Professional Development Courses
Tuesday, April 6 and Wednesday, April 7
8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Introduction to Thanatology: Dying, Death and Bereavement
Faculty: Sherry R Schachter, PhD, FT
Course Description: This course gives an overview and summary of the field of thanatology based upon the Body of Knowledge published by ADEC. It explores the social, cultural, psychological, legal/ethical and spiritual issues raised by illness, dying, death and bereavement. All information is relevant to everyday life and most specifically to those practitioners providing support to the dying and bereaved. The course will explore the meaning of death and examine personal attitudes and fears, in order to understand the grieving process and basic grief support throughout the life span.
Sherry Schachter, PhD, FT, is the director of bereavement services for Calvary Hospital/Hospice where she develops, coordinates and facilitates educational services for staff and families. Schachter is a recipient of the prestigious Lane Adams Award for Excellence in Cancer Nursing from the American Cancer Society. For more than 27 years, she has worked with dying patients and their family caregivers. She previously worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City for 23 years where she was an attending grief therapist and coordinator of the hospital’s bereavement program. She has a private practice in New York City and Pennsylvania and also publishes and lectures on issues related to dying, death and loss. She is a past president of the Association for Death Education and Counseling® and a member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement.
Intermediate Course: Grief Counseling
Faculty: Ben Wolfe, MEd LI.C.S.W. FT
Course Description: This course examines key concepts related to the human response to loss and the facilitation of healthy bereavement. Topics include theoretical models of the grief experience, risk and resilience, developmental, cultural, family and other mediating factors in normal, uncomplicated bereavement using the most current research and theoretical perspectives in the field. The course will explore specific strategies and counseling tools to effectively counsel individuals, couples, families or groups coping with loss.
Faculty: Ben Wolfe, MEd, LICSW, FT, is the founder and program manager of the 25-year-old St. Mary’s Medical Center’s Grief Support Center (GSC) in Duluth, MN. He is a Fellow in Thanatology and provides life-threatening illness and bereavement counseling for ages ranging from pre-school to senior citizens through individual and family counseling and support groups. Ben has given over 1,800 presentations at the local, regional, state, national and international levels, taught university graduate courses for over 25 years, and for the last 21 years, a course on life-threatening illness at the University of Minnesota, Duluth School of Medicine. He is a clinical member of the regional CISD team and consults with hospitals, hospices, schools, agencies, organizations and industry on topics related to grief and loss. Ben is a past president of ADEC, Co-Chair of ADEC’s Hospital-Based Bereavement Networking Group, and for the past 15 years has served as Chair of the 300-member Minnesota Coalition for Death Education and Support. In addition to chapters in books, he has authored numerous articles related to grief and loss. Ben has received a number of awards, including the ADEC Service Award in 1994, the first-ever Senator Paul Wellstone Legacy Award presented by the Minnesota School Counselors Association in May, 2004, for his work with schools and communities in crisis, and in May, 2005, was selected as “Employee of the Year” by St. Mary’s Medical Center. Ben also bakes bread the old-fashioned way and enjoys humor.
Advanced Course: Complicated Bereavement and Grief Therapy
Faculty: Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD
Course Description: A significant percentage of individuals who lose a loved one struggle with prolonged and debilitating grief that merits professional intervention. The goal of this course is to draw on contemporary models and research findings that help distinguish between benign (or resilient) patterns of grieving and those that are more complicated, traumatic or entail greater risk to the bereaved person’s psychosocial adaptation, health and interpersonal relationships. The course will acquaint participants with specific conceptual and practical tools for evaluating and intervening in such complications.
Faculty: Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD, is a professor and the director of psychotherapy research in the Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, editor of two respected international journals, Death Studies and the Journal of Constructivist Psychology and a former president of ADEC. The author of over 300 articles and book chapters, he is currently working to advance a more adequate theory of grieving as a meaning-making process.
Supporters
Premium
Non-Profit Supporter
Bronze
Non-Profit Supporter
