Professional Workshops

Jerry has provided over 75 educational presentations to school social workers and other school personnel as well as other mental health professionals at the local, state and national level. In his retirement Jerry has continued to present but on a much more limited basis. His most recent presentation to school social workers was a three-hour workshop entitled "Helping students after a school shooting or student suicide". The following is a description of that presentation and its learning objectives:

Description:

  • In the immediate wake of a school shooting or student suicide administrators, teachers, students and parents expect that the school social worker will take an active role with acutely-stressed or grief-stricken students. Participants in this workshop will learn a way to effectively assist individuals as well as groups of such affected students by using the presenter’s twelve-phase trauma-informed intervention. This intervention incorporates a sequence of up to 80 specific and practicable tasks that are also often used in crisis intervention, psychological first aid, critical incidence stress debriefing and post trauma counseling.

Objectives:

  • To understand the specific role the school social worker should take to prepare for and provide immediate, orderly, and trauma-informed emotional care and support to students in the wake of a sudden death event.

  • To learn a sequence of trauma-informed actions that can effectively minimize the development of an undesirable resolution about the event; support the natural recovery processes; and establish the student’s ability to return to an educational-focus and be ready-to-learn in a timely manner.

  • Participants will also be able to share or discuss their own experiences with a death event and understand how the intervention model could have been used in their particular event.

Jerry also presented a modified version of the above to an NASW-sponsored audience that included school and community-based mental health professionals. The title of that workshop was: “Helping Clients/Students after a Workplace/School Shooting or Suicide”.

In the month of April, 2021 Jerry provided three (live) one-hour webinars for the Mental Health Training Series sponsored by the Florida Department of Education and School Social Work Association of America. The webinars were an overview (with some highlights) of the three-hour workshop he has often presented at state and national conferences for school social workers. The title of the webinar was: “The first 48 hours: A trauma-informed protocol for helping students cope with a student suicide”.

In addition to the above workshops Jerry has developed presentations on three other topics of special interest to school social workers at the high school level. One is about a school-wide program he developed to inform and engage students at the onset of high school. The title, description and learning objectives of this program presentation are shown below:

"A school-wide program to enhance student connectedness with the high school social worker"

  • Description: "Freshman Orientation to SSW" is an evidenced-based school-wide program developed to enhance student connectedness to the SSW. A portion of the workshop will reenact sections of the program presentation showing some key questions and comments presented to students. The other portion will describe the method of assessing the program’s effectiveness and the results of that assessment as described in a recent school social work publication.

  • Learning Objectives: Participants will learn how the program may be an effective "tier-one intervention" for schools concerned with a more robust implementation of MTSS/RTI as well as its effectiveness and relevance to other school reform initiatives such as SEL, PBS, ESSA, and the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention. Participants can readily access a transcript of the presentation message; the PowerPoint slides used in the presentation and will learn the presenter’s method of assessing the program’s effectiveness and how the program and its analysis of effectiveness can be duplicated.

The other presentation that Jerry has offered at various state and national conferences is about a suicide prevention program he developed. The title, description and learning objectives of this program presentation are shown below:

"School-based Suicide Prevention" 

  • Description: Participants will learn about a suicide prevention program in effect at two high schools within School District U-46 in Elgin, Illinois from 1987-2014. In addition to viewing a reenactment of a classroom presentation, those who attend will also learn about key aspects and specific methodology of the program. Data taken over several years will show that this program and its approaches have been able to significantly change targeted attitudes about suicide and has seemed to reduce the incidence of suicide related behaviors in students.

  • Learning objectives: To understand the core components and primary goals of a school-based suicide prevention program. To observe a suicide prevention presentation given to students at a high school. To learn how to evaluate the effectiveness of a prevention program and review the results of that evaluation model when it was applied to the programs at the two School District U-46 high schools.

A new protocol that Jerry has developed is drawn from his experience in working with students in crisis due to an intense parent-teen conflict. The title, description and learning objectives of this protocol are shown below:

“Helping students in crisis due to a parent-teen conflict”

  • Description: One of the most challenging referrals for school social work are students whom, upon further investigation, are coping with an exasperating parent. Such students are typically angry, excessively anxious (in the wake of an act of rebellion or resistance), or report feeling hopelessly resigned, depressed and in some cases suicidal. Carefully obtaining and presenting the right combination of information can be very effective in the school social worker’s appeal to the loving instincts of an emotionally-distraught parent regardless of their parenting style or the circumstances of the current parent-teen conflict.

  • Learning objectives: To learn the author’s protocol for addressing students in crisis due to an exasperating parent-teen conflict. This protocol includes an understanding of critical information to be gathered from the student and parent and how to interpret and use this information so that the student is able to resume a ready-to-learn focus in school.