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The Redwood Empire Therapist
RECAMFT's Online Newsletter
February 2024
Presented by Danah Williams, LMFT Fri., February 2nd, 10 am - 12:15 pm Uncover the power and flexibility of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in this comprehensive two-hour training tailored for master’s level and beyond mental health clinicians. This program transcends the common application of DBT within Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) settings and showcases the universality of DBT skills. Embrace the potential of DBT as a robust adjunct across diverse therapy treatment plans, for all ages and varied therapeutic environments. The training will focus on the practical integration of DBT strategies in varied clinical settings, ensuring therapists can effectively cater to the multifaceted challenges and strengths presented by clients.
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/. |
Beyond BPD: Integrating DBT Skills into Comprehensive Psychotherapy Across Ages and Settings, 2 CEs
SAVE THE DATE - MARCH 30th!
| We've heard your requests for an event in Petaluma, so we're pleased to announce this year's Law & Ethics will be there. We are negotiating a venue now. Law & Ethics: SCU (Special Compliance Unit): "How to Face Malpractice Lawsuits, BBS Complaints, and Ethics Complaints with Clarity and Confidence updated with considerations for Medicare"
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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.
Join us for our Crafting Group. Bring any craft you like, get on Zoom with us and visit with your colleagues while we knit, sew, paint, draw, cook, create, etc.
| Dear RECAMFT Colleagues: I am looking forward to our February 2nd speaker, Danah Williams, LMFT. I've served a number of years with her on the CAMFT Board and have come to deeply respect her both as a board colleague and a clinician. She is truly brilliant, and I hope you will attend her presentation on February 2nd. We're bringing you another in-person law & ethics training on Saturday, March 30th. The planned location is Petaluma! We've heard your wish for events in cities other than Santa Rosa, and are in the process of securing a location. Stay tuned for more... On January 21st the RECAMFT Board held its annual holiday party. There we awarded our newest award for the outstanding Board member of the year (the presidential trio is excepted from voting or winning). Our Board elected Tara D'Orazio, CFO to win RECAMFT's 2023 Laura C. Strom Distinguished Board Member Award. Our Board members work very hard throughout the year going the extra mile to be sure our organization runs like a well-oiled machine. This is a way to recognize and honor their work. I chose to name the award to honor Dr. Laura Strom's phenomenal work on behalf of both CAMFT and our chapter. It started in 2013-2014 when, thanks to Laura's work, we actually saved CAMFT during the bylaws fiasco. Then she was elected to the CAMFT Board, as President in 2015. She was our chapter President in 2014, 2021, and 2022, and served as Board Secretary most of the rest of her time on our local Board. She handles most of our website, and newsletters. She's had a tremendous impact on my life, leading to my being CAMFT's Secretary, after serving as Director at Large, then becoming President Elect, President (2017-18), and Past President (two years). Dr. Strom provided the award, and fittingly chose a heart to symbolize how much she loves RECAMFT. Below is a picture of Tara with her award, along with Dr. Strom and myself. We have a new website page for the award here. Be sure to read why Pat Hromalik voted for Tara at the bottom of the page.
L-R: Dr. Bob Casanova, Tara D'Orazio, Dr. Laura Strom, January 21, 2024. Please join with me in congratulating Tara D'Orazio on winning the inaugural Laura C. Strom Distinguished Board Member Award! This RECAMFT community is full of extraordinary people, and we are so lucky to have Tara on our team!! With great appreciation for our community, Dr. Bob Casanova, PsyD, LMFT President, RECAMFT.org
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.
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February 
Are you creative? 
Dr. Bob Casanova, PsyD, LMFT was the 2017-18 President of state CAMFT. He has a 
The Board assigned a Task Force to examine the best ways to engage and serve our prelicensed members. They will be reporting their findings at the next Board meeting on February 9th, 9-11 am. We encourage prelicensed members to attend 
Members! Your SHORT DESCRIPTION is the most important thing on your profile. Why? Because that shows in our
Please send an email to therapy@recamft.org if you can help. Return to top
March is both Women's History Month and Disability Awareness 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 | Upcoming events
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We STILL need help with
Call for Submissions for the Mar. 2024 Issue of The RECAMFT Therapist! 
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. SAVE THE DATE - JUNE 7th!
Author and CBT Expert Jennifer Shannon, LMFT will present a 2 hour CE program covering her latest work.
