An online workshop offering parenting support through an evidence-based trauma informed model has been made available to the public.

It is the second workshop in a 5-part series hosted by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) and the New York Foundling’s Vincent J. Fontana Center for Child Protection. All six workshops focus on positive parenting.

The one hour workshop, which is being hosted on Zoom, costs $20 (around £16) to join, but if you have any queries or questions or just want to ask if you might be able to attend free of charge, the contact for this event is Leslie, who can be emailed at Leslie.Schmerler@nyfoundling.org

The conference would be particularly beneficial to UK child welfare practitioners working with families.

We’re adding additional information found in the invitation below:

Workshop Description

This is the innovative, evidence-based, trauma-informed model Dr. Ross Greene describes in his influential books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found, and Raising Human Beings. The model represents a significant departure from discipline-as-usual: it focuses on solving problems rather than on modifying behaviour, emphasises collaborative rather than unilateral solutions, encourages proactive rather than reactive intervention, de-emphasises diagnostic categories, and provides practical, research-based tools for assessment and intervention.

Date & Time

April 26th, 2 pm to 3pm ET (7pm to 8pm UK time – we think)

Speaker Biography

Ross W. Greene, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and the originator of the innovative, evidence-based approach called Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS), as described in his influential books.

He also developed and executive produced the award-winning documentary film The Kids We Lose, released in 2018. Dr. Greene was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School for over 20 years, and is now founding director of the non-profit Lives in the Balance. He is also currently adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Tech and adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia.

Dr. Greene has worked with several thousand children with concerning behaviours and their caregivers, and he and his colleagues have overseen implementation and evaluation of the CPS model in countless schools, inpatient psychiatric units, and residential and juvenile detention facilities, with dramatic effect: significant reductions in recidivism, discipline referrals, detentions, suspensions, and use of restraint and seclusion.

We like how the acronym CPS has been turned on its head* – perhaps deliberately to shift the way social work professionals think about their role and what they are there to achieve for families.

*CPS in the UK refers to Child Protection Services, a term which has become filled with negative meaning, including the underlying notion that child welfare professionals are hostile and unwilling to collaborate with families. By contrast, Dr. Greene uses the acronym for Collaborative and Proactive Solutions, which has a far more positive and sophisticated tone.

Language matters.

Many thanks to the End Violence Global Partnership’s Professor Joan Durrant for sharing this workshop with Researching Reform.