Become a Highly Effective Therapist Working with Anxious Children & Teens
Wondering how you can be most effective in your work with anxious children and teens?
Unsure of how to get kids to use strategies outside your office?
Unsure of how to help children cope in the heat of an emotional meltdown?
Does their need to seek reassurance or big emotional reactions prevent them from moving forward in therapy?
Unsure of how to help parents understand behaviours and emotional reactions?
Is it hard to get child or parent buy-in?
Need practical strategies that can be used at home and school?
Does it seem like little progress is happening? Or is stalled completely? Like these kiddos are still experiencing the same symptoms even after several sessions, unable to take meaningful action against their anxiety? Like your efforts are not helping with long-term relief?
Are you inundated with so much information about anxiety that it’s hard to know what to do next? Or to know what approach is best?
Do typical workshops provide too much theory and too little practical therapy techniques? Is it hard to implement what you learn?
Child and adolescent anxiety has risen in epidemic proportions over the years (and has only multiplied since COVID). However, less than 28% of these kiddos ask for help. And, unfortunately, for those who do, most find that the support they received unhelpful. So many clinicians use outdated strategies that stall client progress or make anxiety worse.
Doing mediocre work is a problem because we can hinder brain development and ingrain anxiety, resulting in lifelong struggles with anxiety.
To improve client outcomes and be the highly effective therapist you need to be for your anxious clients, it is essential to master practical tools that you can easily individualize to best fit their needs.
The trouble is….
Many CE training workshops teach more theory and less practical tools, are just boring, or are plain ineffective because the skills don't generalize to practice.
You need practical strategies to help your clients master anxiety.
Imagine...
Feeling confident each and every session
Skillfully integrating effective and individualized strategies to bust anxiety
Motivating kiddos (and their parents!) to use strategies outside of sessions
Making noticeable, meaningful progress with each session
Easily managing any obstacle in therapy
Knowing how to treat even the most severe anxiety symptoms
Having optimal client outcomes with few dropouts
Watching your clients and practice thrive
As a mental health professional, learning theory only improves your practice marginally, if at all...
...which is why I developed a competency-based training program to improve skills and optimize client outcomes.
Introducing...
Anxiety Compass Mastery Training program
This training is for mental health therapists learning the essential, practical tools to help children and teens manage anxiety
Our Anxiety Compass training program is designed for professionals like you to become highly effective in your work.
You will learn practical, powerful, cutting-edge interventions to manage anxiety.
In this program, you will:
Develop a thorough understanding of anxiety and its manifestations in neurobiology, emotions, and behaviours.
Know the mechanisms for coping with anxiety.
Avoid all the common mistakes therapists make that can slow client progress.
Learn how to frame your approach within clients’ values to create and maintain lasting change, especially when progress seems stalled, scary, or too hard.
Effectively teach clients how their current coping strategies are not working and empower them to do things differently.
Learn and practice unique and essential techniques to reduce resistance, boost motivation, and ultimately help children and teens cope with anxiety.
Effectively tailor your approach to best fit each of your client’s unique needs.
Empower clients face, tolerate, and change their relationship with worries.
Test drive strategies, refine your skills, ask questions, and receive expert, consultative feedback to optimize your skill development.
Start seeing immediate and lasting results with these cutting-edge interventions.
Doing this work can be fulfilling and energizing again!
Here’s other professionals are saying about Dr. Caroline Buzanko:
“The presenter was exceptional- one of the best I have listened to in years. She was extremely knowledgeable. This webinar will be a significant help in my role as a school psychologist.”
“Caroline was very knowledgeable. She provided several personal and work-related examples; this was extremely helpful. This webinar will definitely help me in my work as a psychologist. Thank you Caroline!”
“IT IS STUPENDOUS... SO MUCH to learn, but it is all SO GOOD.”
“I got so much out of the whole course, I thought the section on resistance was just gold.”
“Caroline was very informative, animated and delivered the information in an interesting way. She was passionate."
