The Best Kept EBT Secret:
How AF-CBT is Your Solution for Creating Safety for Families with Physical Abuse and Harsh Discipline

About this Training​

Child welfare workers and mental health clinicians often feel defeated by the generational cycle of violence and abuse. Caregivers raise their own children similarly to how they were parented. Though some recognize this isn’t helpful, they lack the emotion regulation, cognitive, and parenting skills to approach things differently. As a result, many children grow up in homes with high levels of conflict and violence. Child welfare workers and mental health clinicians feel limited in our ability to help families chart a safe course to reduce future abuse potential.

Not all treatments are created equally: AF-CBT provides the roadmap for a safe and hopeful future! AF-CBT has been shown to lead to better outcomes than routine community services for children, parents, and families, including less child-to-parent aggression, fewer externalizing behaviors in children, decreased child abuse potential, less psychological distress and drug use in parents, less overall family conflict and increased family cohesion (Wu, 2018). Unfortunately, very few communities across the country offer this treatment model.

Participants will examine their own beliefs using an experiential activity, discover ways to start an AF-CBT program, and leave equipped with resources to chart a new course for families in their community. A child physical abuse case study will be used to illustrate the impact of the model on the caregiver and the larger family unit so participants can come to understand what AF-CBT looks like in action. 
​

Program Agenda​

• Overview of AF-CBT: research base, theoretical models, and the three phases of treatment

• Which clients is AF-CBT designed for? Screening, rule-outs, and settings

• Introduction to the Pro-Con Decisional Balance, an experiential activity with clinicians' own perceptions about working with families with physical abuse and harsh discipline

• Case study illustrating caregiver work in AF-CBT for child physical abuse

• Takeaways for practice and Q&A

Learning Objectives​

At the conclusion of this training, participants will be able to:

​​

• Describe the three phases of AF-CBT treatment and identify which clients and families would benefit.

• Implement a Pro-Con Decisional Balance with their own clients.

• Evaluate the benefits of engaging caregivers who have used harsh discipline or have physically abused their children in family treatment.​

View Session Agenda, CE credit policy, and refund policy

Who should attend this training?
This training is appropriate for bachelor's level workers and administrators, master's level clinicians and clinical supervisors, and interns and students working on their master's degrees. Seasoned clinicians will find these skills strengthen their assessment and intervention work in AF-CBT and other evidence-based treatment models. Training is interactive, with opportunities to practice the skills.