Events

Professional Training Event

Family-Centered Practice: Observational Strategies for Including the Infant's Voice in Family Therapy and other Professional Contexts

Registration Now Open: January 26, 2024 - St. Petersburg, Florida

The USF Family Study Center, abutting the beautiful St. Petersburg waterfront, proudly announces the next event in our 20th anniversary conference series. Join professional colleagues from a variety of disciplines for "Family-Centered Practice: Observational Strategies for Including the Infant's Voice in Family Therapy and other Professional Contexts" and learn to integrate infants more fully into therapeutic practice.  

Event synopsis

“Family-centered practice” requires that practitioners attend to multiple voices. In families where infants and toddlers are parented by two or more adults, a minimum of three “voices” must be heard. Even very young infants contribute to family’s dynamics through their non-verbal communication and behavioral signals. Yet few family therapies include babies or listen to their communications, and few infancy therapies include more than one parent – let alone siblings.

Join two of the world’s foremost infant-family mental health experts and transform your practice by learning to better attend to the “voices” of babies in your work. Improve observational skills and identify common behaviors pre-verbal babies use to send messages during family interactions. Discover strategies to support constructive coparenting relationships using simple, informative assessment procedures that evoke infant-family communication. Learn how to elevate coparents awareness of messages babies send about interests, needs, and concerns.  

This training will be offered in-person, with a livestream option available to people across the U.S. and internationally unable to be with us in St. Petersburg. Open to professionals in marriage and family therapy, social work, clinical psychology, nursing, pediatrics, and psychiatry. Early Bird registration rates, and graduate student rates, are available.


Our Speakers

Miri KerenDr. Miri Keren, Bar Ilan University Azrieli School of Medicine

Dr. Miri Keren is a Past President of the World Association of Infant Mental Health, a role she held from 2012-2016. She is an Associate Professor at the Bar Ilan University Azrieli School of Medicine, an International Advisor on the Editorial board of the Infant Mental Health Journal and was a core member of the Diagnostic Classification for Early Childhood Revision International Task Force.



Diane PhilippDr. Diane Philipp, University of Toronto

Dr. Diane Philipp is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Medical School and staff psychiatrist at the Sickkids Centre for Community Mental Health where she heads an infant and preschool mental health team. She has developed a play-based model that focuses on Attachment and Family Systems Theories to address the need for a family therapy approach that is inclusive of the infant, very young children, and coparents. The approach is called Reflective Family Play. She has published and taught this model internationally.


REGISTRATION AND ACCOMMODATIONS

Registration Fee (includes CE Credits): $225

Graduate Student Fee (requires Student ID Information): $100

Requests for attendee cancellation must be received in writing to USF no later than Thursday, January 11, 2024. No refunds will be made for cancellations received after January 11, 2024. All cancellations received by January 11, 2024, will receive a full refund, less a $50 administrative fee. Registrations are non-refundable after January 11, 2024. Email familystudycenter20@usf.edu for any cancellations, refunds, or other requests. Please note the request type in the subject line.