Find continuing education courses.

Free State Social Work

This course explores prolonged grief disorder and highlights existing psychological therapies and models. The course differentiates between normal and abnormal grief and offers an overview of the DSM-5 diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder, predictors of prolonged grief, and maintenance factors. The reading highlights therapies, including the cognitive model of PTSD as a framework for treating traumatic grief.

Free State Social Work

This course explores the topic of depression in cancer patients and offers a discussion of risk factors, symptoms, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. Common depression screening tools are identified along with suggested questions for the clinical interview. Interventions including coping strategies, antidepressant medications, and psychotherapies are highlighted. Cancer is a risk factor for suicide, and information on the assessment and management of suicide risk in cancer patients is given.

Free State Social Work

This course explores considerations and recommendations for addressing HIV and substance use disorders. Topics related to unstable housing, sexual risk-taking, substance use disorder screening, co-occurring mental health disorders, and antiretroviral therapy (ART) are discussed. The course reviews commonly used substances and their impact on HIV and ART.

Free State Social Work

This course reviews recent literature on suicidal thoughts and behaviors in people on the autism spectrum. Emerging research on suicide risk factors, screening, assessment, and treatment is discussed. The course offers the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide as a possible framework and explores concepts of thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and acquired capability for suicide.

Free State Social Work

The course explores PTSD in older adults and at the end of life and identifies clinical considerations for assessment and treatment. The course describes how PTSD and aging may interact in new and challenging ways, resulting in the potential for older adults to experience an exacerbation of symptoms for several reasons. Implications for end of life care are considered and strategies for the management of PTSD symptoms are included.

Free State Social Work

Free State Social Work

This course explores trauma assessment and treatment considerations for lesbian, gay, and bisexual veterans. The course identifies unique stressors experienced by sexual minoritized veterans and provides context for minority stress and trauma. Topics of post-traumatic stress disorder, Criterion A events, diagnostic assessment, rapport, and evidence-based practice are discussed. Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure Therapy are highlighted.

Free State Social Work

This course explores current AI trends and future prospects for enhancing mental health. The course examines the transformative role of AI in mental healthcare and highlights applications in diagnosis, treatment, therapy delivery, monitoring, and follow-up. Current examples of AI tools are provided, including chatbot-based therapy, emotional health apps, and smart mental health tools. Strengths, limitations, and ethical considerations are discussed.

Free State Social Work

This course explores the history of artificial intelligence, the use of algorithms, and the influence of algorithms on areas of healthcare, housing, employment, and criminal justice. The course highlights concerns related to the implementation of AI that include injustices to marginalized groups. The course outlines four ways for social workers to advocate for digital inclusion and social justice: resist, regulate, reimagine, and reinforce.

Free State Social Work

Free State Social Work

Explores ethical and legal considerations for AI development in healthcare, examining principles of privacy, confidentiality, autonomy, informed consent, beneficence, and nonmaleficence, with emphasis on bias, responsibility, and liability.

Free State Social Work

Free State Social Work

This course examines key ethical considerations related to the use of mental health chatbots and highlights a 5-principle ethical framework that includes the principles of non-maleficence, beneficence, respect for autonomy, justice, and explicability.

Free State Social Work

This course explores the ethical challenges of conversational AI in mental health care. The course highlights a literature review and identifies 10 main ethical themes: safety and harm; explicability, transparency, and trust; responsibility and accountability; empathy and humanness; justice; anthropomorphization and deception; autonomy; privacy and confidentiality; and effectiveness. A bioethical framework is utilized to discuss findings.

Free State Social Work

This course explores marijuana use disorder and youth marijuana prevention. The course provides an overview of marijuana, its potency, methods of use, changes in use, and prevalence and offers a discussion of short- and long-term adverse effects and harms. Risk and protective factors are examined along with challenges to prevention efforts. Promising substance use prevention programs and interventions are given.

Free State Social Work

This course examines the prevalence of prescription stimulant use and misuse among youth and young adults. Short and long term health effects of prescription stimulant use are explored along with risk and protective factors. Opportunities for prevention are discussed, and considerations for screening, assessment, and treatment are given.

Free State Social Work

This course examines suicide risk and cultural variation among high-achieving Asian Americans. The course explores cultural and family factors and offers examples of acculturation, acculturative stress, stereotype, obligatory stress, and cultural humility. A case example of a high-achieving Asian American adolescent in a large high school is presented. Recommendations for clinical interventions are provided.

Free State Social Work

This course explores the potential harms of biased language in child welfare practice and offers strategies for reducing implicit or unconscious bias and improving practice. The course examines key concepts to understanding language bias in child welfare, including neutral language, labels, the concrete-to abstract continuum, and sociolinguistic inequality.

Free State Social Work

This course explores how caseworkers can best identify and support victims of child trafficking. The course discusses the scope of human trafficking, the intersection of human trafficking and child welfare, risk factors, and the needs of those who experience trafficking.

Free State Social Work

This thought-provoking course explores the relationship between social work and the child welfare system and critiques the federal Title IV-E training program and the ethical conflicts involved in training MSW students to regulate families. The course examines the forces of racism, classism, misogyny, and injustice within the child welfare system.

Free State Social Work

Free State Social Work

This course explores culturally specific and responsive strategies for working with immigrant and refugee families. The course highlights the unique strengths of immigrant and refugee families, including a focus on family, education, work, faith, and community. The course also examines specific challenges faced by immigrant and refugee families, including difficulties with acculturation, language, economic hardship, legal concerns, and trauma.

Free State Social Work

Free State Social Work

This course explores mandated reporting and the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, offering important perspective on the historical context of mandated reporting, the rationale for CAPTA, and continuing concerns. Criticisms include causing children and families harm, family policing through state-mandated surveillance, and disproportionately impacting families of color and families experiencing poverty. Present day implications are discussed.