Featured member | Thoughts from the Racial & Social Justice Committee (RSJC) Updates on 2024 RSJC Goals On January 19th the RSJC met to consider goals for 2024. Randy Cheek and Emily Larkin are the new co-chairs. Wolwvenn Seward-Katzmiller acted as Secretary. Laura Strom and Lisa Wenninger were present. The committee agreed to recommend adoption of the following three goals. 1. Continue integration of racial and social justice values into programming. Prioritize showcasing experts of color holding intersectional and non-dominant identities in our trainings in specific methods, and in required trainings. Coordinate with Programs Committee as appropriate. 2. To reflect the underserved populations of Sonoma County, we aim to increase access for Latino/a/x/Hispanic, Indigenous and other BIPOC community members to information, resources and support to enter the mental health field. Coordinate with Outreach Committee as appropriate. 3. Coordinate service projects with local indigenous tribes requesting support. (More research needed). Additional goal topics under consideration, but for which the committee did not have time during this meeting. These goals need additional time for discussion. A. Maintain the Justice Projects for 2024. No additional money or infrastructure is needed, however the website pages need to be updated. Laura Strom will update them soon. B. Continue development of the Land & People Acknowledgment Statement.
We tabled the idea of how to change the face of the RECAMFT Board of Directors without tokenizing, causing emotional labor for BIPOC people for the time being. In December the RSJC recommended the Board adopt a scholarship program for BIPOC therapists, including both newly licensed (up to three years) and prelicensed members. The scholarship would cover the members CAMFT and RECAMFT dues for up to ten BIPOC therapist members. The Board included the program in its 2024 budget but has not yet provided a procedure for how to access this benefit, nor adopted a motion to offer it to members.
The 2024 theme of Black History Month is "African Americans and the Arts" Read more here: https://www.si.edu/events/black-history-month Smart investing in RECAMFT's future!
On Jan. 13, 2024, a group of Board members visited Exchange Bank to move some of RECAMFT's savings into a 12-mo CD with higher yield. L-R: Pat Hromalik, Laura Strom, Emily Larkin (President Elect), Tara D'Orazio (CFO), Reyna Seminara. Return to top
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! |
We discussed our Past President, Gina Culver has been asked to present on our Justice Projects at the CAMFT Chapter Leadership Conference the first week of February. The committee is very excited our former Co-Chair, 
Wowlvenn Seward-Katzmiller, LMFT is Acting Secretary of our Racial and Social Justice Committee (RSJC). She has a 
A great resource for Black History Month!
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
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 |
Highlights from RECAMFT's Board of Directors
The January 12th Board meeting marked Dr. Bob Casanova's first meeting as our President. The meeting went very smoothly, as one might expect from a former CAMFT President. Some of the key issues addressed:
Below: Picture from the Board Zoom meeting on Jan. 12th.
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After three solid years of meeting on Zoom, Board members were happy to meet in person at the January 21st holiday party.
L-R: Dr. Bob Casanova (President) and his wife, Kelly.
L-R: Jessica Heaney, former Prelicensed Director at Large, agreed to come back for another board position. Yay, Jessica! Seen here with Eric. |
L-R: Pat Hromalik, Michael Hromalik, Dr. Jean Hayes.
L-R: President Elect Emily Larkin and husband Brandon. Emily's 2nd-in-command is due in June. |
2024 Scholarship period now open until April 30th! 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 apply or give a tax-free donation today! Find out more about advertising with RECAMFT here.
