PCFTTC
Philadelphia Child and Family Therapy Training Center
Dr. Sue Johnson, a prominent figure in the field of couples therapy, passed away at 76 after battling cancer. Known for creating Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), her work emphasized emotional bonds and attachment theory, globally influencing the field. Her legacy lives on through EFT-trained therapists and her impactful books, ensuring her vision for healing relationships endures. Therapists continue her techniques to help couples, honoring her pioneering contributions in couple therapy.
Ms. Lisa Christian’s 30-year career as social worker and public mental health professional has been devoted to cross-system collaboration. She is a shining star that stands out in the field. She has tirelessly advocated for every citizen of Pennsylvania to see, understand, and respond to youth gun violence as public health issue driven by trauma and inequity.
She has worked at the professional level with youth, families, organizations, and government to make public health policy center on healing. She urges others to see youth of color, especially Black male youth, as the segment of our community that are most impacted by gun violence where the cycle of violence leaves many youths feeling unsafe and insecure in themselves and in the community. She challenges herself and others to see that this dislocation leaves them feeling vulnerable and devalued, where they literally believe that Black lives do not matter and find ways to protect themselves which perpetuates this cycle of violence.
Rather than simply turning to law enforcement to solve this problem, she strives to create the framework that goes beyond see gun violence as solely linked to self-protection but see youth gun violence retaliatory. This cycle must be seen as a public health imperative where public health, mental health, and government agencies find innovative and responsive ways to disrupt these processes to prevent further violence. Spurning an individual oriented approach, she has repeated worked to inspire government officials to advance a public health approach recognizing the symptoms of gun violence, much like with a virus, and to strategize interventions that prevent the spread of violence. Her systemic framework advances across system collaboration that is trauma-informed, strength-based, co-discovery, and science based.
Her 30-year career as a licensed social worker and mental health professional is chocked with numerous compelling examples reflecting the above. Two stories stand out. One, she stood by a family of a youth arrested for a mass shooting whose community not only negatively judged but actively shunned them. She tirelessly worked with individual family members, the family as a unit, and the community to help them seek, find, and use personal, physical, and interpersonal resources to turn risk into resilience. The second story is about families returning to the scene of murder that occurred in their home. Police investigate the crime then suddenly pronounce that the family may return to a blood splattered home and littered with signs of violence. Ms. Christian advocated at the family level and government level to regularly and reliably generate the resources to clean and restore every home. These examples show that Ms. Christian always goes above and beyond her peers to always advance a cross system collaboration based on a trauma-informed, strength-based, co-discovery, and science-based framework.
Congratulations Abigail!! You are one of the 2024 Nominees for the Marion Lindblad-Goldberg Award. The prestigious award acknowledges individuals in Pennsylvania who exemplify the vision of Dr. Marion Lindblad-Goldberg, a trailblazer in ecosystemic structural family therapy. Your nomination symbolizes appreciation for your contributions in enhancing the world, advocating for positivity and healing within families. It showcases confidence in your ability to connect people and cultivate hope through systemic and relational intervention.
“Abby is warm and encouraging to our families, yet is able to maintain professional boundaries. I have seen Abby inspire change in many of our families, even those that had been resistant at first. Abby always shows empathy to our families as well as treating them with dignity and respect. Abby is aware of the social ecology that affects our families from the environments that influence them and is able to bring that awareness and interaction into the focus of treatment with a discerning eye. Abby will often set up collaborations with our client’s supports. Abby is able to empower our parents through a crisis to take the lead and de-escalate their children as she has them focus on the positives. Abby will often pause during sessions to assess with all her senses to grasp the next step in helping our families, then will give a simple directive or encouragement that takes the session into a positive direction. Abby will also turn to me as her partner and discuss the next step or talk out how we are going to continue the session so that we model for the family how to utilize turning to each other with positive communication. Overall, I am incredibly proud of my partner. She is organized and supportive and inspires me every day.”
PCFTTC leadership attended the Thomas Jefferson University. They heard from several suicide prevention experts (Dr. Berman; Dr. Anestis; Dr. Zullo). It is clear from the program YOU CAN’T PREDICT RISK, but you can be a “reasonable and prudent clinician.” And continuing to understand risk screening, assessment, the literature, and formulation are key to clinical work, as 1 in 3 professionals will have a client who kills themselves.
Several Important take aways:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-TALK (8255)
Spanish/español: 1-888-628-9454
Crisis Text Line
Text HOME to 741-741
Suicide Prevention Resource Center
Dr. Benjamin met up with Lavonda H., former ESFT-FBMHS graduate. Lavonda shares about her journey of growth and development as a result of becoming a systemic thinker and her training experience with PCFTTC.
Experience the rich tradition of innovative systemic family therapy training, education, supervision, & consultation, as established by Salvador Minuchin at the Training Center associated with the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic. Learn from expert faculty how to use a strength-based relational, contextual, developmental, & trauma informed approach to systemically treat intergenerational & complex developmental trauma.
