- Home
- 2024-01 Newsletter
The Redwood Empire Therapist
RECAMFT's Online Newsletter
January 2024
Attachment Infused Addiction Treatment Friday, January 5th, 2024 12:00 pm - 2:15 pm ZOOM 2.0 CEs
Presented by Mary Crocker Cook, PhD, LMFT Register here. |
Happy 50th Birthday to RECAMFT!! Come join us for RECAMFT's 50th Annual Members Meeting! No cake, but we'll do what we can on Zoom =)
|
|
Featured member
Did you miss the BBS-MANDATED 3 CE Telehealth course?
Telehealth: Law & Ethics, Technology, and Best Practices for Connecting with Your Clients with Lisa Wenninger, BC-TMH Catch it on video here, and get your mandated 3 Telehealth CEs. Return to top RECAMFT's Mission Statement The purpose of RECAMFT is to promote and maintain professional competence and integrity with knowledge, innovation, compassion, humor and respect for human dignity and diversity. We do this by providing opportunities for networking, education and community outreach. Got a sticky problem? Come discuss it confidentially with your colleagues at our next Ethics Roundtable
Not consultation, just a great way to get some ideas about how to handle your sticky case. Friendly and open group. Learn more here.
|
Dear RECAMFT Colleagues: I am honored to be RECAMFT's President as we celebrate our 50th Anniversary in 2024. The RECAMFT Board has several excellent presentations scheduled and other presentations under consideration are still being finalized. Please stay tuned!
Historically, CAMFT was founded in 1964, and our Redwood Empire chapter was established a decade later in 1974. RECAMFT has always been a well respected chapter of CAMFT and we certainly plan for that tradition to continue. Thank you to the Golden Jubilee Planning Committee for our beautiful new logo celebrating RECAMFT's 50th anniversary! Currently, we wish to congratulate our newest President Elect, Emily Larkin, as she stepped forward to join a long line of leaders guiding our chapter. We are also grateful to Tara D'Orazio for continuing in her role as our CFO. Laura Strom was elected to the Board as a Director at Large. We are in need of a Prelicensed Director at Large, and have room for other roles helping us run our organization. Please email me at therapy@recamft.org if you are interested in contributing your time and energy to RECAMFT. I am looking forward to a dynamic year bringing our community presentations that help our members improve clinical skills, and increase profitability. My goal to help our members have the opportunity to be well compensated for their extensive clinical skills. Wishing all peace and prosperity in 2024! Dr. Bob Casanova, PsyD, LMFT President, RECAMFT.org
SAVE THE DATE! Fri., Feb. 2nd
Presented by Danah Williams, LMFT
Danah Williams, MA, LMFT is a licensed psychotherapist with a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology and a Bachelor’s Degree in Organizational Psychology. Mrs. Williams has over 15 years of direct patient care implementing Dialectical Behavior Therapy across varied therapeutic settings. Recognizing the versatility of DBT, Mrs. Williams advocates for its broader application beyond BPD, helping therapists adapt its tenets for clients of all ages. Mrs. Williams is Past President (2020-2021) of California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and Santa Barbara CAMFT. Her website is https://www.calcoastalcounseling.com/. Welcome back, RECAMFT community! We are so excited to share some of the upcoming monthly CE events coming this fall:
CAMFT events to consider attending:
We are still reviewing applications for presentations to be scheduled for Spring 2024. Please submit an application if you have a presentation idea. Are you interested in seeing what we have coming up? Consider microvolunteering with the Programs & Conferences Committee! Microvolunteering opportunities: screening speaker applications; providing support at in person CE events; monitoring Q&A for speakers during monthly Zoom presentations. We are especially looking for a Programs Committee Chairperson.
February is Black History Month. There are numerous days and weeks of significance throughout the month. See more here. We especially welcome submissions where awareness themes intersect with mental health. Please send your submission (500 word max) to therapy@recamft.org by the 15th. Questions? therapy@recamft.org. Return to top |
January 
Dr. Bob Casanova, PsyD, LMFT was the 2017-18 President of state CAMFT. He has a 
Beyond BPD: Integrating DBT Skills into Comprehensive Psychotherapy Across Ages and Settings
We are seeking a new Prelicensed Director at Large to head our 
Call for Submissions for the Feb. 2024 Issue of The RECAMFT Therapist!
