When: Friday & Saturday, July 12 & 13 2024 | 09:00-17:00
Where: 7th Level Auditorium, The American College of Greece, 6 Gravias Str., Aghia Paraskevi Campus

About the Event

Get ready for two days of unique Counselor MakerSpace opportunities!
This Learning Institute will take a shift from our past Learning Institutes. We are creating a MakerSpace for you to be able to bring your ideas, questions, and challenges with you and walk away with support to implement your new ideas specific to your setting with our guided topics! Our speakers have been chosen based on feedback from our members and their ability to help you craft your knowledge and meet your setting’s needs.

DAY 1: You and your colleagues from across Europe, the U.S., and more with discuss how to create social-emotional supportive school environments, and how to enhance sexual violence prevention in your community and schools.
DAY 2 (am): Choose Your Adventure!
You can choose to take a deep dive into Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and how this can be a game changer at your school or university setting OR if you are thinking about relocating to Europe (specifically Greece) come with your list of questions and ideas to participate in: “It’s All Greek to Me” where presenters will discuss working in Greece as clinicians, school counselors, and in private practice and have our speakers help you understand what you need to become a counselor or counselor educator in Greece.
DAY 2 (pm): You will then have the choice to choose between learning how you can support your school or clients who have been impacted by secondary trauma and learn about what selfcare you may need OR for those who are interested in creating a counseling clinic in a very modern way you will find our speakers will help you with that process.
Bring your thoughts, half-baked ideas, and/or partial paperwork of what you would like to work on and our speakers will work with you to personalize your experiences to take back to your setting!

Registration is required. To register, please send an email at [email protected]. 

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Day 1

Carol Dahir
Title: Creating Social-Emotional Supportive School Environments

Session 1
09:00-10:50 (or 8:50 to 10:50)

Session description:
Now more than ever before students need mental health support in school to address stress, trauma, and feelings of insecurity. Recent data shows adolescent mental health has worsened during and since the pandemic and this reinforces the important role schools play in promoting mental health and well-being (CDC, 2023). Children, youth, and teens face an increase in anxiety and insecurity which may be attributed to issues such as social media dependency, exposure to world-wide violence, and upticks in bullying. Schools and school counselors increasingly need to identify and respond to student social/emotional development and mental health issues. Students in International and DoD school may be seeking a place to belong as oftentimes their families move frequently. For children and youth, mental health also includes reaching developmental and emotional milestones, and acquiring learning skills to cope with challenges and function well at home, school, and in their communities. Mental health is a component of behavioral health, which also includes choices or actions that affect overall wellness. Social-emotional learning (SEL), as a component of comprehensive school counseling programs, include universal interventions for every student to help them process their experience, promote resilience to adversity and help our students and families’ cope. This session also will incorporate transformative social and emotional learning which focuses specifically on advancing equity among all students and addressing inequity (e.g., how issues of race, class, and culture influence society). Building a successful SEL program involves engaging administrators, teachers, and school staff in a collaborative developmental process and can become a key asset in the mental health climate and culture in your school community.

Learning Objectives
Participants will:
● Examine current challenges to students’ feeling safe and secure in our schools.
● Explore how social/emotional learning contributes to a positive learning environment.
● Recognize factors in the school environment, school climate, and school culture that influence and impact students’ success.
● Identify the steps necessary to incorporate social/emotional learning as an integral component of the comprehensive school counseling program.
● Problem solve your school’s needs through discussion of case studies.
● Exploring the link between SEL and sexual violence prevention.

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Pritha Mani
Title: It’s On US! Sexual Violence Prevention

Session 2
11:10-13:00 (11:10-13:10pm)

Session description:
Sexual violence as defined by WHO refers to “any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work” (WHO, 2021). Violence against women and children permeates all societies and crosses boundaries of race, religion, and cultures. The effects of sexual violence are extensive and long lasting impacting the whole community. An individual’s psychological/socio-emotional and their academic performance do not exist in isolation from each other and cannot be treated as such. The rise in sexual violence in schools is very worrisome indeed and needs to be viewed as an epidemic that necessitates immediate action. This workshop aims to address the urgent need for effective prevention strategies and interventions to combat sexual violence in educational settings. It will provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of the prevalence of sexual violence in schools and its impact on a students’ physical, psychological and emotional well-being. Participants learning, will equip students with the skills needed to help peers who may be survivors of sexual violence and promote an environment that is safe and supportive.
In addition, this session will provide counsellors with practical guidance on how to respond to the disclosure of sexual violence, ensuring that they are aware of legal procedures and pathways to help survivors navigate their traumatic experience.
Finally, the session will emphasise the importance of a collaborative approach when addressing sexual violence which have proven to be successful when there is a collaborative and repetitive effort from all stakeholders including: school counsellors, directors, principals, school staff and teachers in order to create effective policies and procedures that address prevention and support services.

