This past Thursday, I heard the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA, talking about the unprecedented challenges that contemporary parents are facing. As he talked, I thought maybe he had stolen some of the ideas from the slides I’ll be using (and have used before) for my day-long Zoom-based parenting consultation workshop. Of course, I’m joking. I really don’t think Dr. Vice Admiral Murthy has been surreptitiously peeking at my ppt slides (or has he?).

His comments were insightful and inspiring (and that’s not ONLY because he was copying me). He  inspired me to decide to offer our upcoming workshop as a spontaneous “pop-up” free opportunity for interested professionals.

The workshop will be: Wednesday, September 4, from 9am to 4pm (Mountain time) via Zoom

Here’s the workshop description and learning objectives:

Using a Consultation Model to Work Effectively with Parents

John Sommers-Flanagan, Ph.D.

Parenting has always been challenging, but now, with ubiquitous social media influences, the aftermath of the global pandemic, and increasing rates of children’s mental disorder diagnoses, parenting in the 21^st century is more stressful and demanding than ever before. As a consequence, many parents turn to mental health, healthcare, and school professionals for help with their children’s behavior and family problems. However, partly because parents can be selective or picky consumers and partly because children’s problems can be complex and overwhelming, many professionals feel ill-prepared to work effectively with parents. This workshop will teach participants a model for working effectively with parents. The model, which has supporting research, can be used for brief individual consultations or longer-term parent counseling. Practitioners who want to work with parents will learn methods for developing rapport, collaborating on problem formulation, initial interventions, and optional follow-up strategies.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe a consultation model, with supporting research, for working effectively with parents.
• Apply skills for brief individual consultations or longer-term parent counseling.
• Utilize methods for rapport, collaborative problem formulation, initial interventions, and optional follow-up strategies.

Presenter Bio:

John Sommers-Flanagan is a professor of counseling at the University of Montana, a clinical psychologist, and author or coauthor of over 100 publications, including nine books and numerous professional training videos. His books, co-written with his wife Rita, include Tough Kids, Cool Counseling, How to Listen so Parents will Talk and Talk so Parents will Listen, Clinical Interviewing, the forthcoming Suicide Assessment and Treatment Planning: A Strengths-Based Approach, and more. John is a sought out keynote speaker and professional workshop trainer in the areas of (a) counseling youth, (b) working with parents, (c) suicide assessment, and (d) happiness. He has published many newspaper columns, Op-Ed pieces, and an article in Slate Magazine. He is also co-host of the Practically Perfect Parenting Podcast and is renowned for his dancing skills (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fippweztcwg) and his performance as Dwight, in the University of Montana Counseling Department’s parody of The Office (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM8-I8_1CqQ&t=19s).

I realize this is terribly late notice. It’s so late that I’m not sure if we can offer official CEUs for attendance (although we can provide certificates of attendance). If you’re interested, here’s all you need to do:

1. Register at this link (it might take you one minute): https://forms.office.com/r/kY0zCZ3ELg
2. Commit to attending the whole workshop (I think having people pop in and out would be disruptive)
3. Join the workshop on Wednesday, September 4, from 9am to 4pm (Mountain time) with this Zoom link: https://umontana.zoom.us/j/3667738452
4. If you find the workshop useful, make a donation to Families First in an amount that represents the value of the workshop to you. Here’s the link for that: https://donorbox.org/familiesfirstdonate
5. Do what you can—in the future—to support parents as they face unusually difficult challenges.

Here’s an article about the approach: