Continuing Education Course Catalog

Substance Use (SU) and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) are frequently intertwined in complex ways, so why aren’t systems set up to address them together? Both SU and IPV are stigmatized with costly societal, family, and personal consequences, and these vary by gender, race, ethnicity, class, etc. While they do not “cause” each other, impacts are more severe when both are present. They are rarely addressed in a coordinated way in communities, human services, or social policy, despite growing evidence that doing so reduces harm and barriers to change and improves outcomes. Practitioners report many barriers/problems in working across fields and creating "hybrid" approaches (addressing both SU and IPV together). This session will explore why there aren't more hybrid services when it’s clear, in both research and practice, that they are needed. Because these are field-level issues, developing new intervention skills is not enough to overcome them.

Throughout, we will work with you to identify ways you can begin implementing hybridity in your practice and/or organization. We will examine:
- how separate intervention fields for IPV and SU have evolved, with different origins, histories, paradigms, approaches and controversies within each field and for different populations - and how these are gendered, raced, classed, etc.;
- the consequences of not addressing both;
- challenges and barriers to hybrid IPV/SU work to understand why hybridity is so uncommon;
- frameworks to understand the complexity of the challenges;
- different approaches to hybridity, at different stages of innovation for varied levels of need.

Eating disorders are increasingly prevalent among mental health clients and frequently co-occur with mood and trauma-related disorders. Despite their widespread impact, many clinicians report feeling inadequately prepared to address them. This course is designed to bridge that gap. Participants will learn to effectively recognize both clinical and subclinical eating disorders, with a critical focus on cultural considerations in presentation and identification. The curriculum will also provide a brief introduction to evidence-based treatment recommendations. The course will conclude with vignette discussions, offering a practical opportunity to apply critical thinking and diagnostic skills.

Note: This course is available for free to U-M SSW alumni as part of our Alumni Webinar Series, which features invited alumni speakers. Please know that non-alumni participants are welcome to register as well!

This continuing education course is designed for social workers and mental health professionals seeking to enhance their competence in working with Veterans transitioning from military to civilian life. Participants will explore the foundational aspects of military culture, common psychosocial challenges faced during reintegration, and the clinical implications of various discharge statuses. The course will examine the impact of trauma, chronic pain, loss of identity, and disrupted family dynamics on former service members.

Participants will also engage in an interactive, case-based activity to identify appropriate interventions and gain practical strategies for building trust and rapport with veterans from diverse backgrounds. Emphasis will be placed on the social worker’s role in supporting veterans across settings, including psychotherapy, housing support, substance use treatment, and social reintegration. The training will prepare professionals to respond with cultural humility and effectiveness when supporting those who have served.

The African American experience comes with misunderstandings that often make their way into the play therapy space with children. The mental health needs of African American families are sometimes even overlooked for various reasons. In this workshop, we will dive into the perception of play therapy within the African American community, and how clinicians can best support the unique mental health needs of African American children and families within the play therapy process. Participants will engage in didactic and experiential learning to support cultural humility through mind and body awareness.

This course explores models of Animal Assisted Social Work Interventions and the role of each member of the clinical or educational team including the practitioner, animal partner(s), client(s) or participant(s), and animal handler and/or volunteers. The reflexive skills necessary to effectively engage both human and animal partners are explored through the application of dialogic cross-cultural social work theory and methodology. The well-being of animal partners, the ethics of engaging animals to heal humans, and animal welfare are important foci of this course. Basic animal ethology, communication, signals of contentment, tolerance and stress, and positive training techniques, especially with dogs and horses will be centered.

Restorative practices focus on fostering interpersonal and community trust, respect, and relationships. This workshop will explore restorative practices as they relate to social work practice. We will apply restorative conceptual frameworks and principles, while teaching applied restorative practice skills. Participants will learn to apply restorative practices to a number of social work settings and across client populations, and will be able to identify how restorative practices can impact those involved.

This course pulls together aspects of the previous courses to focus on practical applications of Animal Assisted Interventions. It explores the wide range of programs involving animal partners across fields of human services including health care, education and social work activities with diverse human populations such as people with disabilities and/or trauma, veterans, and urban youth. Animal Assisted Therapy approaches integrating evidence-based and best-practice methods with animal partners are explained through specific case examples with diverse youth including refugee, LGBTQ, and sexual abuse survivors using individual, family and group modalities. Participants learn how to create culturally sensitive treatment or lesson plans that include animal partners and effectively verbalize the clinical meaning of animal/human interactions to further clients’ therapeutic goals. This course shares examples of how to track and evaluate progress, document sessions, and evaluate effectiveness. It also explores the need for further research in the field.