Beeley Keynote Workshop
| The 45th Arthur L. Beeley Keynote Workshop* Working with Children and Their Families at Risk: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy SW 860-001 (non-credit) June 7 - 8, 2007 8:00 am - 5:00 pm 15 NASW/UPA Endorsed Continuing Education Units Location: Social and Behavioral Science building, Room 110 |
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We face increasingly complex situations that challenge our skills, compassion, sense of mission, and belief that what we do can make a difference. "Multi-problem" families, substance abuse, and repeated crises require varied and creative responses. The reality of shrinking resources and changing views of helping relationships demand the most innovative, cost-effective, and client-driven solutions.
This training session will present practical, useful tools and techniques that participants can apply immediately. Based on the Solution-Building model, this training will challenge common ways of viewing helping relationships. Handout materials, DVD examples, skill building exercises, and lectures will facilitate a shift in the way participants conceptualize the best practice that results in true empowerment of parents and their children.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
• Describe philosophical differences between problem-solving and solution-building practice
• Identify collaborative activities that quickly and effectively engage, even with "difficult" clients
• Help generate client ideas of solutions through various tools
• Utilize existing skills of a client to empower children and their parents
Topics to be covered include:
• Effective use of language as the primary tool
• Ways to form cooperative working relationships with clients quickly
• Asking six useful questions that are key to successful outcomes
• Non-negotiable goals and demands
• Helping clients to assess their own safety issues
• Enhancing client motivations to create the positive changes he/she wants
• Management of setbacks and relapses
• Making the most of the follow-up sessions
• Family violence, substance abuses, and management of crises
Peter De Jong, PhD, ACSW, is a professor of social work at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and adjunct at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee where Solution-Focused Therapy was developed. Dr. De Jong has been an outpatient therapist, case worker, and trainer, presenting workshops with practitioners working in mental health clinics, family services, juvenile corrections, and schools. He has conducted outcome research on the solution-focused model and written a strengths-based, solution-focused training program for the Department of Human Services (DHS) of Michigan that is used throughout the state. He and the late Insoo Kim Berg are the co-authors of many journal articles and the book Interviewing for Solutions, soon to appear in a third edition. Dr. De Jong continues to consult with DHS of Michigan and other agencies to develop new practice tools, revise practice manuals, case documentation innovations, and new training activities that are strengths-based and solution-focused. He also continues to conduct research on practice and training outcomes.
*About the 45th Annual Arthur L. Beeley Workshop: Arthur L. Beeley, an English immigrant who taught sociology and anthropology at the University of Utah, was keenly aware of the great toll the Depression of the early 1930’s was taking on individuals, families and communities. With it came an onslaught of social problems, ranging from unemployment, hunger and poverty to despair, disillusionment and confusion. These were bewildering times for Americans, forcing them to change their whole way of living and created painful personal memories. In coping with a collapse of terrifying proportions and duration, millions of Americans needed services. Dr. Beeley understood what the Depression was doing to the country and he yearned to find solutions to the widespread problems it created. Understanding that Roosevelt ’s New Deal was altering the economy and the social structure of the nation, Dr. Beeley knew that such changes would require a greatly expanded force of trained professionals to become effective, constructive agents of social change. He turned to the University of Utah to create a school which would train such a work force. In May 1937, the University Administration announced the creation of the Graduate School of Social Work with the full approval of the University Board of Regents, making it one of only 10 social work schools in the nation supported by a state University. The school was officially recognized in May 1938 by the American Association of Social Workers (AASW). In early 1940, the school was officially accredited by the American Association of Schools of Social Work (AASSW), making it the only accredited school in the Rocky Mountain region.
Arthur L. Beeley (August 28, 1890 - September 23, 1973) served as Dean of the Graduate School of Social Work from 1937 to 1957. In 1961, the College established the annual Arthur L. Beeley Lectures in Social Work, which bring noted experts to campus to address issues of topical concern.
(Dickson, Mary (Ed.). (1987). Celebration: 50 years of social work education, Salt Lake City , Utah : Publishers Press.)