Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with Parents

Parenting can be hard. It is well-documented that parents experience less positive psychological well-being compared to individuals who are not raising children. Parents and caregivers of children experiencing chronic health conditions or disabilities struggle even more. When parents struggle, it can be difficult for them to consistently support their children and use effective behavior management strategies. This 8-week course will provide a foundation in how to integrate ACT into clinical and behavioral work with parents and caregivers. This course will empower you to use ACT in your current work with parents and families, both as a stand-alone intervention, and to augment other evidence-based behavioral approaches. Over the course of the workshop, you will learn that engaging parents in effective, developmentally sensitive, and consistent parenting strategies – even in the face of strong emotions and doubts – is possible, and indeed essential to treatment success, particularly for families raising children with emotional or behavioral disorders. ACT with Parents is designed to:

• Help you put the ABCs back in your parent work by discussing the importance of understanding parenting from a behavioral perspective.
• Give an overview of ACT and its evidence-base with parents.
• Illustrate how psychological inflexibility can act as a barrier to parental well-being and consistent and adaptive parenting practices.
• Demonstrate how to incorporate specific ACT interventions into behavior management strategies.
• Show you how to effectively engage families of children and adolescents of varying ages and mental health challenges, including autism-spectrum disorders.

You will be invited to participate in experiential exercises, role-plays, and case discussions, with opportunities to actively apply and practice newly acquired skills. You’ll leave the course with helpful resources to guide your assessment, treatment, and evaluation of your parents’ progress in your sessions and beyond. Although behavioral parenting approaches have strong empirical evidence, many do not explicitly address the role of psychological inflexibility in caregivers. ACT with Parents was created to support parents’ psychological well-being, and to help shape effective, sensitive, and consistent parenting practices. This approach is based on sound contextual behavioral science, evolutionary principles, and evidence-based parenting strategies. Data on ACT with Parents suggests that it is associated with parents’ improved psychological flexibility, engagement in values-directed behavior, and decreased stress. There is also evidence suggesting that it can support more consistent, positive parenting behavior and improved child outcomes. Lisa Coyne, PhD, and Evelyn Gould, PhD, BCBA-D, LABA, will teach you how to use this approach in a skillful and empowering way so you can better support caregivers and their children. Lisa Coyne and Evelyn Gould have expertise in both clinical psychology and behavior analysis, coupled with many years of clinical experience in treating children and adolescents with mental health issues, chronic health conditions, and developmental disabilities, at every level of care. In addition, both are experienced clinical trainers and have worked with parents, caregivers, clinicians, and staff in the use of ACT across settings.