Behavioral Health Today

This episode resumes this Clinicians’ Series conversation with Dr. Graham Taylor and his guest Emily Varon, BCBA. In our last episode, we discussed the assessment process, finding symptoms, and beginning steps to create a new sleep routine. This involves an inventory on how the child falls asleep and paying attention to the changes in their sleep environment. We also see how Emily addresses and understands the goals of therapy and how to reach an endpoint. We'll resume our talk today by discussing the challenges of the therapy process and normalizing some of the bumps along the way.

 

For more information about Ready.Set.Sleep, please visit: https://readysetsleep.com

For more information about the services provided by Ready.Set.Sleep, please visit: https://readysetsleep.com/services/

For practitioners interested in CEUs around sleep therapy, please visit: https://readysetsleep.thinkific.com

If you’d like to get in contact with Emily, please visit: https://readysetsleep.com/contact-us/

Today’s episode is part of our clinicians’ series, where we take you behind the therapist’s door to give you an insight into what happens within the therapeutic relationship. In this episode, Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with Emily Varon, BCBA. Emily is a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst with a dedicated focus on sleep-related behaviors. She has over 22 years of experience and devoted her practice to improving the sleep habits of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder since 2010. Emily’s company Ready Set Sleep, provides education, CEUs, sleep program development, and individual consultation to families seeking support with their child’s sleep. Together Graham and Emily discuss the assessment process and the beginning steps to creating a new sleep routine, taking inventory of how the child falls asleep, paying attention to the changes in their environment, and understanding the goals of therapy and how to reach an end-point.

 

For more information about Ready.Set.Sleep, please visit: https://readysetsleep.com

For more information about the services provided by Ready.Set.Sleep, please visit: https://readysetsleep.com/services/

For practitioners interested in CEUs around sleep therapy, please visit: https://readysetsleep.thinkific.com

If you’d like to get in contact with Emily, please visit: https://readysetsleep.com/contact-us/

We, as mental health professionals, come into our field with the best intentions and the best ethics and standards for practice. But no matter how professional our practice may be, an accident or misunderstanding can happen. And whether we’re at fault or not, we can find ourselves in the center of a malpractice claim and responsible for large legal and settlement fees. The best practice against harmful allegations, financially damaging lawsuits, and high legal fees is to have the appropriate form of malpractice insurance coverage. In this episode, Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with Rachel Warners. Rachel is the Director of Operations at CPH Insurance, where, with over 10 years of experience, they provide competitively priced professional liability insurance for mental health professionals. Together Graham and Rachel discuss the kinds of insurance coverage, protection from malpractice situations, the benefits of individual coverage, and the various types of coverage available from student, to intern, to licensed practitioner. A malpractice claim is not something anybody wants to think about, but it can happen even to the most ethical practitioner. We must protect ourselves from unnecessary risks that are in an inherent part of our work as practitioners. Having the proper policy in place allows us to perform our job, to do what we've been trained to do, without the unnecessary worry of our financial assets being lost in the event of a lawsuit.

 

For more information about individual and/or incorporated Allied and Mental Health Malpractice Insurance and CPH & Associates, please visit: https://www.cphins.com

For more information about the CPH Insurance Blog, please visit: https://www.cphins.com/category/mental-health/

To contact CPH Insurance for more information please call 800-875-1911 or visit the contact us page at https://www.cphins.com/contact-us/

This episode resumes the conversation with Dr. Graham Taylor and his guest Moses Farrow, LMFT. In our last episode, we discussed the unique perspective and identity of adopted people, the importance of raising awareness around the adoptive process and some of the challenges around it, the need for safe spaces and the importance of trauma-informed perspective when addressing the adopted community, and finally, we discussed the experience of disenfranchised grief around the loss of life before adoption and infringement on the right to be able to grieve that loss. We’ll resume our talk today by discussing the importance for parents and communities to provide well-informed environments for adoptive people.