Please send an email to therapy@recamft.org if you can help. Return to top
Bring any craft you like, get on Zoom with us and visit with your colleagues while we knit, sew, paint, draw, cook, create, etc.
| Upcoming events
|
We STILL need help with
Are you creative? Join us for our 
Members! Your SHORT DESCRIPTION is the most important thing on your profile. Why? Because that shows in our
RECAMFT's Racial and Social Justice Pledge
RECAMFT is committed to equity including addressing structural racism and systemic injustice. We endeavor to be inclusive and value individuals from all ethnicities, ages, races, sexual orientations, genders, languages, abilities, religions, citizenship statuses, and socioeconomic backgrounds into our chapter and into treatment. We strive to advocate, educate, collaborate, and strategize for positive racial and social justice change within our membership and our community. Contact therapy@recamft.org to advertise a job.
If you are not currently enrolled in the listserv, please email therapy@recamft.org and ask to be added. You have the option of setting up your account to be
After you have been added to the listserv, you can change the way you receive the emails to any of the above choices. In Gmail the emails will appear under your Forums tab. To send an email to the listserv, simply address your email to recamft@groups.io If you do not want to be on our listserv, you can delete your account or write to therapy@recamft.org and ask to not be a part of the listserv. But we urge you to give it a try. You are missing out on a ton of meaningful collaboration with your colleagues. We hope you will enjoy being part of our online community! | Thoughts from the Racial & Social Justice Committee (RSJC) Thank You and Farewell from Katharina Kienböck and Linda Block
It was a powerful experience to be part of a group of dedicated therapists on the Racial and Social Justice Committee who all volunteer their time and expertise to enhance inclusion and belonging in our organization, and we are proud of the changes we co-created for RECAMFT. We utilized our monthly newsletter articles to celebrate and educate about diverse cultural holidays and to connect with local mental health agencies and write about their offerings to the community. A meaningful Land and People Acknowledgement, including involvement with local Indigenous communities, is getting its final approval from the board. We added extensive resource lists for RECAMFT’s website. We created The Justice Project, educational tracks of curated media for therapists to enhance their cultural humility by learning about systemic racism and anti-racism and about the quickly evolving 2SLGBTQIA+ changes around gender expansiveness as well as sexuality and romantic orientations. Besides independent learning, therapists who participate in The Justice Project tracks can join book groups with other therapists, discussion groups both peer led and with experts, and extra training offerings on the subject, all at no cost. We were pleased to be invited to CAMFT’s DEI Committee meeting to present on The Justice Project after Joy Alafia, the executive director, heard about what we were doing and wanted to see if it could be scaled up for more chapters as well as for CAMFT state-wide. Linda was appointed to CAMFT’s DEI committee to continue these efforts. We have tremendous gratitude for our dear colleagues on the committee, as well as the one and only Laura Strom, who truly cares about RECAMFT as a place that can support our local community of therapists. Thanks also to everyone else who put wind under the wings of working for justice and equity during our tenure. May this next year for us all be a year of ever deeper self-reflection and learning, listening, caring, connecting and creating communities of respect and appreciation for each other.
|
Our listserv has over 400 members on it, and is active daily with great conversations, resources, offerings, in search of, books, movies, office rentals, jobs, internships, etc. You can view the home page of our listserv at 
We are stepping down from two years of being co-chairs for the Racial and Social Justice Committee, as well as being on the board of RECAMFT for a year, and wanted to thank the RECAMFT community for this wonderful opportunity to be involved.
