Description
Providing High-Quality, Evidence-Based Child Treatment During COVID-19: Lessons (Being) Learned by a Panel of Experts
Our panel includes: Anne Marie Albano, PhD; Mary Alvord PhD; Lisa Coyne PhD; & Cheryl McNeil, Ph.D
Our moderator is Jill Ehrenreich-May, PhD, University of Miami
With the COVID-19 pandemic has come a ton of stressful transitions for us as a society and, of course, as child clinical psychology practitioners. Although there are overarching logistic issues to navigate in the transition to telehealth services and shifting client loads during this transition to deal with, the delivery of principle-based and evidence-based therapies for children and adolescents may also be challenged in some particular ways. With this in mind, SCCAP will convene a panel of expert child clinicians and researchers, moderated by Member-at-Large for Science and Practice, Jill Ehrenreich-May, Ph.D. to discuss creative and thoughtful solutions to these clinical challenges. Topics to be covered include: managing younger or more disruptive children via telehealth, providing exposure therapy and behavioral activation during times of social distancing, handling catastrophic thinking, managing avoidance behaviors related to telehealth and the shifting treatment needs of children and families in light of COVID-19, along with other topics. The panel will also take discussion questions from the webinar audience to address concerns faced by practitioners.
After this session, participants will be able to:
1 – Predict and analyze pragmatic challenges to delivery of high-quality evidence-based treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2 – Apply specific strategies for addressing challenges posed by telehealth delivery – including managing disruptive and avoidant behaviors, as well as potentially increased parent vs. child mental health needs during this time.
3 – Design new and creative ways to overcome treatment challenges to the provision of various evidence-based approaches including those strategies that would be traditionally hard to engage (e.g. exposure, activation) during times of social distancing.
About the Speakers:
Anne Marie Albano, Ph.D., ABPP, is a professor of medical psychology in psychiatry at Columbia University and Founder of the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders and clinical site director of New York Presbyterian Hospital’s Youth Anxiety Center. She has published more than 100 articles and chapters and is the co-author of several cognitive behavioral treatment manuals and The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children with Wendy Silverman. Her book with Leslie Pepper, You and Your Anxious Child: Free Your Child from Fears and Worries and Create a Joyful Family Life, was a 2014 ABCT Self-Help Book Award winner. Her 2020 TEDMED talk on parenting and childhood anxiety is soon to be released.
Mary Alvord, Ph.D., is the Founder and President of Board of Directors of Resilience Across Borders, Inc. and Director of Alvord, Baker & Associates, LLC. She is a licensed psychologist. She developed the Resilience Builder Program® over two decades ago, and she has been providing cognitive behavioral therapy interventions to children and adolescents, in the Washington, DC region over the past four decades. She has contributed to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) public education guides on resilience in children and teens and stress and serves as APA’s Public Education Coordinator for the Maryland Psychological Association.
Lisa W. Coyne, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, part-time, at Harvard Medical School, and is a senior clinical consultant at the Child and Adolescent OCD Institute (OCDI Jr.) at McLean Hospital. She is also an associate clinical professor at Suffolk University in Boston, a licensed clinical psychologist, and an internationally recognized acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) trainer. Dr. Coyne has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters on anxiety, OCD, and parenting. She is the author of The Joy of Parenting: An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Guide to Effective Parenting in the Early Years, a book for parents of young children.
Cheryl McNeil, Ph.D. is a professor at the University of West Virginia. Dr. McNeil has extensive clinical and research experience related to childhood disruptive behavior problems and parent-child interactions. She has research interests in disruptive behavior disorders of children, assessment methods for behavior problems among children, and treatment outcomes—particularly treatment outcomes of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Currently, she is one of only 15 certified PCIT Master Trainers in the world, and is a nationally-renowned authority on PCIT.
American Psychological Association Division 53: Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Division 53 maintains responsibility for this program and its content. For registration questions, contact Sonja Wiggins, MBA, APA Division Services Office, at swiggins@apa.org or 202-336-5590.
