This is an announcement that Quality Improvement of Solano County Health and Social Services (Provider #57883) is offering Redefining Psychosis in two parts – 9:00 am – 12:15 pm on Thursdays, May 14 and 21, 2020.   For details regarding registration, please see attached Registration Form.

This is a 2-part training.  It is recommended that participants attend both days, but it is not required.

This workshop is intended for all levels of trainees. Parts of it are introductory and parts are advanced. It is intended to inspire clinicians to bravely address the issues that are experienced in a psychotic break or what becomes redefined as a special message crisis.

Maximum attendance for this training is 50 participants.

Course Title:      Redefining Psychosis

Date:                    Part 1 – Thursday, May 14, 2020

                              Part 2 – Thursday, May 21, 2020

Time:                   Each session is from 9:00 am – 12:15 pm

Location:             Zoom – Information on accessing the trainings will be sent out closer to the training dates

 Educational Objectives:

Historically, clinicians are trained to avoid engaging with people when they are in an emergency state for fear of escalating symptoms. This workshop is intended to provide a roadmap to the rabbit hole. In other words, it redefines what is happening during a person’s journey through madness in a structured way that justifies intervention and highlights solutions. This can help a clinician feel confident that listening and intervening has value and can be necessary to form an alliance that can help. Interventions and solution strategies that get suggested can be used at any stage of a person’s recovery to explore what is happening or what has been experienced. Often clinicians struggle to know what is and isn’t helpful. This presentation will give attendees not only a better sense of what is helpful, but also hosts of strategies to consider using.

This course is being presented by Timothy C Dreby, M.Ed., LMFT.

Tim states:  “I have been running professional survivor-led psychosis focus groups for the past twelve years in a public Intensive Outpatient Program at Highland Hospital in Oakland CA. I have a Masters of Education from Temple University obtained in 1998 and a MFT License obtained in 2008. I also survived a mid-career “schizophrenia” diagnosis that involved a three-month hospitalization in Montana State Hospital and a two-year emergency state about which I wrote an award-winning memoir. In 2013, I authored an Alameda County Innovations Grant and started to make public presentations with a small band of people with lived experience I trained and hired to promote this methodology. Since the close of this program I have been presenting and developing this material in local venues and through collaborations with the Bay Area Hearing Voices Network. This has involved annual presentations at the California Association of Social Rehabilitation Conference and other local venues.”

Please submit the attached Registration Form via QI fax at (707) 427-2774 or email at QualityImprovement@SolanoCounty.com no later than May 12, 2020.  County employees must receive supervisory approval.

If you register and are later unable to make the training, please cancel at least 24 hours ahead.

Each of the courses meets the qualifications for 3 hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, and/or LPCCs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. Solano County Health and Social Services (Provider #57883) is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, and/or LPCCs. Solano County Health and Social Services maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content.

Participants must attend the fully scheduled time to receive CEUs – partial credit will not be awarded.  Participants will not earn CE credit if more than 5 minutes late to the training, take excessive breaks, or leave early.

Certificates of Completion will be sent to participants within 3 weeks of participation once attendance is verified.

Professional credit is at no cost to the participant. The course includes course materials and learning activities to all participants.

If any special accommodations are needed, please contact Quality Improvement at least 3 days prior to the date of the training.  Quality Improvement can be contacted at (707) 784-8323 or at QualityImprovement@SolanoCounty.com.

If you would like to make a complaint following this training, please contact Quality Improvement at (707) 784-8323 or at QualityImprovement@SolanoCounty.com.

Thank you!

Quality Improvement

Behavioral Health Division

Solano County Health and Social Services

Phone:  (707) 784-8323

Fax:        (707) 427-2774

Nonproprietary

Redefining Psychosis Registration Form May 2020 Zoom

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In the month of October, there have been some exciting developments in the local efforts to make hearing voices groups available to the public. HVN-USA is coming out to San Francisco to provide a three-day training for twenty-five individuals, including several people who have been attending groups in East Oakland where I provide a free group to the public.

I am hoping to create a second training for the licensed professional who we would have to have pay to obtain CEU Credits. This would be hosted by PEERS and train an additional ten peers who could then mix with professional and offer groups at local agencies. This would help us recreate the services we provided in the special messages project throughout the county. The vision of having groups with a professional and a person with lived experience within the system to transition people into HVN Groups is alive and well.

In October, I provided a two-hour training at La Chiem Outpatient Program in Oakland and got an invite back in December to complete the training. This spurred me to spend a weekend or two improving my presentation so that I could present it for a six-hour CEU class for providers. I am now hoping to not only take the HVN training but to learn how my training which reconstructs a new definition of psychosis may compliment it.

Getting more people trained and working on outreach at PEERS may give me a chance to use my work to provide ongoing training to help peers in their outreach efforts.

In the meantime, I have been able to initiate peer services at my job at Highland Hospital and will be hosting two peer interns to see if more people with lived experience can complement and improve our services. I have been working on preparing to host these interns and in the process of hiring them. This also has been a dream of mine

I also have paid to pretty-up my blog and fixed a bug in a plugin and now can officially sell books from my website. Thus, I am going to slash the price of my memoir to twelve dollars in case any of my followers want to purchase new second edition copies.

SALE PRICE: $11.00

In the midst of this I have published two blog posts this month that may be worth checking out:

Demystifying Complex Trauma for Therapists

I Wash My Hands in the Muddy Waters of the Mental Health System

The post Advancing “Psychosis” Treatment Locally appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

As the summer wanes, there is still that sense of loss. The traffic in and out of work always thickens, the days shorten, and we in California must start to pray for rain. Last weekend my dog turned two and she and I are readying ourselves for our weekly hike.

Last weekend I flew back East to attend my sister’s wedding, a joyful occasion. The trip worked out better than I anticipated. I was able to support my mother who is having some health problems.

I have been in touch with Asylum magazine in London and may have at last secured a publication, one of my new posts to check out this month.

Additionally, Fighting for Freedom in America has been recognized in the annual 2018 Top Shelf Magazine award program as a finalist. It is good to get some positive feedback and to still be in the running for a first-place award.

I have made two presentations this month: one at Gladman Hospital and one at Best Now, the local peer counsellor training program. Both went over well. I am currently trying to inquire about setting up training that mixes peer counsellors and professionals. I want to provide CEU training for professionals and encourage professionals to invite peers as co-facilitators in their agencies to proliferate group and enhance therapy work locally. I hope to collaborate with the county to offer CEU credits and offer the training at PEERS in East Oakland. Proliferating therapy groups locally that focus on providing treatment for psychosis has been a long-term goal of mine. Getting people trained will also enable me to focus my efforts on training and advance my special message material. So, I remain hopeful.

This month I have published:

Beneath the Suds and Psychiatric Labels

And

Identifying the Trickster Phenomena During A Message Crisis or “Psychosis:”

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