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Client self-disclosure of personal history is essential to assessment, treatment, and the development of effective plans for preventing further harm to others. Steven Sawyer, MSSW, LICSW, ATSA-F developed this training to offer methods for helping clients to explore their life experiences, including the use of a structured workbook called Your Personal History.
Empathic workplace leadership is fundamental to effective treatment and supervision, especially when the work can cause trauma in the professionals doing that work. When staff work in high-pressure environments, a leadership approach grounded in empathy can inspire professionals to be their best. However, the results of a recent Safer Society survey on workplace stressors and motivators highlight a critical issue: professionals working to prevent abuse often view management as a greater source of stress than of support.
Presenters Anette Birgersson and Christin Santiago—professionals with extensive experience in all aspects of leadership—developed this training to address this challenge directly. Their work underscores that empathic, trauma-informed leadership is essential not only for supporting professionals but also for enhancing staff retention, building trust and resilience throughout an organization, and delivering consistent, effective services to clients.
Dan Knoepfler is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Certified Sex Offender Treatment Provider in Washington State. He has worked with children with sexual behavior problems for 40 years. He has worked with adults with sexual behavior problems for 25. As Washington State increases its focus on the unique issues relating to emerging adults, he has been involved in working with this population as well.
This training shows participants how to effectively integrate the workbooks into their therapeutic practice. Presenter and author David Prescott begins the training by reviewing the core principles of the GLM. He then offers ideas for how clinicians and counselors can use each section. Central to this training is its focus on dovetailing the GLM and these workbooks with Motivational Interviewing skills and the principles of Trauma-Informed Care, ensuring that intervention is not only effective but also client-centered and deeply supportive.
Strengths-based services for children, adolescents, families, and adults have become far more widely used in recent years. While much of this practice has been in response to trends in research, many professionals simply prefer to take a more positive, strengths-focused approach, particularly when working with adolescents who have caused sexual harm.
Dr. Kevin Powell has been a leading light in strengths-based work throughout his career, with an extensive record of publications and presentations on the subject. In this training, Dr. Powell describes a challenging case involving an adolescent mandated to receive sexual offense-specific treatment.
Developing and maintaining healthy relationships is a central aspect of treatment for sexual offending. Relationships shape how individuals see themselves, connect with others, and find meaning and accountability in their lives. Yet for many people who have caused harm, the path toward genuine intimacy, trust, and empathy can be filled with obstacles. Professionals working in this field face unique challenges in helping clients develop their capacity for closeness while addressing fears, misunderstandings, and past traumas that affect connection. This work invites both professionals and clients to rethink what healthy relationships can look like in all their diversity and complexity. Building on these ideas, we invite you to join us for this series of professional dialogues moderated by Jay Herman, LCSW, and David Prescott, LICSW.