 

For more information about Moses Farrow, please visit: https://mosesfarrow.com

For more information about Adoption Trauma, please visit: https://www.transformadoption.com

For more information about #truthislouder, please visit: https://www.truthislouder.org

Connect with Moses on social media,

on twitter @MosesFarrow and use #truthislouder for adoption trauma awareness or visit: https://twitter.com/MosesFarrow

on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/moses.farrow.50

or on Instagram at mosesafarrow, or visit: https://www.instagram.com/mosesafarrow/

or email Moses directly at [email protected]

About 135,000 children are adopted in the United States each year. About 59% of those are from the child welfare or foster care system. 26% are from other countries and about 15% are voluntarily surrendered American babies. While a number of adoptions do go well, there are common, though often unrecognized and unaddressed issues within the adoption process and within the developmental stages, post adoption that deserves some attention. Trauma can in fact be evident in every part of the adoption experience, even the parts that seem perfect. In this episode, Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with Moses Farrow, MFT. Moses is an Adoption Trauma Educator and Marriage and Family Therapist with more than 20 years in the mental health field. As a survivor of child abuse, adoption trauma, and suicide loss, Moses bridges his personal and professional experiences to raise awareness of the human rights and public health issues many adopted people have been facing. Together Graham and Moses discuss the importance of raising awareness around the adoptive process and some of the challenges around it. There is a need for safe spaces and the importance of a trauma-informed perspective when addressing the adopted community.

 

For more information about Moses Farrow, please visit: https://mosesfarrow.com

For more information about Adoption Trauma, please visit: https://www.transformadoption.com

For more information about #truthislouder, please visit: https://www.truthislouder.org

Connect with Moses on social media,

on twitter @MosesFarrow and use #truthislouder for adoption trauma awareness or visit: https://twitter.com/MosesFarrow

on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/moses.farrow.50

or on Instagram at mosesafarrow, or visit: https://www.instagram.com/mosesafarrow/

or email Moses directly at [email protected]

There’s a need and a demand for ABA services with increased funding beginning to occur. The Behavior Analysis field has some great momentum but as the field grows, and large private equity firms enter this space, there is a concern of degradation of the treatment provided and the quality of services. In this episode, Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with Karen Chung, Karen has 12 years of experience as a Certified Behavioral Analyst and is the CEO and founder of Special Learning, Inc., an education technology company that delivers web-based training, virtual supervision, and consultation for BCBAs anywhere in the world. Aside from her work with Special Learning, Karen has been at work building the Ethical Standards Board, an online database of certified ABAs and registered behavioral technicians available for the public to find qualified clinicians and agencies. Together they discuss the current state of the Behavioral Analysis field, some of the challenges of rapid growth, and the demand for services, as well as highlighting some of the gaps in the ethics code and how that fails to regulate the quality of treatment from large private equity firms. Finally, we discuss a new service called the Ethics Standards Board for ABA Centers (ESBAP), which provides a centralized database of ABA Agencies that are rated by their performance by peers as well as by their clients. ESBAP is creating a resource available to the public, to help shift and support those organizations that are behaving ethically, doing quality work, and outcomes-oriented that have opportunities for RBTs to find a career path to mentorship.

 

For more information about Special Learning Inc., please visit: https://www.special-learning.com/

To contact Karen Chung, please email at [email protected]

For more information about the Ethical Standards Board for ABA Centers, the ESBAP, please visit: https://esbap.org/

