Instructor-Led Child Psychopathology: Normal and Pathological Aspects of Childhood

Held November 22, 2024 via Zoom

9 am - 5 pm (7 CEUs)

Social workers pay a critically important role in the child and adolescent mental health field as they comprise the majority of mental health professionals in direct practice in the U.S.  In order to be optimally helpful to clients, a social worker needs to know how best to elicit and organize clinical information and how to link it to the principles, strategies and techniques that comprise interventions with proven efficacy. Correctly considering symptoms and diagnoses is an important component of treatment planning. The purpose of this course is to integrate knowledge of the more common mental disorders (psychopathology) of children and adolescents into a clinical social work practice perspective.  This course includes review of the more common child and adolescent mental disorders to enhance familiarity with DSM-5 diagnostic criteria.  In addition, students will gain knowledge of the epidemiology and usual course of common disorders, child development, the importance of cultural context, and the recommended, evidence-based approaches to treatment, including psychopharamacological treatments and measures that might be incorporated into practice. A major objective of this course is to learn how to do a case formulation.  A case formulation is a way to organize and structure individual clinical information such that meaningful goals can be established and optimal intervention planned. It integrates the client's current symptoms, impairments, and strengths in the context of important life events and chronic stressors, family and community, and the client's own past history.

Fully engaged participants will be able to:

• Stronger understanding of child development and normal and pathological aspects of childhood
• Know how to develop an individualized case formulation for children/adolescents
• Learn the diagnostic criteria for the most common child/adolescent mental disorders using DSM 5 and their application
• Be familiar with commonly used assessment instruments for children/adolescents
• Be familiar with evidence-based interventions for children /adolescents

Dr. Robin E. Gearing is a Professor of Social Work and the Director of the Center for Mental Health Research and Innovation in Treatment Engagement and Service (MH-RITES). He also has extensive experience practicing as a clinical social worker in psychosocial and mental health treatment service for more than twenty-five years. Dr. Gearing’s research focuses on improving the mental health outcomes of youth and adults with serious mental illnesses and their families. His research is driven by an interest in informing and improving engagement to empirically supported psychosocial and medication treatment and developing evidence-based interventions. As a researcher, his areas of expertise are schizophrenia spectrum disorders, depressive disorders, and suicide intervention. Dr. Gearing’s work focuses on engagement with mental health services, including culturally informed adaptations of empirically supported interventions. Dr. Gearing also holds a clinical faculty appointment at the University of Texas Health McGovern Medical School Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and he serves as a board member on the Board of Trustees for The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD. In addition to other forums, findings from Dr. Gearing’s research has appeared in over 100 publications.