery coach, I am so excited to bring this to more and more parents who truly want to do things differently.”
– Pam L., Certified Family Recovery Coach at Thrive! Family Support
This introductory training offers participants a helping blueprint for working with families. Over the course of the workshop training participants will learn the foundational principles and skills entailed in the Invitation to Change approach and introduced to exercises to help families understand and utilize them to support their struggling loved one.
The ITC is designed to be taught to and implemented by those in supportive roles (i.e. family members; significant others)—it takes complicated psychological principles and makes them understandable for families in crisis. The workshop introduces the ITC concepts and skills in a similar way we expect participants to teach their clients. While you may be familiar with some of the concepts and skills we cover in this training from your professional training, the strategies for teaching and coaching these concepts to families will be new, and vitally important for helping lay people feel confident in the use of them.
The Invitation to Change Approach is grounded in compassion, connection, and the understanding that families can have a powerful helping impact on those struggling to change. The ITC Approach draws on evidence-based practices also found in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Motivational Interviewing (MI), and the Community Reinforcement and Family Training approach (CRAFT), as well as decades of clinical experience working with families and loved ones.
Built on the three pillars of Understanding, Awareness, and Action, the ITC first illuminates new perspectives on substance use and the process of change; next, it creates a foundation of self-awareness and willingness to engage with emotional pain. Finally, it emphasizes action, teaching communication and behavior skills to promote and support new behaviors in a person struggling with substance use.
The ITC was created with the idea of a waterfall in mind: the evidence-based ideas and strategies you learn will flow from you, to the families you work with, to the loved ones they are desperate to help. Families, clinicians, and those struggling can all take these ideas and methods and put them to use with practice, patience, and self-compassion.
- Gain a better understanding of the four components of The Invitation to Change Approach: Helping with Understanding, Helping with Awareness, Helping with Action, and Practice.
- Understand on a theoretical and practical basis ideas concerning reinforcement, communication, awareness and self-compassion as part of a helping model
- Have a better understanding of the evidence-based protocols supporting the Invitation to Change Approach
- Learn the strategies and skills that family members can implement when assisting a loved one with a substance use problem
Gain a better understanding of the application of these skills and strategies either at home or in clinical and peer-to-peer support settings
Get Certified in the Invitation to Change
Certificate of Completion
Those who attend the full 3-day training will receive a Certificate of Completion to signify their understanding of ITC principles and practices—an important first step in integrating the ITC into your helping work.
In order to receive a Certificate of Completion, you must attend the full workshop.
This program is Approved by the National Association of Social Workers (Approval #886779708-1078) for 14 continuing education contact hours.
NASW CE Approvals by State: View Here
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CMC:Foundation for Change is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s (NYSED) State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Social Workers #SW-0581.
This program is approved for 14 continuing education contact hours.
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CMC:Foundation for Change is approved by NAADAC to provide 14 Credit Hours. Provider approval number 272939.
NAADAC CE Approvals by State: View Here
Full refunds are available up to 72 hours before the training. Please reach out to [email protected] with any questions.
Trainers
Jarell R.O. Myers, PhD is a clinical psychologist, licensed in both New York and Massachusetts, with training in cognitive-behavioral and dialectical behavioral approaches to treatment. He earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University and completed an APA-accredited internship at Mt. Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital on the child and adolescent track. In addition, Dr. Myers completed a two year postdoctoral fellowship in child and adolescent psychology at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center in White Plains, New York where the focus was on treatment for anxiety. He used that experience at McLean Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he worked with children and adolescents diagnosed with Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders in an intensive outpatient clinic. Dr. Myers has expertise in working with adolescents and young adults with comorbid anxiety and substance use disorders and adopts a harm reduction approach when appropriate.
Dr. Nicole Kosanke is a licensed clinical psychologist and the Director of Family Services at CMC:NYC, where she specializes in the assessment and treatment of substance use disorders in individuals and families. Dr. Kosanke works in the research and clinical practice of treating substance use disorders and utilizes the principles of CRAFT, MI, and CBT in different therapeutic modalities and resources.
She co-authored the award-winning book, Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change, and also contributed to The 20 Minute Guide. Dr. Kosanke was also featured in an O, The Oprah Magazine article about her client’s experience in treatment at CMC, which was later published in O’s Big Book of Happiness: The Best of O. She is a member of Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and American Academy of Addiction Psychiatrists.