Engaging Adolescents and Their Families in Outpatient or Intensive Outpatient Addiction Treatment

Title : Engaging Adolescents and Their Families in Outpatient or Intensive Outpatient Addiction Treatment

Abstract:

Working with adolescents and their families can be one of the most challenging and rewarding experience a counselor and other medical professions can have. However, many professionals have expressed difficulties engaging their adolescent client’s and their families in the treatment process, which ultimately has a negative effect on the adolescent’s treatment prognosis. In this workshop counselors will develop the skills to: effectively communicate and work together with parents and guardians of their clients, improve therapeutic rapport with their clients, develop an understanding regarding adolescent brain development and age appropriate behaviors that often lead to adolescent clients being referred into treatment, and how to utilize harm reduction techniques with the intention of eliminating or decreasing high risk substance use behaviors.

Biography:

Laura Boff studied at the State University of New York at Oneonta receiving a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology in 2011. She then pursued her Masters in Social Work at the University of South Carolina where she completed her degree in 2013. Since joining the field of Social Work she has dedicated her career in working with individuals who have been diagnosed with Alcohol Use Disorders and Substance Use Disorders. Laura Boff has experience in working with children, adolescents, adults and families and now is the Director of Clinical Services at the Cleanse Clinic where she creates and implements therapeutic programs for clinic locations in Kentucky and Indiana.