Professional Development Resources Publishes New Online Course on Building Resilience in Young Children

    JACKSONVILLE, FL, July 16, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Professional Development Resources, a national provider of accredited continuing education units for psychologists, social workers, counselors, speech-language pathologists, and occupational therapists, has announced a new addition to its continuing education (CE) curriculum for health professionals: Building Resilience in your Young Client. The course is designed to teach psychotherapists effective and practical strategies for building resilience in children who have experienced adversity in their young lives.

According to the author, Adina Soclof, MS - a speech-language pathologist in Ohio, "health professionals today are treating an increasing number of children who have difficulty coping with 21st century everyday life. Issues that are hard to deal with include excessive pressure to succeed in school, bullying, divorce, poverty, or even abuse at home. This course provides a working definition of resilience and descriptions of the characteristics that may be associated with better outcomes for children who confront adversity in their lives. It also identifies particular groups of children - most notably those with developmental challenges and learning disabilities - who are most likely to benefit from resilience training."

The root word for resilience is resilire, which means to bounce back or rebound after being stressed. Although many definitions of resilience have been proposed, all contain two common elements: 1) an exposure to great risk; and 2) corresponding factors that help promote positive outcomes or reduce negative outcomes. Resilience is described as a dynamic development process of responding more positively than expected after facing risk. It is measured by how well someone reacts to a threat using his or her own abilities and available support systems.

"It has long been observed that there are certain children who experience better outcomes than others who are subjected to similar adversities," says Leo Christie, PhD, President of Professional Development Resources. "While many children thrive in the face of adversity and meet their challenges with resilience, others experience setbacks and disappointment when confronting difficulties. A significant amount of literature has been devoted to the questions of why this disparity exists and whether resilience skills can be taught."

Building Resilience in your Young Client describes seven core competencies that have been identified as necessary in building resilience. These are:

1. Emotional regulation: The ability to stay calm under pressure and express emotions in ways that helps the situation.
2. Impulse control: The ability to stop and choose whether to take action; the ability to delay gratification and persevere in the face of adversity.
3. Causal analysis: The ability to analyze problems and accurately determine their causes.
4. Empathy: The ability to understand the feelings and needs of another person.
5. Realistic optimism: The ability to maintain a positive outlook without denying reality.
6. Self-efficacy: The ability to influence one's environment, solve problems and handle stress; the ability to persevere.
7. Reaching out: The ability to recognize openings in opportunities to reach out to others.

Each of the core competencies is illustrated, using examples and strategies for teaching resilience skills in therapy and in the classroom. The focus of the interventions described is primarily on children who have developmental disabilities like autism spectrum disorder, learning disabilities, and/or communication difficulties. While most of them have not endured the devastating damage experienced by the children in the early resilience studies, they have at least two factors in common with them: first, they have multiple layers of adversity to cope with in their daily lives at home and at school and, second, they can benefit from learning skills that can help them experience relatively good outcomes despite risk experiences.

Intervention strategies and techniques described in the course include calming exercises, impulse control training, problem solving, social skills development, building an optimistic outlook, critical thinking skills, self-efficacy training, relationship building, stress management, analyzing thinking styles, and many others.

About Professional Development Resources, Inc.

Professional Development Resources, Inc. is a Florida nonprofit educational corporation 501(c)(3) organized in 1992 by licensed marriage and family therapist Leo Christie, PhD. The company, which is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB), the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC), the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), and the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR) - as well as many other national and state boards - has focused its efforts on making accredited continuing education units more cost-effective and widely accessible to health professionals by offering online home study coursework. Its current expanded curriculum includes a wide variety of clinical topics intended to equip health professionals to offer state-of-the art services to their clients.

Our mission is to provide busy health care professionals with accredited continuing education units on topics that are vital to contemporary clinical practice. In addition to our staff, we have a Professional Advisory Board consisting of accomplished professionals representing disciplines for which we offer our CEU credits. We are located in Jacksonville, Florida. Federal Tax ID 59-3138625.

Contact:
Leo Christie, PhD, CEO
Professional Development Resources, Inc.
904-645-3456
http://www.pdresources.org

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