"I learned so much from Dr. Mary Crocker Cook's presentation, I immediately bought two of her books, and I'm looking forward to reading them. Although I no longer work directly in the field of addiction, I continue to witness how addiction affects many of my clients in various ways. The research and work she has done, and is doing, with attachment and addiction is timely and brilliant." -- Jessica Heaney, AMFT Note: Dr. Cook's presentation on the Attachment Infused Addiction Treatment Model will be available in our library soon. |
“Origin” is the must-see film for all marriage and family therapists, counselors, social workers and psychologists. The movie opens with Trayvon Martin walking home. We then transition to author Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) speaking to a large group. Afterwards, she runs into a friend who begs her to write about Trayvon Martin. Later as she considers the case, she postulates an African American young man, killed by a Hispanic man, in a white neighborhood cannot be dismissed as simple racism. She realizes there is something deeper at play – a heretofore unacknowledged, unspoken caste system. Isabel’s grief is tangible as we witness her journey researching and developing a broad and extensive thesis while enduring a series of painful personal losses. Isabel says what all therapists know. “You don't escape trauma by ignoring it. You escape trauma by confronting it.” Ms. Wilkerson, who made history as the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer prize in journalism, explains caste as a hierarchy in which some groups have power, and some do not. She defines caste by the metaphorical pillars which hold it in place. However, the movie does not spell out Isabel’s theory, a meticulous explanation far beyond the default “racism” as the universal answer to all our sociological adversities. You will have to read the book for that. Instead, it beautifully weaves together stories from Isabel’s life, the deep South, the Dalits of India, Nazi and present-day Germany, with universal themes which unfold gently, painting your soul with their artistry. At the insistence of Oprah Winfrey, Ava DuVernay read the book Caste: The Origins of our Discontents after the murder of George Floyd. After her third reading, and interviews with the author, Ava created a script transfiguring both stories in the book, and Isabel’s shared personal tales into a cinematic blend of dramatic narrative, didactic documentary, with touches of graceful poetic surrealism. As the producer, writer and director, Ms. DuVernay adds “Origin” to a list of important film works (“13th”, “Selma”, “When They See Us” and others). She briefly introduces herself before the film begins, inviting viewers to remain afterwards for a short discussion. Ms. DuVernay’s company, Array, has started Seat16.com where you can donate $16 to provide a ticket for a teen who might not be able to afford to see the film. The ticket donation will also include a one-year MasterClass for teens across the US. “Origin” (rated PG-13) opened January 19, 2024 to limited theaters. It is playing at the Rialto Theater in Sebastopol. Please take advantage of this opportunity to support our local theater, and more importantly, to expand your heart with this exquisite storytelling. After the lights come up, you will be surprised at the spontaneous discussions, debates, and conversations this movie will inevitably inspire.
| Reviews of "Origin"
Below are two interviews with Director Ava BuVernay. The first is an interview with CBS Morning show. The second is with The Breakfast Club and includes actor Aunjenue Ellis-Taylor.
Your Members Message can go here next time! Members can submit an article of up to 500 words for publication. Please submit before the 15th monthly to therapy@recamft.org. Return to top |
Laura C. Strom, PsyD, LMFT has a
LOTS MORE PAGES AND GROUPS - RECAMFT.ORG/Therapy-Groups CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT LOCAL GROUP OFFERINGS, AND PAYMENT TO ADVERTISE YOUR GROUP.
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Thank you to those who attended the Annual Member’s Meeting (AMM) on January 5th. It is always a pleasure to see and hear from the members. RECAMFT turns 50 this year (woo hoo!!). I shared about our accomplishments and events not only in 2023 as well as honoring the last 50 years of service to our local community. The PowerPoint may be made available for members to look through so keep an eye out for it! Part of the AMM is also thanking our volunteers. RECAMFT could not do what it does nor maintain its existence without all our volunteers, helpers, and members. It is because of YOU, your dedication, and your heart which allows our organization to continue offering professional growth opportunities, use our voices to affect racial and social justice changes, opportunities to network and connect with other therapists, and continue to show up for our clients and community. The 2024 Board was introduced as well as thanking the retiring Board members. Some will continue their work on RECAMFT committees and some are pursuing other avenues while maintaining their membership. Retiring from the Board (terms ended at the end of 2023):
We also want to take a moment to thank our members who are serving with CAMFT:
With your voice and input at the CAMFT level, you continue to support RECAMFT and the other chapters in growing, learning, and leading. We appreciate this further dedication to your field and colleagues.
Best of all, RECAMFT is 50! I encourage everyone to reflect on what has worked, changes you would like to see, celebrating what RECAMFT has meant to the communities we support and serve, and what is new in the future. Here is to another 50 years as awesome advocates and healers!! |
As 2024 begins, I am entering my last year of the Presidential commitment I have made to RECAMFT. This year, I am serving as Past President. The new year, for me at least, usually brings a sense of “clean slate,” intentions, a fresh start, and change. This year, transitioning into Past President, also has brought a sense of bittersweetness too. I enjoyed my time as President: learning, growing, leading, supporting and yet, am also looking forward to stepping back a little to support the new President.Thank you for reading this month's newsletter! RECAMFT is great because of involved members like you!!
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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 |