“After completing the course I felt more confident.”
Learn more about our Anxiety Compass expert:
Psychologist & Director of Training
Dr. Caroline Buzanko
Dr. Caroline Buzanko is a psychologist with over 20 years of clinical experience working with children, teens, and their families. In her clinical work, she specializes in the assessment and treatment of ADHD, ASD, learning difficulties, anxiety, and behavioural disorders. Notably, she is a leading clinician and trainer in the differential diagnosis of ADHD, autism, and its related populations. She also offers therapeutic interventions to support anxious children, teens, and their families.
Dr. Buzanko is a sought-out speaker and accredited trainer who was featured in various media platforms as an expert on child and teen development. She has developed numerous training programs and workshops for parents, medical doctors, allied mental health professionals, and school professionals on topics related to ADHD, behaviour management, anxiety, autism, and learning difficulties.
Her research interests focus on positive child and youth development and resiliency, as well as parent-child relationships. All of her research to date has directed informed clinical practice, including the development of the Amazing Sibs! support program for siblings of autistic children and informing clinical practice as it relates to the assessment and diagnosis of autism and ADHD.
The Koru Learning Institute (KLI) is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education training programs. KLI maintains responsibility for this program and its content. A certificate of completion is available to attendees who attend the training and pass the post-test (75% or higher). Individuals with disabilities requiring special accommodations please contact Dr. Buzanko at info@korupsychology.ca
Course Curriculum
Module 1: Understand
Clarify the misinformation on anxiety. Gain in-depth knowledge of the nature of anxiety, the brain’s evolutionary role in creating and holding on to anxiety, the main pathways of anxiety, what maintains anxiety, and how anxiety shows up. This is a critical first step in being effective in your work.
Module 2: Connect
Teach parents how to: 1. Respond to anxiety in helpful ways, 2. Become effective emotion coaches, and 3. Promote their child’s confidence and independence.
Module 3: Inspire
Within this part of the compass, you will learn how to deep dive into what is most important for the anxious children and teens they work with. Learn how to connect their “Big Why” to the work that needs to be done in managing that anxiety effectively.
Module 4: Externalize and Expose
Learn how to help anxious kids become experts in their brain and anxiety as they develop awareness of when and how anxiety shows up in their life. With this awareness, you can help kids externalize and expose anxiety for what it is and start to examine it in a new light, which automatically lessen the worries that come with it.
Module 5: Accept and Unwind
Since we cannot get rid of anxiety, you will learn how to teach anxious children and teens how to accept anxiety once it has shown up and continue with their day–or night–even if they still feel anxious. By increasing their acceptance, they increase their tolerance of anxiety.
Module 6: Detach and Enhance
Because anxiety likes to overwhelm and make people think the worst, in this step of the compass, mental health professionals teach anxious children and teens how to demote and detach from anxious thoughts so they can start figuring things out for themselves.
There are a multitude of strategies that are taught in this step so that children and teens can find which ones work best for them.
Module 7: Dare and Defy
While every part of the compass can be individualized to each person’s needs, individualization of this step in the compass is essential. Therefore, mental health professionals learn how to conduct a functional assessment to set up the most effective exposure treatment plan for the specific child or teen they are working with. They also set up effective exposure trials with the goal of ensuring the child or adolescent learns something new (and therefore begins to rewire their brain). You will also learn how to support parents in creating an anxiety-busting lifestyle.
Module 8: Thrive
In the compass’ final step, mental health professionals teach patients (and their caregivers) how to continue their successes to avoid relapse. Children and teens learn about how anxiety likes them to forget their successes and how they must continuously connect to their past successes to keep going forward.
Options
Save $ when you pay in full! However, if you cannot pay in full, we also have a monthly payment plan available.
approved by the Canadian Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education training programs. KLI maintains responsibility for this program and its content. A certificate of completion is available to attendees who attend the training and pass the post-test (75% or higher). Individuals with disabilities requiring special accommodations please contact Dr. Buzanko at info@korupsychology.ca