Linda Block, LMFT was co-leader of our Racial and Social Justice Committee (RSJC), and a member of CAMFT's DEI Committee. She has a 
Katharina Kienböck, LMFT was co-leader of our Racial and Social Justice Committee (RSJC), and is planning to move out of the country. She has a
Members - you can access recordings of our zoom events from 2023, 2022, and 2021 in our new on-demand library which has been migrated over to Thinkific (https://recamft.thinkific.com/). NEW! RECAMFT On-Demand Programs: https://recamft.thinkific.com NEW! RECAMFT discount codes are posted for members only here: https://www.recamft.org/member-discount-codes (requires sign-in using your RECAMFT member email/password) NEW! Dissociative Identity Disorder training (DID). 4 CEs: https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2023-12-DID NEW! Ketamine training (May 2023), 2 CEs: https://recamft.thinkific.com/courses/2023-05-Ketamine Members can get Watch the video, pass the test, fill out the evaluation, and download your certificate. It's that easy! You can earn CEs for any recorded event if you didn't already earn CEs from the live event. Return to top |
Notes from RECAMFT's Law & Ethics Training - Part 2 of 2
By Randy Cheek, LMFT
Continued from the December newsletter.... Part 2 of Luke’s program, protecting oneself from legal action by an employee requires therapists to be thorough and well organized business owners. Over the years I have a heard a change in our professional language. In the past therapists often spoke about the Art of Therapy. I often thought about the business of conducting a therapy practice, the art of the therapy must have a strong business foundation. These are interdependent skills that are essential for a successful practice. Luke suggested maintaining Workers’ Comp insurance, paying our employees in a timely way and paying the appropriate taxes. Having a skillful bookkeeper is essential. The therapist/business owner must also keep excellent supervision files that well documents in case an employee or associate is underperforming. The better the documentation especially stating the problem areas and the methodology used to correct problems must be clearly noted. If we have to terminate an employee we will need a detailed “paper trail” to protect ourselves from a possible wrongful termination lawsuit. It is also advisable to obtain legal consultation when confronting this kind of situation. CAMFT legal counsel could be valuable at these times. It may be beneficial to also have your own business attorney available on an as needed basis. By the time Luke reached Part 3, “How to avoid being sued by third parties” the day was long and there were still many slides to go (Luke was thorough!!), time was short and there was still more information to cover. Some of the key take-aways from this section was on protecting your business from non-clinical issues. Check your malpractice coverage to be certain you have liability coverage if someone falls at your office building, make sure you and your property owner is covered on your policy. If you have multiple offices make sure all of the locations have coverage. Since many os us are now working remotely from home (oh, the joys of not having to commute) the liability coverage is less of a factor. During this final section Luke discussed the concept of Double Jeopardy. Double Jeopardy occurs if you are prosecuted and acquitted for a crime you cannot be tried for the same crime again. It’s a complex legal statute that protects citizens from being retried for that same crime. Yet if we are tried and acquitted on a charge we can still find ourselves facing a different investigation this time by the BBS. Luke offered a few case studies demonstrating how this could happen. It sounded like he took these cases out of the back pages of The Therapist’s section of the spider web. If a therapist is arrested for a DUI there are legal, financial and disciplinary actions taken by traffic and criminal courts AND the BBS can investigate and administer licensing consequences that must be completed prior to permitting a therapist to resume their practice. This is two punishments for one crime, Double Jeopardy. Luke’s program was rich! He is following in big footsteps. I have attended many Law and Ethics workshops beginning with Richard Leslie, JD, then Dave Jensen, JD. I have also called CAMFT’s legal department many times over the years and have always appreciated their legal wisdom. We, LMFTs, are fortunate to have such excellent legal backup for our work. Luke is the next generation of legal consultants available to us. Thank you, Luke, even though I am still overwhelmed by your slide deck.
|
Randy Cheek, LMFT has a
About the Joe and Pamela Ward Memorial Scholarship
The funds that make these awards possible have been generously donated by members of our chapter and are doubled by matching funds authorized by our Board of Directors. Your donations will go twice as far! Please visit www.recamft.org/scholarship to give a tax-free donation today! Find out more about advertising with RECAMFT here. |
LOTS MORE PAGES AND GROUPS - RECAMFT.ORG/Therapy-Groups CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT LOCAL GROUP OFFERINGS, AND PAYMENT TO ADVERTISE YOUR GROUP.
Thank you for reading this month's newsletter! RECAMFT is great because of involved members like you!! |
|
Are you looking for help? Find therapists offering free natural disaster and crisis sessions here. Please check out MySonomaStrong.com. Visit the NAMI Warmline. Take a trauma-informed yoga class. We will recover together! ¿Buscas ayuda? Encuentre terapeutas que ofrezcan sesiones gratuitas de crisis y desastres naturales aquí. Visite MySonomaStrong.com. Visite la NAMI Warmline. Toma una clase de yoga informada sobre el trauma. ¡Nos recuperaremos juntos!
Redwood Empire Chapter of California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists |
