Previous Trainings

Below are lists of some of our past trainings and presentations. This is not an inclusive list, but gives a general overview of presentation venues within the past few years; references are available upon request.

 

Loving Our Queer Children

Held Thursday, April 7, 2016, 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.


Location: Unitarian Church, 4300 Hampton Heights Drive, Birmingham, Alabama

Topics: LGBTQ Families and Family Building as well as Loving Our Queer Children

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Serving LGBT Families Across the Rainbow

Held Friday, April 8, 2016, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.


Location: University of Montevallo, Montevallo, Alabama

Topics:

LGBTQ Families, Sex & Gender Diversity, Queer Lives, Heteronormativity, Counseling Same-Sex Couples, Family Building, Transgender Coming Out, Couples & Families, Gender Non-Conforming Children, Trans Teens

CEUs:

6 hours given for Counselors and Social Workers.

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 All in the Family: Supporting LGBTQ

Needs through the Lifecycle

Held Friday, April 29, 2016, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.


Location: Ramada Hotel & Conference Center, 2402 N. Forest Rd.

Description:

Families address issues of sexual orientation and gender identity on a daily basis, and in multifaceted ways. Adolescents come out to their parents, gay and lesbian couples begin families, and spouses reveal their conflicted relationship to their gender. This workshop will provide an overview of sexual orientation and gender identity, and explore the clinical issues impacting lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals, couples, and families, within a systemic perspective.

Content will outline definitions and language within the context of cultural communities, the process of identity developmental, and the role of discrimination and bias in the psychological experience of LGBTQ people. Focus will be on gay men and lesbians as individuals and couples, including issues impacting youth who are first coming out, and couple development, and family-building. Additionally, we will focus on the specific concerns for transgender, transsexual, and gender non-conforming clients and their families. We will discuss the role of the clinican in evaluation for medical treatment, couple and family issues when a spouse comes out transgender, and issues in treating gender nonconforming children and youth. Gender diversity and expression is viewed as a normative process of identity development, albeit a challenging one within rigid socio-cultural environment. The new DSM-5 and the Standards of Care developed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health will be reviewed.

Learning Objectives:

• Develop a working knowledge of sexual orientation and gender identity issues for affirmative treatment with LGBTQ adults and adolescents;
• Demonstrate advanced clinical practice skills that support diverse sexual and gender identities, based on emerging evidence-based research and clinical best practices;
• Identify the experience of oppression and bias within an historical, political, and socio-cultural perspective and accurately assess how it impacts the lifecycle development of LGBTQ people;
• Describe the heterogeneity of LGBTQ lifestyles across cultural, class, age, race, ethnic, religious and political cohorts and communities and encourage cultural competence regarding diverse sexual minorities;
• Use a biopsychosocial, strengths-based approach in understanding specific LGBTQ human development issues (i.e., coming-out) as well as coupling and family-building concerns, within a feminist, narrative, and systemic framework;
• Explain the definitions, terms, concepts, and paradigms relative to competent practice with transgender and transsexual clients and their families.

CEUs: 

Full attendance was required; no partial credit was awarded for partial attendance. 6 live training hours were approved.


Working with Transgender Individuals and Their Families: A Provider Training Day

April 25, 2014
Binghamton, New York

Designed for health and human service providers and educators, participants in this 6-hour training will gain skill, knowledge and understanding, find resources, and identify and demonstrate strategies for providing competent, compassionate, and inclusive services to transgender-spectrum individuals and their families. Breakfast & lunch are included. Certificate of completion provided.
Presenters:

  • Arlene Istar Lev, LCSW-R, CASAC – Albany, NY
  • Carolyn Wolf-Gould, MD – Oneonta, NY
  • Acey A. Mercer, LMSW – Albany, NY

Working with LGBTQ Clients Dealing with Trauma

October 11, 2013
Buffalo, New York

This full day workshop, presented by Arlene Lev, will assist clinicians in developing skills necessary for working with child and adolescent members of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) community who have been impacted by trauma, as well as their families. We will first discuss issues unique to these communities regarding identity development, coming out, and couple and family building. We will then contextualize this conversation by understanding discrimination and bias, and the psychological costs of being a sexual minority within an often homophobic and transphobic world.