Learning Objectives
● Recognize the signs and symptoms of sexual violence.
● Evaluate personal biases and assumptions related to sexual violence prevention.
● Examine evidence based strategies and interventions for preventing sexual violence in school settings; tailored to the needs of students.
● Identify steps in providing a supportive, trauma-informed response to a disclosure of sexual violence.
● Explore the importance of collaborating with other disciplines, such as psychiatrists social workers, educators, lawyers, doctors in addressing sexual violence.
● Exploring the link between SEL and sexual violence prevention.

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Session 3
MakerSpace 14:15-15:15 (2 workshops)
Self-care (combined) 15:15-15:45
Participants will choose one of two MakerSpace workshops:
Building a SEL K-12 School Counseling Curriculum/Program Tool Kit
Supporting Survivors of Sexual Violence: Creating a Tool Kit
Participants in both groups will come together for the last half hour to create a self-care box to support emotional regulation.

Day 2

     

 

 

 

 

Alessandra Sax-Lane & Dr. Mari Janikian
Title: It’s All Greek to Me
Are you interested in working overseas as a counselor or counselor educator? Specifically, in Greece? We would love to share our experiences and share our journeys with you. The idea of counseling, psychotherapy, and the helping professions can differ based on what country you are considering. Everyone’s journey is different and we would like to share both of ours in hopes that it offers some clarity to navigating establishing yourself in private practice, schools as a counselor, or as a faculty member in Greece. If you have already begun the process in order to work overseas, great! Bring your questions, documents, and most importantly your vision for what that will look like for you!

Learning Objectives
To understand the Greek definitions of what a counselor is (and isn’t!) and who gets to call themselves a counselor.
Greek law, standards, and limitations to what a person can do with an American or otherwise “out of the country” license to practice.
To learn how “community mental health counselors
To support you on your journey to learning our experiences and help get you started with where to begin.

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

Lillian Nave & Jill Weidknecht Van Horne
Title: Modernizing University Counseling Clinics: Updates, Lessons, and Best Practices through a Global Pandemic
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
● Identify 3 components of UDL.
● Explain that valuing reflection comes from a culturally integrated (as opposed to individuated) perspective.
● Choose interventions in their teaching practice to provide students with multiple means of engagement through self-assessment and reflection.

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

Rachael Marshall & Michael Levine
Title: Modernizing University Counseling Clinics: Updates, Lessons, and Best Practices through a Global Pandemic
It has been four years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic. The developments spurred by the Global pandemic have increased the need for access to mental health services. As university clinics transitioned to telemental health, this created new obstacles for training and services, however it allowed for new accessible avenues for clients to get healthcare services. Master’s-level students provide services at university clinics, which are offered to the students and the local community at a significantly reduced cost. Presenters will introduce their work from The Center for Counseling and Diagnostic Services (CCDS) Clinic, which offers three distinct services: counseling, psychoeducational assessments, and reading intervention (Ortiz & Levine, 2021). The functional nature of this clinic dedicates time and resources to collaboration across multiple helping professions, including school psychology, counseling, and language and literacy. Participants in this Counseling MakersSpace can work with multiple helpers on how their clinic can transition to telemental health, maintain safety, and continue to transition with community needs. Presenters will provide updates, lessons learned, and ethical considerations for best practice, explicitly addressing client, counselor-in-training, and supervisor experiences through program evaluation. Participants can attend at any level of interest or creation. Presenters will collaborate to personalize and develop a plan for starting, establishing, and updating clinics through the current health, safety, and security developments. The overarching goal is to increase access and decrease barriers to mental health, training, funding and education.

Learning Objectives
By the end of the workshop participants will:
● Understand clinic expansion and examples and apply them to their current clinic development.
● Analyze their clinic development with accessibility standards, ethical practice, and cultural relevance.
● Create an implementation plan for their next steps in clinic development, including client experiences, counselor-in-training supervision, supervisor support, marketing, community immersion, funding, and program evaluation.

 

Dr. Juliana Deans
Title: Secondary Trauma and Self-Care During War Times
During war times, it is understandable that anxiety and trauma would arise. It is these times, it is imperative we utilize self-care to help deal with the crisis of war. Practicing self-care is a valuable way to maintain personal well-being amid challenging circumstances. This training will identify five ways to help cope during times of war.

By the end of the training, attendees will learn that self-care includes:
●  Maintaining mental well-being
●  Preserving physical health
●  Having safety and security measures in place
●  Seeking emotional support
●  Engaging in community