The Philadelphia Child and Family Therapy Training Center, Inc. became a corporation in July, 1999, as an outgrowth of the as an outgrowth of the Training Center at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic founded by Salvador Minuchin, M.D. in 1975 for systemic family therapy and training. The Philadelphia Child and Family Therapy Training Center offers Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy (ESFT) training, education, consultation, and research in family and couples therapy, and developmentally based approaches to child, adolescent and adult behavioral health issues. The Center has trained thousands of mental health and other human service professionals in the practice of family therapy, examining the social ecology of the home, school, and community environments.
Keywords: Philafamily.com, training center, Philadelphia Training Center, Family systems therapy, systemic training, Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy, Steve Simms PhD, Marian Lindblad-Goldberg, ESFT, Structural Family Therapy, Salvador Minuchin, Structural Family Therapy Training, Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, Continuing Education – Earn Your CE Credits Today, Online courses with clinical demos. Find comprehensive solutions for clinical challenges. Clinical demos, live sessions & detailed commentaries, Intergenerational trauma, Complex developmental trauma, MFT, AAMFT, APA, LPC, ACS, ACA, LSW, eco-systemic structural family therapy, Ecosystemic family therapy
Dr. Steve Simms spends time with Dr. Harry Aponte as he delves into the history of his innovative systemic work at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic. Through his contextual, community-focused approach, he emphasized the significance of culture and the concept of being “strength-based.” Growing up in a low-income family in Harlem and the South Bronx, Dr. Aponte and his colleagues recognized the importance of family therapy alongside community engagement to address societal challenges effectively. They highlighted the critical role of community context in their work. Collaborating with the local community in South Philadelphia, they established a school for children who were not attending traditional schools.
In July 1999, the Philadelphia Child and Family Therapy Training Center, Inc. was established as an offshoot of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic’s training center. The training center was founded by Salvador Minuchin, M.D., in 1975.
Creating Competence From Chaos: A Comprehensive Guide To Home-Based Services (1998) by Marion Lindblad-Goldberg, Martha Dore and Lenora Stern, W.W. Norton, New York.
Children with emotional and behavioral disorders are often adrift in our society, lacking adequate mental health care or caught between several child-serving systems, such as child welfare, juvenile justice, and the schools.
In Pennsylvania, a commitment has been made, on a statewide basis, to serve these children and strengthen their vulnerable families through a home-based approach grounded in ecosystemic thinking and practice. This book tells the story of Pennsylvania’s evolving treatment program, providing a model for other professionals who believe that a family’s needs are best met through individually tailored, family-centered, community-based, culturally competent, and outcome-oriented services.
This is a complete, comprehensive guide, covering everything from planning and development of home-based services through supervision and training of home-based practitioners and evaluation of treatment outcomes. Particular attention is given to the clinical challenges faced by home-based therapists working with families where children are depressed and perhaps suicidal, oppositional and defiant, out-of-control and aggressive, or hyperactive/impulsive. These families commonly have multiple problems, complex histories, and a negative view of outside “helpers.”
Delivered in the family’s home and involving parents as partners, the services described here work to improve child and family functioning through family therapy, creation of collaborative links between appropriate community and family resources, and provision of family support funds for concrete services such as transportation, respite care, and emergencies. Home-based treatment serves both children at risk for out-of-home placement due to a diagnosis of severe mental illness or behavioral disorders and children being discharged from inpatient hospitals and psychiatric residential placements.
The authors, active at every level of program conceptualization and implementation, share their wealth of experience with readers. Their advice and case studies move from the big picture to the small details of where to sit in a family’s home, what to say, and how to think about a problematic situation. Several appendices of forms used for assessment, evaluation, and training add to the book’s practical value. Theoretically sound and fully practical, this guide to home-based services will encourage all professionals serving children to involve their families and communities-and to meet them where they live.
“This book provides the blueprint for this groundbreaking care system, with practical guidelines for starting a home-based system on the right foot; maximizing collaboration…with agencies; and, most important, delivering hands-on help to at-risk children and vulnerable families. Therapy chapters run the gamut of skills needed for providing home-based care…Case examples…illustrate systemic intervention used in a variety of family situations.”
Behavioral Science
“This book lives up to its…promise of being a ‘comprehensive guide to home-based services.’ Clearly written with many case examples, it fills a hole in the family therapy literature.”
Eric McCollum, The Family Therapy Networker
“This wonderful volume takes a huge step towards specifying competence in a field that has tremendous potential. I highly recommend this pragmatic and insightful text to practitioners and administrators alike.”
Scott W. Henggeler, Ph.D.
“This book about home-based services is written from the perspective of three disciplines-policy making, clinical services, and research. Reading this book is like opening one of those fertile Russian nesting dolls… Even when we get to the smallest details about the training of home-based staff and the supervision and organization of treatment, we understand how they are interconnected and fit within the big picture.”
Salvador Minuchin, MD.
“This richly illustrated book is an excellent resource. It should be a reference for all professionals who work with children and an essential text for those who provide home-based care.”
Lee Combrinck-Graham, MD.