To register for any of our seminars, workshops or programs, click on the "sign me up" link to access the registration form. Fill out the details and hit the send button. If you do not get an email response within 24 hours, please contact us by calling 210-616-0885, ext. 0.
The Ecumenical Center is able to provide these workshops through underwriting received from Methodist Healthcare Ministries.
Life 4.0: Connecting with Technology and the Psychology of New Media; Connecting with Kids: How new media is shaping young people.
Thursday, September 30
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health
8310 Ewing Halsell Drive
Guest Speaker: Jim Taylor, Ph.D.
Cost: Free, includes lunch
CEUs: $60 in advance/$65 at the door. This program offers up to 6 continuing education units. The Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health is an approved provider of continuing education by the State of Texas for the following: LPC, LMFT, LSW, LCDC, LCSW, LMSW.
To maximize the impact of working with young people, it is critical to become well versed in new technologies, such as smartphones, texting and social networking sites, and understand how they impacts all aspects of life: neurology, attention, learning and social, to name a few. Attendees will gain a new appreciation for the powerful influence of technology, a deep understanding of how it affects young people, a broad base of knowledge about the latest technologies and how they are being used and tools that can be used in meeting the needs of young people.
Neurodevelopment and Methods of Assessment and Treatment
Thursday, October 28 - 29, 2010
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health
8310 Ewing Halsell Drive
Cost: Free, includes lunch
CEUs: $60 in advance/$65 at the door. This program offers up to 6 continuing education units. The Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health is an approved provider of continuing education by the State of Texas for the following: LPC, LMFT, LSW, LCDC, LCSW, LMSW.
Guest Speaker: Rick Gaskill, Ed.D., Director of Sumner Mental Health in Wellington, Kansas, has worked in community mental health for 35 years. He is a Licensed Clinical Psychotherapist, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor, an Infant Mental Health Clinical Mentor, and teaches play therapy at Wichita State University. In 2004 Dr. Gaskill, was named a Fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, in 2005 he was Head Start Partner of the Year in Kansas, and in 2006 he was awarded the Regional Administrator’s Leadership Award for ACF Region VI of the Department of Health and Human Services. He has served on numerous local boards and committees regarding mental health services to children.
Most professionals working with children have struggled from time-to-time with concerns about proper diagnoses, understanding of symptom dynamics, and appropriate treatments. Additionally, mental health professionals are perplexed by symptom resistance to otherwise successful treatment modalities. These issues are being increasingly understood and explained by the evolving neuroscience of the human brain. We now know, for instance, that the human brain develops in a predictable and hierarchical fashion creating developmental periods of vulnerability in various brain regions during development. For this reason, trauma contributes to explicit disregulation or disorganization in specific brain regions during specific periods of development. We also know that brain regions formerly believed to be unresponsive to environmental learning are in fact use-dependent on environmental experience. Finally, neuroscience informs us that diverse regions of the brain are not equally responsive to historically common methods of therapeutic interventions. This understanding of the neurobiology of trauma is suggesting specific treatments to specific neuro-dysfunction or disorganization.
A thorough understanding of the neurological basis of trauma, coupled with particular assessment skills can be used to determine likely regions of neurological disorganization or dysfunctions. Drawing from interviewing, developmental surveys and history, and developmental trauma history, professionals are designing intervention strategies to treat and support children.
Play, play therapy, and activity therapy techniques offer an exceptional historical skill set which can be easily adapted to the emergent neurobiological understanding of trauma. While no single play therapy modality or techniques is suited for all neurological levels of trauma, various play therapy modalities are affective for various neurological levels of trauma. Many techniques also avail themselves to simple modifications that increase their effectiveness across several brain regions.
Specific Learning Objectives
- Understand the neurological basis of trauma
- Enhance neurodevelopmental assessment skills
- Use specific play therapy skills to develop a neurobiological sound treatment strategy
MORE INFORMATION TO FOLLOW SOON
Conversations About Ethics - Stem Cell Research
Monday, November 15, 2010
5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Health Science Center Campus
Room - TBA
Cost: Free
Guest Speaker: Christopher Thomas Scott is the director of the Stanford University Program on Stem Cells in Society, a faculty member and senior research scholar at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, a Brocher Institute Fellow and an associate fellow at King’s College, London and the University of Sheffield.
His research focuses on the social, economic, political, and ethical dimensions of regenerative medicine. He has authored over 70 publications, and his book, Stem Cell Now (2007) has been translated into five languages. Mr. Scott was the former Assistant Vice Chancellor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and held several senior positions at Stanford. He was a co-founder of Acumen Sciences, and a founding editor of the award-winning Acumen Journal of Sciences. He is regularly featured in national and international media coverage of bioethics and stem cell research.
MORE INFORMATION TO FOLLOW SOON
Building Bridges for Those With Autism, Aspergers and other Special Needs
Thursday, November 18, 2010
9:00 a.m.- 4:30 p.m.
Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health
8310 Ewing Halsell Drive
Guest Speaker:Diane Murrell, LMSW
Cost: Free, includes lunch
CEUs: $60 in advance/$65 at the door. This program offers up to 6 continuing education units. The Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health is an approved provider of continuing education by the State of Texas for the following: LPC, LMFT, LSW, LCDC, LCSW, LMSW.
Guest Speaker: Diane V. Murrell, LMSW, brings a new perspective on how we, as a community, can engage and effect positive change in the lives of people who are on the Autistic Spectrum. Diane is a researcher and social worker for the pediatric neurology clinic at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas. She provides psychosocial intervention and therapy with the first focus on the emotional, mental and behavioral well-being of patients and their families. Her secondary focus is on the development of strong inter-connectedness and support systems within familial and community environments including access to essential resources. Her most recent psychosocial intervention is creating the first Power Soccer league for power wheelchair dependent youth in the Houston area. Her presentation brings together her life work, research and passion for "inclusion" for all people.
Autism is a media-saturated subject, yet solutions for the core deficit (that defines autism in the psychosocial context) of acceptance, connection and community has not been explored by the professional field. Health care professionals and others have to develop ways to "broker" acceptance. The success of pro-active "brokering" should be evidenced by acceptance into community life. In this presentation, Diane offers an opportunity to understand and explore how to make a difference.
Participants will gain an experiential understanding of the condition of autism or the "gestalt of autism" and will leave with an awareness of how the experience of the individual (the micro) can be a barometer to inform us about the health of the community (the macro).
Specific Learning Objectives:
- Experientially understand the difficulties inherent to those with an autistic spectrum disorder.
- State three examples why a mother with a child with autistic spectrum disorder faces the threat of an emotional disconnect and social isolation.
- Generalize the possible psychosocial implications for other groups who encounter community abandonment.
- Identify three readily achievable activities to build bridges within a unique community.
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MORE INFORMATION TO FOLLOW SOON
The Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health is an approved provider of continuing education by the State of Texas for the following: LPC, LMFT, LSW, LCSW, LMSW, and LCDC.
If you desire to make a suggestion regarding what topics you would like to have included in our 2010 Workshop Series, Click Here.