Professional Training

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING FOR TREATING ADOPTIVE FAMILIES

In 2012 Denise will begin providing training to professionals seeking to gain advanced techniques to treat adoptive families.  Training content is based on the A.T.T.A.C.H.E.D. Family Treatment Model™ Denise has developed over the past decade. 

Training will be provided in the following formats:

Check back again as the 2012 'Schedule of Events' page will be continually updated Nov 2011.

Denise L. Best, M.A. is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Iowa and a Registered Clinician with ATTACh [Association for the Treatment & Training in the Attachment of Children] an international organization that requires extensive training and peer review for registration.  Denise has worked with foster and adopted children and families for over 15 years.  She has 455 hours of training in attachment, trauma and adoption-related issues.   After attending extensive training and researching many different treatment modalities, as well as learning from the best teachers available – the hurting children, she developed a unique treatment protocol for treating adoptive families titled A.T.T.A.C.H.E.D. Family Treatment Model. ™   Denise has also authored the most intervention-packed parenting manual titled Therapeutic Parenting for Traumatized Children © which has now been sold in five countries.

Denise is an internationally recognized educator in the field of attachment, trauma and Therapeutic Parenting, and serves on the Board of Directors for the Attachment & Trauma Network.       

This an advanced and comprehensive training program for Therapists, Social Workers, Psychologists, and Mental Health providers who treat, or wish to treat families whose adoptive children have Reactive Attachment Disorder symptoms or diagnosis. Effective treatment requires much more than basic attachment treatment. Children who experienced abuse and/or neglect in the critical developmental period of birth to two years of age often have neurological damage, developmental delays of 4 years, complex trauma, an inability to regulate emotions, and sensory, processing and grief/loss issues.  There is a critical shortage of adequately trained clinicians to treat adoptive families struggling to bond with children who cannot attach. In this program clinicians will learn how to make sense of and appropriately respond to the complex behaviors of developmentally traumatized children.  Clinicians must be able to utilize and provide parents with alternatives to coercive and punitive techniques.  Punitive techniques are not only ineffective, but harmful to children with histories of neglect and trauma.  Effective therapy must include trauma-informed treatment and developmentally-targeted modalities. In addition, Therapeutic Parenting must be utilized for healing to occur.  Clinicians will learn how to assess, diagnose, and effectively treat these struggling families.  This will include treatment issues with adoptive parents who often experience vicarious trauma from parenting traumatized children.  This class (78% of which is training on interventions & techniques) will prepare Clinicians to provide competent and effective treatment for every member of adoptive families.  
 

Note: Payment via Paypal will be listed on your receipt under the account name
"Therapeutic Parenting & Consultation Services"

To learn about other training opportunities please click on the title of the organization to visit the website for upcoming conferences and events.

Will begin offering a webinar-based training series for professionals and parents in January, 2012.  This is possible due to a grant from Pepsi and the hard work of the ATN volunteer-run non-profit organization.