Videos

Staff pay an emotional price for doing the work that they do. There is now over two decades of research proving that working in high stress, trauma-exposed professions carries elements of risk to the staff.  Using the most recent research in the field, this interactive, evidence-based and trauma-informed presentation will explore assumptions about compassion fatigue, secondary trauma and burnout, the personal barriers that professionals face in their daily lives and offer new creative approaches, resources and hands-on tools for maintaining healthy and resilient staff.

Self-Care is NOT Selfish_Handouts and Resources

Students who experience trauma are at increased risk for poor outcomes. By understanding the core features of youth who experience trauma, school-based professionals can better identify the core features of trauma and understand the important aspect of intervention that will facilitate interventions to increase student success. Practical strategies will be discussed.

This session will explore why experts are important. Discussion will include identifying when an expert is needed, what type of expert is important and why, what questions to ask and not ask the expert, and what questions to ask the defense expert. In addition, the session will review new trends with expert witnesses in both prosecution and defense. What to do when they attack the forensic interview with their own expert. Specific case example(s) will be discussed.

Self-Care is NOT Selfish_Handouts and Resources

Understanding and identifying the differences between normal sexual development and sexualized behavior problems in children can sometimes be a difficult task. This workshop will utilize a “Continuum of Touch” to help define the differences between normal sexual development behaviors and sexual acting out behaviors as well as why some children act out sexually. Assessment and treatment considerations for children who act out sexually will also be discussed.

This session will focus on understanding the evidence based approaches to perinatal addiction including opioid use disorder, stimulant use disorder, alcohol use disorder and co-existing mental and physical health conditions. This session is designed to engage a multi-disciplinary audience (medical professionals, legal professional, social worker, child protective services case workers) to understand how to best maximize maternal and child health and well-being. A portion of the program will be didactic and then a case will be presented to allow for professionals to engage with each other in a case of perinatal addiction. This session will focus on practical lessons including understanding pharmacotherapy for opioid use disorder, treatment for other substance use disorders and biological test (urine toxicology screens).

Dr. Tanner will provide tools to improve your interview skills. Learn how to tell when someone is editing something out of a verbal or written statement. This session will cover the basics of Discourse Analysis, a lexical and syntactical approach to analyzing statements. Using clear examples, Dr. Tanner will explain how a respondent’s shifts in words and grammar can point interviewers to “hot spots” in a statement that need to be probed. You will never listen to a conversation or interview the same way again if you attend this session.

Deception Detection SD 2018 handouts

Upon completion of this event, the learner will be able to do the following:

1. Identify the components of systems of care that should be in place to assist a survivor and his or her family.
2. List the skills required to be an effective social worker in child abuse cases.
3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a systemic approach to child abuse.
4. Identify resources is the community that can be marshalled to assist child abuse survivors and their families.

This break out session will cover the online activities of children and teens which put them at risk for extortion, sexual solicitation, cyberbullying, data breaches, and other forms of exploitation. Resources will be given so attendees will be able to know how to respond to these situations, how to talk to youth about the risks, and how to develop safety plans to keep kids safer in their online worlds.

There is growing recognition that children, adolescents, and adults with development/intellectual disabilities are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation.  They are vulnerable because they are often dependent on caregivers their whole life, are relatively powerless in society, are easily coerced, may be emotionally and socially insecure and needy, and usually are not educated about sexuality and sexual abuse.  Also, they may not easily be able to tell someone else what happened, or be believed even when they tell, or be able to resist and/or escape from attempted assaults.  Vulnerability means that the individual may be perceived as an “easy target” for abuse.

At a moment of reckoning in the United States about sexual harassment and sexual assault, a just published yearlong NPR investigation (January 8, 2018) finds that there is little recognition of a group of Americans that is one of the most at risk: people with intellectual disabilities.

These statistics show that persons with developmental disabilities are subject to sexual abuse at much higher rates than others.  The challenge for family members and professionals is to not only protect persons who are developmentally challenged from sexual abuse but to facilitate their disclosures should it occur, to respect their right to developmentally appropriate knowledge about sexuality and sexual abuse, and to allow for the fulfillment of their sexuality.  Professionals, family members, protective services, and other care givers need to join together to meet this challenge.  This workshop, directed to professional care givers and service providers, will explore factors that inhibit sexual abuse disclosures and develop strategies to address disclosure failures.

Sex offenders generally groom their victims and the ,victims’ environment.  This session is based on more than 40 years working with sex offenders. In this session we examine and explain the process offenders use to groom both the environment (including law enforcement) and potential victims.  The session will cover the goals of grooming both children and adults and show participants the step by step process used by offenders. Anyone working sex abuse crimes or exploitation of children crimes will find this session improves investigation, forensic approaches, and prosecution of sex offenders.