We will examine the ways that LGBTQ are vulnerable to trauma in the same ways that other people are (car accidents, random violence), as well as bias and assaults (bias-related violence) directed at LGBTQ people, and the impact of child physical and sexual abuse. We will also examine the unique experiences of violence within same-sex relationships, and sexual assault targeted at LGBTQ people because of their identities.

Sexual minority status infers an experience of “othering” within social environments that is often mirrored when seeking support. We will examine the role of micro-aggressions as well as societal discrimination in the psychologies of LGBTQ and how this influences their reactions to violence, bias, and trauma. LGBTQ people are often pathologized in clinical relationships, and their traumatic experiences are minimized; they are sometimes blamed for the violence they have endured. This workshop will bring together the research on trauma and link that to the ongoing research on LGBTQ identity management, and family building.


Evaluating Trans Clients for Hormones: Assessment, Letter-Writing, and Collaboration with Physicians

November 22, 2013
Albany, New York

This workshop will outline the process of evaluating adult clients to begin hormone therapy and the information that must be in a letter to a prescribing physician. The workshop is based on guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s Standards of Care (7thEdition), and the newly published DSM-5’s criteria for Gender Dysphoria. The workshop will explore the general assessment process for both trans men and trans women, as well as those who identify as genderqueer. A discussion about mental health challenges, addiction, and other issues that complicate assessment will be explored.


American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA) Coupling Today: Love, Parenting, Community

July 6, 2013

Working with Families with Gender Nonconforming Youth
#16.ii. Ethical Dilemmas in Working with Families of Gender Non-Conforming Children


LGBTQ Issues in Therapy: A New Frontier

May 17, 2013
Ashland, Oregon

In the four decades since homosexuality was removed from the DSM, a vital “queer” community has grown, embracing gay men, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, gender queer and intersex people all presenting with diverse and complex clinical needs. Individuals and couples come to therapy seeking assistance with a wide-range of issues including coming-out, parenting, illness, aging, infertility, and polyamory; they express unique and multifaceted gender identities and expressions. Clinicians who are “queer-affirmative” today need to be skilled in therapeutic perspectives involving nuanced understandings of sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual diversity, and relationship issues.

This workshop will provide an overview of sexual orientation and gender identity, and explore the clinical issues impacting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals, couples, and families within a systemic perspective


All in the Family: Gender Transitions Throughout the Lifecycle

May 11, 2013
Berkeley, California

This workshop will provide an overview of gender identity, and explore the clinical issues impacting transgender, transsexual, gender non-conforming, and queer identified individuals, couples, and families, within a systemic perspective. We will outline definitions and language within the context of cultural communities, the process of identity developmental, and the role of discrimination and bias in the psychological experience of trans people and their families. We will also examine the expanding options for identity expression, including genderqueer, and fluid identities, and the overlap of gender and sexual orientation and how families address issues of gender identity in multifaceted ways.

We will discuss the role of the psychotherapist in evaluation for medical treatment, couple and family issues when a spouse comes out transgender, and issues in treating gender nonconforming children and youth. We will also examine barriers to successful treatment, especially the role of therapists in creating nurturing relationships that support client empowerment. Gender diversity and expression is viewed as a normative process of identity development, albeit a challenging one within rigid socio-cultural environment. The newly released Standards of Care developed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health will be reviewed, as will the changes in the DSM-5.


Working with Gender Creative Children and their Families Clinical Case Seminar

May 10, 2013
Berkeley, California

A clinical case seminar with Arlene Lev, LCSW, and Diane Ehrensaft. PhD, both nationally known experts in working with gender non-conforming children and their families. The presenters will discuss some of the cutting edge thoughts about clinical work with children who do not easily fit into the typical binary of boy/girl and they will provide information and answer questions about issues such as hormone blockers, young transitioning and parental support. They will discuss conceptualizing gender as a fluid, individually driven construct, the development of sex and gender identities, and the distinction between social and medical transitions. Attending clinicians are encouraged to bring brief clinical vignettes and questions to expand the dialogue.


“Arlene is a gifted, inspiring and humorous instructor. Her students have
said she is not only brilliant but that she is the instructor
they are “least likely to fall asleep on.”

Barbara Rio, MSW Undergraduate Field Coordinator,
SUNY Albany School of Social Welfare.