Southborough’s Public Health Department is bringing in an expert to talk to parents about “Raising Resilient Kids”.
The sessions will take place in January, starting with a focus on kids’ Emotional Superpowers on January 5th.
The series is open to Southborough and Northborough parents/guardians of kids of all ages. It will take place on three consecutive Thursday evenings from 7:00 – 8:30 pm in the auditorium at Algonquin Regional High School (79 Bartlett St, Northborough). Southborough’s Public Health Director Heather Alker noted that attendees don’t have to attend all three sessions to participate.
The first session is on January 5th — Your Child’s Emotional Superpower Explained
Learn about the biological developmental stages your child’s emotion-processing centers go through during preadolescence and adolescence. Learn about the contributing factors to high emotional reactivity and what you can do right now to decrease the intensity.
Parents are understandably confused by their kids’ responses to strong emotions, which can often become self-destructive or avoidant. Learn how the developing brain responds to stress, and the mechanisms that different “coping” behaviors have on overwhelming emotions and how they often become habitual. With this information, you will be able to approach your child when they are overwhelmed in ways their brains can absorb.
The speaker in the series is Kerrie Toole of Castlebrook Counseling Services. Her bio on their website reads:
Kerrie Toole, LICSW is the Executive Director of Castlebrook Counseling Services, and is an independently licensed clinical social worker who specializes in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) with adolescents and adults. Kerrie also has a subspecialty treating individuals in the transgender and LGBTQ+ community. Kerrie graduated with her Master’s Degree in Social Work from Columbia University, and for many years worked in residential programs for adolescents. She is a highly empathic, validating, and energetic person, and provides supportive, solution-oriented therapy, with a focus on assisting individuals and families to develop new ways of thinking about problems and the choices that they can make to resolve or cope with them. She has clinical expertise in treating depression, anxiety, self-harmful behaviors, suicidality, borderline personality disorder, mood disorders, recovery from trauma and abuse, difficult family dynamics, as well as a multitude of other emotional, behavioral, and social issues. Kerrie has been a practitioner of DBT for over 20 years, and is passionate about providing this evidence-based treatment to assist her clients in developing positive coping strategies and building a healthy lifestyle. Kerrie also provides clinical consultation to local schools and programs seeking to integrate DBT into their settings.
Kerrie Toole is a DBT-Linehan Board of Certification, Certified Clinician™. Kerrie is the 10th clinician in Massachusetts to earn this certification, and 316th person in the United States. To read more about this certification process, visit our ‘Services’ tab HERE.
Mark your calendars and stay tuned for details on the 2nd and 3rd sessions:
- January 12 — No Such Thing As A Bad Feeling: Why Our Best Intentions Can Backfire and What to Do Differently
- January 19 — The Magical Skill of Validation The #1 Technique Every Parent Needs to Know
(image edited from flyer)