Jim Tanner_Grooming

How Sex Offenders Groom-Handouts

There is growing recognition that vulnerable adults who are cognitively and/or verbally impaired are particularly susceptible to abuse (including sexual abuse), neglect, and exploitation.  The challenge for professionals is to protect persons who are cognitively and/or verbally impaired from these various forms of abuse, neglect, and exploitation, to effectively document the abuse incidents when they occur, to provide appropriate risk reduction (safety) strategies, to respect their right to developmentally appropriate knowledge about sexuality and sexual abuse, and to allow for the fulfillment of their sexuality.  Professionals involved in protective services, care giving, education, research and clinical efforts need to join together to meet this challenge.  While this workshop will focus on developing basic investigative interviewing and case documentation skills for vulnerable adults (cognitively and/or verbally impaired) who are abused/neglected/abandoned/self-neglected, emphasis will be placed on investigations of sexual abuse allegations.

With an emphasis on identification, investigation, assessment (risk), case documentation, and initial intervention, this training is directed toward sexual abuse of cognitively and/or verbally impaired persons in need of protective services.  More specifically, the training will address the topics of direct and indirect indicators of sexual abuse, techniques of obtaining information, elements of credibility, building (substantiating) a case, individual interviewing, sexual assault-risk assessment procedures, case documentation, initial case management, monitoring, ethical implications/self-determination issues, cultural considerations, and selected problems of cognitively and/or verbally impaired persons (i.e., persons with developmental disabilities, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, brain injuries, and other verbal impairments).

In recent years, those who work with survivors of violence have become increasingly aware of the connection between trauma and violence. However, survivors who turn to the legal system for protection from their abuser, custody of their children, and assistance with other civil legal needs encounter significant barriers to achieving their legal objectives. This is in large part because the processes in which a survivor must engage to achieve legal objectives can trigger the effects of trauma, making it difficult for a survivor to fully participate in her case. In addition, the opposing party often uses the survivor’s mental health to damage her credibility and/or raising doubt about her parenting abilities.

This interactive workshop will examine how advocates and lawyers can better understand the complex needs of survivors who have experienced trauma and/or have mental health concerns. Presenter will explore the signs of trauma, what they mean and how survivor’s in the legal system can be re-victimized by the process. Participants will consider strategies for more effective practice.

Understanding DID

Trauma and Dissociation Court Handout 8.19

Trauma Related Conditions and Symptoms

Vicki will provide an overview of Child Protection Services (CPS) and address questions from the audience. Vicki will explain how to report to CPS , performing initial family assessments, and ensuring child safety.  She will also describe ongoing services for the child and family.

Understanding of the role of Child Protection Services

1.       Child Maltreatment and neglect

2.       Reporting to Child Protection Services

3.       Initial Family Assessments and child safety

4.       Ongoing services and permanency

In this workshop Olga will combine her lived experience of violence with the science of trauma and violence on the brain to help participants explore how they may enhance their trauma-informed responses.This is interactive session that will examine the struggles criminal justice professionals face in handling domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse cases and explore efforts that can be undertaken to improve their ability to investigate these cases and assess credibility.  This will be a blend of question and answer and case study.

Understanding DID

Trauma and Dissociation Court Handout 8.19

Trauma Related Conditions and Symptoms

The presentation will integrate trauma-informed practices using a case based learning approach for the both the BSW and MSW practitioner.

Specific learning objectives:

1. Participants will increase their understanding and knowledge of trauma informed practice skills and be able to identify the principals of The 12 Core Concepts for Understanding Traumatic Stress Responses in Children and Families (NCTSN).

2. Participants will be able to identify traumatic experiences of children and families at the BSW and MSW levels of practice

3. Participants will gain awareness of competent and trauma informed clinical case assessments at the BSW and MSW levels of practice

4. Participants will gain awareness about the culture of Native American and African American children and families and traumatic experiences

5. Participants will apply trauma-informed practice assessments and interventions to case study examples.

Children living in dangerous drug environments are at high risk for abuse and neglect.  Dr. Nancy Free will provide guidance to medical providers on how to identify and respond to the needs of the drug endangered child.  Dr. Free will define drug endangerment and risk factors as well as the spectrum of drug endangerment.

Building a community approach to treatment for our youth is essential for their healing and survival. This session explores using community centered treatment that involves the family and individual cognitive behavioral therapy to help children experienced problematic sexual behaviors. Ms. Routzen will focus on advocacy that strengthens community-based programing and providing assistance to youth in order to reduce recidivism rates for offending children and assisting the children in getting the help they need to lead productive lives.  Ms. Routzen will speak bluntly about sexual behaviors and how we can build appropriate response systems to help our youth. The presentation will also focus on culturally appropriate methods to change the way communities respond to sexual violence. Participants will discuss policy areas where South Dakota can improve on local, state and federal responses to sexual violence, all while providing culturally relevant programing.

This course provides treatment and supervising agency staff with practical information concerning how to detect illicit use of technology by sex offenders.  The course covers the eight primary methods of accessing adult material and provides links to tools and techniques to examine the offender’s computer to determine illicit usage. This course is designed for and offered to criminal justice and treatment professionals only. The course is intended for individuals conducting routine investigations that they expect to result in a maximum of technical violations on treatment contract defaults only.

Protecting SD 2018 handouts

The relationship between trauma, attachment, and inappropriate behavior is a complex construct that can be difficult to understand.  This session will focus on the importance of understanding the effects that trauma can have on attachment and inappropriate behavior and more importantly, how professionals can help intervene with students struggling with inappropriate behaviors due to trauma and attachment issues.  Practical strategies will be discussed.