Since 1988, the Center for Family Studies has presented an annual institute for home-based intervention. Funded by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and co-sponsored by the Ohio Association for Family-Based Services, the purpose of these institutes is to increase awareness of the need for family-focused, community and home-based services for children and adolescents with severe and emotional disturbance and their families. The guiding principle is to provide an educational forum for learning new strategies for strengthening and preserving families.

The major result of the annual institutes has been the growth of community and home-based intervention programming throughout the state of Ohio and in surrounding areas. They have also contributed to the education of professionals representing many varied disciplines about the value of working with family strengths, empowering family members, and collaborating across systems to benefit both the families and the service providers.

The speakers for these institutes were chosen because of interest in their nationally recognized work. Some of the recent titles have been:

• Walking the Delicate Balance: The Treatment of Incest and Child Sexual Abuse
• Pathways to Change: Solution-Oriented Brief Family Therapy with Difficult Adolescents
• Bread and Spirit
• Multi-Systemic Therapy and Multi-Cultural Issues
• From Problems to Solutions

Twelfth Annual Institute for Home-Based Intervention

This institute will be held on Friday, May 21, 1999, at the Columbus Marriott North in Columbus, Ohio. This seminar will focus on a broad variety of new techniques that have been shown to be extremely effective for working with traumatized children. The speaker is scheduled to be Nancy Davis, PhD, a licensed psychologist who has treated hundreds of traumatized children, adolescents, and adults. She has testified as an expert witness in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Child Abuse in over 130 civil and criminal proceedings. Dr. Davis is the author of Therapeutic Stories to Heal Abused Children and Therapeutic Stories that Touch and Heal as well as other articles on treating trauma. She has led workshops nationwide in identifying and treating abuse and trauma. Currently, she is Chief of Counseling Services for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

• Please contact the Center for registration information.

Eleventh Annual Institute for Home-Based Intervention

The eleventh annual Institute was held on Thursday and Friday, June 4 and 5, 1998, at the Sheraton Suites in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The speaker was Robert D. Benjamin, MSW, JD, and his subject was Negotiation and Communication: Skills for Managing Conflict in Families.Ó He has published numerous articles on negotiation and mediation including Business, Family, and Divorce Mediation: Practice Forms and Handbook (Revised Edition, 1996).

Robert D. Benjamin is a mediator in full-time practice at Mediation and Conflict Management Services in St. Louis, Missouri. With more than sixteen years of experience, Mr. Benjamin has mediated issues in many contexts, including business, commercial, family and divorce disputes, personal employment grievances, medical malpractice, estate and will disputes, and educational system disputes. Mr. Benjamin is a national leader in training and educating community professionals in mediation and conflict management skills. Nationally and internationally, he has presented mediation and negotiation workshops, seminars, and training courses for over 14 years. He is presently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Washington University, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, St. Louis, Missouri.

Tenth Annual Institute for Home-Based Intervention

The tenth annual Institute was held on Friday, May 2, 1997, from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in downtown Akron. It was the best attended of all the institutes to date. The speaker was Mary Jo Barrett, MSW, and her subject was "Walking the Delicate Balance: The Treatment of Incest and Child Sexual Abuse."

Few issues have created as much divisiveness among psychotherapists as has the treatment of incest and/or child sexual abuse. While all share the ultimate goal of halting the abuse, many professionals disagree on the methodology. Should the child be immediately and indefinitely removed from the incestuous family? Can the family be preserved? How do you integrate the perpetrator into the therapy? What factors make families vulnerable to the abuse? Given this controversy, it is not surprising that therapists feel undertrained and overwhelmed.

The institute made its primary focus the treatment of incest in families where there has been sexual abuse from a Multiple Systems Perspective: Social, cultural, gender-linked, family of origin, family of procreation, couple , sibling, and individual dynamics. During the day, Mary Jo Barrett explored the treatment model through lecture, discussion, and video-taped case examples. Professional credit was offered in Continuing Education credits.

Barrett is the Director of Training at the Center for Contextual Change, Ltd. (The Center). Located in Chicago, The Center is a clinic specializing in the Multiple System Treatment Perspective with individuals and families. Ms. Barrett's emphasis, and that of The Center, is the application of this model to trauma and its aftermath for children, adults, and their families.

Ms. Barrett worked in the field of family violence, the physical and sexual abuse of children, neglect, incest, and spouse abuse since 1974, beginning with Parental Stress Services in Chicago. She has co-authored two books with Dr. Terry Trepper. The first is Incest: A Multiple Systems Perspective, and their latest is The Systemic Treatment of Incest: A Therapeutic Handbook. Barrett and Trepper are currently working on volume two of the handbook, as well as a book to help the public understand how sexual abuse occurs as well as its implications.

Continuing Education Workshops

A Continuing Education component was implemented for service providers who were neither desirous nor eligible for the masters degree program. These workshops are offered at least once a year. They may be in community and home-based intervention, case management, supervision, or cultural diversity. While they offer continuing education credits by the university, they may be tailor-made to fit a specific group.

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