Athens, Ga. – The 27th Annual Marriage and Family Therapy Institute titled “Going Beyond Acceptance: Clinical Strategies for Working with Gay and Lesbian Families” will be held Friday, Jan. 28 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel. The event is part of “Celebrating Courage: 50th Anniversary of Desegregation” at the University of Georgia and is sponsored by the university’s Pre-Professional Graduate Certificate Program in Marriage and Family Therapy.
“This institute will provide timely and valuable information for a wide-range of people, including helping professionals, friends and family members of the GLBT community, and anyone who wants to broaden their understanding of a group of people who have been historically oppressed and are still struggling to acquire the full benefits of being contributing citizens in our country,” said Nancy Williams, social work coordinator for the Interdisciplinary Pre-Professional Certificate Program in Marriage and Family Therapy, who helped plan the program.
The workshop will be led by Stephanie K. Swann, an Atlanta clinician, instructor in UGA’s Masters of Social Work program and former president of the Atlanta chapter of the Clinical Society of Social Workers, and Sarah E. Herber, an Atlanta psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of children. The pair will discuss the intricacies of working effectively with the issues gay and lesbian families bring to therapy. Sessions throughout the day will cover topics such as the coming out process and sexual identity development in the current sociocultural climate, issues facing gay and lesbian couples, and issues facing families with a gay, lesbian, or bisexual child or parent. Participants will conclude the day with a large group discussion.
The workshop is intended for all professionals dedicated to clinical excellence, including: psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, social workers, clergy, youth workers, substance abuse counselors, and marriage and family therapists.
The Pre-Professional Graduate Certificate Program in Marriage and Family Therapy is an interdisciplinary program for graduate students interested in the applied profession of marriage and family therapy and is a collaboration of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, the School of Social Work and the College of Education at UGA.
For information regarding conference fees, contact Williams at nwilliam@uga.edu. For more information on the event, see http://www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/cch/register/27th-annual-marriage-and-family-therapy-institute.