Most shame-based messages are I am _____, and then we fill in the blank with whatever it may be. Most of our shame is unconscious. We have compensatory behaviors develop typically from an early age that set a course in our lives that everything we do is unconsciously driven by trying to avoid that feeling of I am (shame-based message) and to keep others from discovering this about us. In this episode, Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with Ragan Schriver, PsyD, MSW. Ragan is an Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work as well as the Director of the MSSW Program, Knoxville Campus, and chair of the Forensic Social Work Certificate Program. He teaches clinical and leadership courses in the MSSW program. He also serves as the Special Assistant to the President of Catholic Charities USA. In this role he takes part in a team process to develop integrated health programs within the network. Together they discuss the experience of shame and how it can become a fundamental part of our lives. They discuss ways to find shame when working with clients and the challenges around shame. They discuss the idea of healthy shame can assist in understanding our limitations, but when we become overwhelmed with negativity, shame can limit our perspective. We discuss shame from a neurological perspective and some ways shame shows up in four general categories. Finally, we discuss how a therapeutic relationship can provide mirrors to question some of our shameful beliefs about ourselves and right side a sense of who you are. Berné Brown says, if you put shame in a petri dish and you add secrecy and silents and judgement, the thing is going to go crazy. But if have shame and add in empathy and invite others into this experience, then that will stunt the growth of shame.

 

For more information about the University of Tennessee and its Social Work Program, please visit: https://www.csw.utk.edu/

For more information about the UT College of Social Work’s Trauma Treatment Post-Graduate Certification Program, please visit: https://www.csw.utk.edu/post-graduate-trauma-certificate/

This episode resumes the conversation with Dr. Graham Taylor and his guests Dr. Jeanne Stanley and Dr. Theo Burnes. In our last episode, we discussed the best practices of the graduate school application process and guidance on where to start, we listed off some questions to ask yourself to help create a list of needs and wats as you look at graduate programs, and we discussed the importance of knowing when graduate school is the right time for you. We’ll resume our talk today by discussing the admissions interview and coaching students to help them feel secure and be successful.

 

For more information about Dr. Jeanne Stanley and Watershed Counseling and Consultation Services, please visit: https://www.watershedservices.biz

For more information about Dr. Theo Burns, please visit: https://theoburnesphd.com

Pursuing graduate school is a significant undertaking. For some students, they may not necessarily know exactly what they want or what they're looking for before they enter this process. Where do you start to help navigate the process successfully? In this episode, Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with Dr. Jeanne Stanley and Dr. Theo Burnes. Jeanne Stanley is a licensed psychologist and the CEO of Watershed Counseling and Consultation and founder of the company, Grad School Coaching. She also works as a national trainer, consultant, published author, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education in their Counseling programs with more than 25 years of experience. Theo is a licensed psychologist and professional clinical counselor in private practice. Theo is a professor in the graduate MFT and counseling program at University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. Together they discuss the best practices to the application process of graduate school, creating a list of needs and wants, and they discuss the importance of knowing when graduate school is the right time for you.

 

For more information about Dr. Jeanne Stanley and Watershed Counseling and Consultation Services, please visit: https://www.watershedservices.biz

For more information about Dr. Theo Burnes, please visit: https://theoburnesphd.com

Up to a third of developing children will experience some sleep disturbance with most children experiencing difficulties going to sleep or maintaining sleep during the night. However, when we think of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, we don’t often realize that as many as 80% of these children experience debilitating sleep disturbances with trouble falling asleep and a tendency to wake up throughout the night. In this episode, Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with Emily Varon, BCBA. Emily is a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst with a dedicated focus on sleep-related behaviors. She has over 22 years of experience and devoted her practice to improving the sleep habits of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder since 2010. Emily’s company Ready.Set.Sleep, provides education, CEUs, sleep program development, and individual consultation to families seeking support with their child’s sleep. Together they discuss the challenges to sleeping and its effects on the body, we discuss the signs and symptoms of sleep disturbances, and finally some sustainable strategies to ready the body for sleep. Sleep is at the top of the pyramid when it comes to health and wellness, and the sustainability of these strategies do work.

 

For more information about Ready.Set.Sleep, please visit: https://readysetsleep.com

For more information about the services provided by Ready.Set.Sleep, please visit: https://readysetsleep.com/services/

For more information about Ready.Set.Sleep on Instagram, please follow at:  https://www.instagram.com/readysetsleep_/