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Illinois Child-Parent Psychotherapy Learning Collaborative

A professional development training program for mental health therapists.

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MENTAL HEALTH AND TRAUMA-FOCUSED CLINICAL TRAINING

Deepening the Ability to Provide Therapeutic Services

The mental health of families with young children who have experienced trauma and domestic violence are complex.

That’s why our experts help train licensed or license-eligible providers of mental health in child-parent psychotherapy (CPP) for agencies. Through a learning collaborative approach, clinicians and providers working with children age birth to 5 will learn about the CPP model and be eligible for national rostering after the completion of the 18-month program.

Whether you are a clinical social worker, mental health counselor, family therapist or psychologist, you will gain new skills and knowledge that you can apply directly into your practice.

Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) Helps Caregivers and Young Children

Evidence-based treatment for those who have experienced trauma.

The model focuses on the use of the child-parent relationship to reduce symptoms of trauma, promote child development, and identify how parents’ early life experiences may impact their interactions with and expectations of their children from birth to age 5.

Therapist typically works with the parent and the child together with the goal of repairing the parent-child relationship and bringing again the feeling and belief that the parent can lovingly protect and keep the child safe. Additional individual treatments with the child or caregiver may also be used.

Illinois Child-Parent Psychotherapy Learning Collaborative Training Overview

Teams of clinicians and supervisors complete training as a team and provide support to one another during and after this training. Upon completion participants can embed CPP practice throughout their agency.

30 +
CEUS for Social Work, Licensed Clinical Social Work and psychology
18
Months
3
In-person trainings each lasting 2-3 days
2 x
Monthly consultation calls outside of learning sessions
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Invest in Your Future

And make a deeper impact with the community you serve.

The cost of the Learning Collaborative is inclusive of 8 full days of training and a minimum of 36 hours of consultation. Learning sessions are led by experts including one of the creators of CPP from the Child Trauma Research Program, Chandra Ghosh Ippen. Chandra is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in early childhood trauma and her participation certainly adds to the value of the training experience.

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A Proven Model to Help Agencies

Initiate or grow your organization’s services for families in need.

Learning Collaboratives are considered one of the most highly effective strategies for deepening the mental health field’s ability to provide therapeutic services to families with very young children. It has been used by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network to train mental health practitioners on a variety of evidenced-based practices throughout the United States.

This training model focuses on adoption of best practices across a group of diverse service providers. Participants share their work with one another and identify how to improve practice and systems to learn from each other in a supportive, peer context.

Illinois Child-Parent Psychotherapy Learning Collaborative FAQs

Find the answers to the questions prospective participants ask about the Learning Collaborative.

Participants must also engage in regular supervision at their agency (ideally weekly) by a CPP trained clinician/supervisor or someone that is participating in the learning collaborative. There are also monthly reports of CPP implementation completed online (10–15-minutes). It is expected that all participants will read the primary CPP Manual (Don’t Hit My Mommy, 2nd Edition: Lieberman, Ghosh Ippen and Van Horn, 2015) before the first learning session.

Yes, agencies not currently providing CPP can participate provided at least one supervisor participates in the Learning Collaborative as well as its clinicians.

We do not train students, unless they are in final stages of social work training and eligible for licensing (e.g., finalizing supervised practice hours).

Yes, independent clinicians can participate provided they have the support of a trained CPP supervisor. Clinicians will be responsible for any cost associated with this ongoing supervision. We strongly encourage independent clinicians to come together to form groups (or “pods”) led by a CPP supervisor. This allows for peer learning and shared cost of supervision. Clinicians may participate with a group of self-identified team members, or we can aid you.