The Relational Center offers continuing education workshops, lectures and seminars throughout the year to helping professionals to support their ongoing development and to influence their practice in ways that help to implement our mission and values.  The Relational Center has been approved by the Board of Behavioral Sciences (provider #PCE4127) to provide qualified continuing education to Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists and to Licensed Clinical Social Workers.  Approval has also been granted by the California Psychological Association (provider #CEN056) to offer mandatory continuing education to California Licensed Psychologists.

Our core continuing education program consists of three anchor workshops: 1) relational supervision (satisfying the biennial requirements for supervisors of unlicensed interns); 2) relational approaches to counseling; and 3) harm reduction in social services.  In addition to these anchor workshops, The Relational Center occasionally offers seminars or lectures in response to relevant emerging issues or requests from the general public.  Our supervisors workshop is very popular, owing mostly to its focus on experiential learning and skills building, and is one The Relational Center is committed to offering four times a year.  Our next supervisors workshop is scheduled for Sunday, February 1, 2009 (see below).

1. Relational Supervision - A Dialogical, Experiential Model

This workshop provides training in supervision strategies that maximize participation of the supervisor and supervisee(s). Workshop lecture focuses on the use of supervision as an opportunity to model how care providers and other staff can foster high levels of participation among their consumers.  Collaborative supervision equips supervisors to attend to the tasks of quality management and professional development in a balanced way. The second half of day, participants will have the opportunity for supervised practice of supervision. Participants will present cases, supervise each other, and receive live-time feedback from the trainer. Participants will also learn how to incorporate teaching and coaching into the supervision process as indicated by the nature of the supervisee’s developmental needs. Total training time is 6 hours. 

Next Date: Sunday, February 1, 2009 · Time: 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Fee: $100 · CE: 6 Units for BBS & BOP
To enroll for this workshop, you must pay your fee in advance.

Or you can mail a check or money order to:
The Relational Center
5486 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

2. Relational Approaches to Counseling

This presentation focuses on the use of relational approaches to psychotherapy with clients from minority communities. Emphasis will be placed on the critical role that both contextualism and developmental theory play in supporting effective work with marginalized clients who are necessarily hypervigilant to social cues related to issues of culture, class and color. Attention will also be given to the use of the phenomenological method as a reliable strategy for investigating various contextual factors as they are perceived from multiple perspectives. Continuing education units will be offered.

Next Date: TBD · Time: 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Fee: $35 · CE: 2 Units for BBS & BOP

3. Harm Reduction in Social Services

This training explores ways that a strict abstinence approach to working with high-risk substance users limits the creativity of the social services provider while raising the threshold to care among the majority of people who practice harmful behaviors. Arguments are made for a harm reduction approach especially when working with the multiply diagnosed. The familiar emphasis on independence is explored in light of more relational trends in care delivery that give rise to a shift toward interdependency and a greater acknowledgment of mutual influence. Harm reduction strategies are highlighted and implications for work with vulnerable populations are explored.

Next Date: TBD · Time: 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Fee: $35 · CE: 2 Units for BBS & BOP