Helping Staff Be At Their Best When Kids Are At Their Worst |
Challenging Children & Youth.
After years of problems in school and home, many at-risk children and youth find themselves in unfamiliar settings, surrounded by unfriendly faces. Foster homes, group homes, emergency shelters, alternative schools, wilderness camps, treatment centers, juvenile detention centers, and adolescent hospitals. All flooded with angry, desperate youth struggling with emotional disturbance, conduct disorders and mental health issues.
Because of their harsh life experiences, troubled young people have often learned to be relationship-wary, to mistrust rather than trust adults. They have learned to reject the very people who try to help them, rather than risk being rejected themselves. Some withdraw into silence, depression and self-harm. Others explode into destructive rages and deliberate aggression.
Hardworking Line Staff
While adminstrators, social workers, counselors, and psychologists provide invaluable services, the majority of behavioral problems and emotional crises are faced by line staff. Teachers, classroom aides, direct care workers, residential counselors, foster parents, nurses, psych techs, support room specialists: these hardworking staff live in the gritty reality where the rubber meets the road.
Every day these staff are called upon to intervene in crises which may become dangerous if not handled properly, a place where intellectual theories alone are often worse than useless. Most adults want to help kids learn and grow, but become frustrated when nothing seems to work. As a result, they often turn to more and more severe consequences, which only serves to push these youth further and further away. |
Despite
our helpless frustration, we know that the answer to today's epidemic
of challenging youth is NOT harsher discipline or stronger punishments.
Yet neither is it a permissive, hands-off policy. Instead, the best answer is well-trained, caring staff who know how to build relationships and manage crises without escalating kids.
Staff struggling to manage difficult students deserve comprehensive training which adequately prepares them for the realities of working with today's troubled youth. We provide professional training in three related programs, delivered nationwide.
"Therapeutic Aggression Control Techniques" (TACT-2) is a thorough 3-day training program in verbal de-escalation and physical intervention for staff of residential and alternative school settings.
"Therapeutic Behavior Management" (TBM)
is a shorter 2-day training program in behavior management and crisis
prevention for educators in a variety of public and alternative school
settings.
"Life Space Crisis Intervention" (LSCI)
is an advanced training in crisis counseling techniques for both clinical and non-clinical staff who process problems with youth caught up in self-defeating patterns of behavior.
|
| TACT-2: Verbal and physical interventions |
 |
| Download Information Page |
|
Therapeutic Aggression Control Techniques (TACT-2) is a 3-day comprehensive staff training program. TACT-2 teaches front-line staff in residential and day treatment centers the verbal intervention and physical intervention skills needed to safely and therapeutically manage aggression.
No single explanation or intervention can possibly fit every situation. So TACT-2 teaches staff to first distinguish between two psychological sources of behavioral problems: deliberate, purposeful aggression on one hand, and true emotional crisis on the other. Next, TACT-2 offers practical skills needed to respond to problems with either firm behavioral correction or calming emotional counseling, depending on the source. Finally, TACT-2 teaches effective physical management techniques for safely handling dangerous situations with out-of-control kids.
Using clearly communicated concepts, thought-provoking exercises, and realistic examples, TACT-2 helps staff develop skills to manage behaviors while enhancing relationships with troubled children and youth.
|
| TBM: Classroom crisis prevention |
 |
| Download Information Page |
|
Therapeutic Behavior Management (TBM) is a comprehensive 2-day staff training program for educators of challenging youth in public and alternative school settings. TBM integrates concepts and skills which support the implementation of a school-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support model.
TBM begins by teaches educators to distinguish between emotional crises and deliberate misbehavior, then offers practical strategies for structuring learning environments which prevent these problems from occuring. The training goes on to fine tune the verbal intervention skills needed to manage both emotional crises and deliberate misbehavior in classrooms and hallway -- issues which may easily detract from a positive learning environment. (Optionally, TBM offers training in limited physical intervention techniques, for schools which must occasionally manage dangerous or out-of-control students.)
|
| LSCI: Crisis counseling skills |
 |
| Download Information Page |
|
Life Space Crisis Intervention (formerly known as Life Space Interviewing) is a competency-based training in crisis counseling skills used to help youth in emotional turmoil gain greater insight and develop new skills for handling their self-defeating problems. LSCI is based upon the seminal work of Drs. Fritz Redl and David Wineman, and has been
operationalized by Drs. Nicholas Long and Frank Fecser of the LSCI
Institute.
LSCI is based on the premise that the skilled staff who are already involved in students' daily lives are in the best position to help them learn from their daily problems. LSCI teaches these caring staff the counseling skills to offer deeply meaningful guidance when students need it most: in emotional crisis. LSCI provides staff with a mental roadmap to follow when talking with troubled, angry, and vulnerable children in the hours following a crisis, when they are most available to learning. It also offers staff greater insight into their own issues in crisis, helping them remain professional in challenging moments.
|
Three levels of LSCI training are available:
Foundation Skills (1 day for all staff) focuses on understanding the psychology of emotional disturbance and power struggles.
Basic LSCI Skills (2
days for classroom aides and teachers) begins with Foundation
Skills, then develops the counseling skills needed to talk with youth
about the two most common kinds of self-defeating problems.
Advanced LSCI Skills (5
days for special educators, administrators, and counseling staff)
builds on Foundation and Basic LSCI Skills, teaching the specific
diagnostic and reclaiming skills required to process with youth fall
into all six patterns.
|
Looking for a dynamic 1-day workshop to inspire and inform your staff? We have a variety of topics for residential staff, caseworkers, educators, clinicians and paraprofessionals. All workshops are engaging, practical and highly interactive, focused on insight and skills development.
Titles range from "Staying Professional When It Feels Personal" for line workers to "Managing Deliberate Misbehavior" for classroom staff. Clinicians and administrators will enjoy topics such as "Cognitive Behavioral Interventions" and "Supervising Challenging Staff." Visit the 1-day workshop page for more information. |
 |
| Download TACT-2 Order Form |
|
TACT-2 TRAINERS
TACT-2 Workbooks have been updated slightly for 2008-09. For more information, go to Trainers Only page. E-mail SBParese@aol.com for the password if needed.
Click on the image at right to download a TACT-2 Workbook Order Form. Simply complete it and fax to (336) 593-2299. Please order in multiples of 10 only, and allow 2 weeks for delivery if possible. Add 10% for shipping.
Workbook prices have NOT changed:
10 - 90 books: $7.50 each
100 - 240 books: $6.00 each
250 or more books: $5.00 each
|
A limited number of experienced, certified TACT-2 instructors have been approved as licensed TACT-2 trainers to deliver Basic TACT-2 training outside of their own agencies. Each of these individuals has demonstrated the highest level of knowledge, competence, and skill as practioner and trainer.
Basic staff training may be arranged with any of these individuals by contracting with them directly, or through Dr. Parese at (336) 593-3533. |
Lynn Elliot & Angela Tanner-Dean
A to Z Strategies
Upper Marlboro, MD
571-277-7140
lelliot@a2zstrategies.com
atanner-dean@a2zstrategies.com
TACT-2 Trainers since 1999
| Patrick Crawford
Crawford Consulting Services
Cheverly, MD
301-341-5111
plkcrawford@yahoo.com
TACT-2 Trainer since 2003
Willie Culbrest
I-Culbrest Consulting, LLC
Washington, DC
240-417-8446
WCulbrest@culbrestconsulting.com
TACT-2 Trainer since 2001
|
|
