Florida Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Mental Health Counselors have a biennial license renewal with a March 31st deadline, odd years. Thirty (30) hours of continuing education are required to renew a license.

The following courses are required for license renewal:

• Two (2) hours of Preventing Medical Error in Behavioral Health are required at each renewal.
• Three (3) hours of Ethics and Boundaries in Psychotherapy are required at each renewal.
• Two (2) hours of Domestic Violence are required every six years (last due 2013)
• Three (3) hours of Florida Laws and Rules are required every third biennium (2019)

There are no limits on home study. National accreditation accepted: NBCC, APA, ASWB

Professional Development Resources is approved as a provider of continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB Provider #1046, ACE Program); by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC Provider #5590); by the American Psychological Association (APA); by the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage & Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling (Provider #BAP346)

Continuing Education Courses for Social Workers

Caregiver Help Part I: Coping with Anger and Guilt is a 2-hour online video CE course. The emotional stress of caring for persons who are aging, chronically ill or disabled can be debilitating for family members as well as professional caregivers. This course addresses caregiver anger and guilt, and provides a three-step process that helps caregivers develop an attitude of what is described as “creative indifference” toward the people, situations and events that cause them the greatest amount of emotional stress. By gaining insights into how degenerative and progressive diseases affect the life of the caregiver, the mental health professional will be in a better position to empathize with the caregiver’s situation and provide strategies that will help them manage the stress of caring for someone whose situation will never improve. The significance of honoring and supporting caregivers’ feelings and helping them understand the importance of self-care can not only improve their physical and emotional well-being, but can also have a huge impact on the quality of care they are able to provide to their care receiver. This course includes downloadable worksheets that you can use (on a limited basis) in your clinical practice. Course #20-84 | 2014 | 15 posttest questions

Bullying Prevention: Raising Strong Kids by Responding to Hurtful & Harmful Behavior is a 3-hour online video CE course. This video course starts with a thoughtful definition of “bullying” and goes on to illustrate the functional roles of the three participant groups: the targeted individuals, the bullies, and the bystanders. The speaker discusses the concepts of resiliency, empathy, and growth/fixed mindsets, and considers the pros and cons of alternative responses to harmful behavior. Included also are an examination of the utility of zero tolerance policies and a variety of adult responses when becoming aware of bullying behavior. The speaker utilizes multiple examples and scenarios to propose strategies and techniques intended to offer connection, support and reframing to targeted individuals, motivation to change in the form of progressive, escalating consequences to bullies, and multiple intervention options to bystanders. Further segments discuss ways in which schools can create safe, pro-social climates. Course #30-73 | 2014 | 21 posttest questions

Building Resilience in your Young Client is a 3-hour online course. It has long been observed that there are certain children who experience better outcomes than others who are subjected to similar adversities, and a significant amount of literature has been devoted to the question of why this disparity exists. Research has largely focused on what has been termed “resilience.” Health professionals are treating an increasing number of children who have difficulty coping with 21^st century everyday life. Issues that are hard to deal with include excessive pressure to succeed in school, bullying, divorce, or even abuse at home. This course provides a working definition of resilience and descriptions of the characteristics that may be associated with better outcomes for children who confront adversity in their lives. It also identifies particular groups of children – most notably those with developmental challenges and learning disabilities – who are most likely to benefit from resilience training. The bulk of the course – presented in two sections – offers a wide variety of resilience interventions that can be used in therapy, school, and home settings. Course #30-72 | 2014 | 53 pages | 21 posttest questions

Online Continuing Education for Marriage and Family Therapists

From Contention to Contemplation: Overcoming Core Impasses in Couples Therapy is a 1-hour online video CE course. Many couples come to therapy emotionally disconnected from each other, polarized by a constant state of struggle and unable to see past the last fight. Couples often engage in a repetitive cycle of interaction, resulting in their feeling stuck and hopeless. Once this reciprocal pattern can be identified, couples can be empowered to break the pattern and learn new ways of relating to one another that better satisfies their needs. The purpose of this course is to train therapists to conduct a strength-based assessment and identify those dynamics in a couple’s interaction that serve to perpetuate unsatisfactory relationship patterns. Therapeutic techniques discussed include diagramming a couple’s vulnerability cycle using pictorial representations and facilitating new patterns by identifying the partners’ beliefs and core premises and providing training in retroactive analysis of conflictual interactions. Course #10-79 | 2014 | 54 minute video | 7 posttest questions

Living a Better Life with Chronic Pain: Eliminating Self-Defeating Behaviors is a 5-hour online CE course. Certainly no one would choose a pain-filled body over a healthy, pain-free body. Yet every day, people unwittingly choose actions and attitudes that contribute to pain or lead to other less-than-desirable consequences on their health, relationships or ability to function. These actions and attitudes are what are called self-defeating behaviors (SDBs) and they keep us from living life to the fullest—if we let them. This course is a self-instructional module that “walks” readers through the process of replacing their self-defeating chronic pain issues with healthy, positive, and productive life-style behaviors. It progresses from an analysis of the emotional aspects of living with chronic pain to specific strategies for dealing more productively with it. Through 16 guided exercises, readers will learn how to identify their self-defeating behaviors (SDBs), analyze and understand them, and then replace them with life-giving actions that lead to permanent behavioral change. Course #50-12 | 2014 | 49 pages | 35 posttest questions

School Refusal Behavior: Children Who Can’t or Won’t Go to School is a 4-hour online CE course. School refusal is a problem that is stressful for children, for their families, and for school personnel. Failing to attend school has significant long and short-term effects on children’s social, emotional, and educational development. School refusal is often the result of, or associated with, comorbid disorders such as anxiety or depression. Careful assessment, treatment planning, interventions, and management of school refusal are critical to attainment of the goal of a successful return to school as quickly as possible. Interventions may include educational support, cognitive therapy, behavior modification, parent/teacher interventions, and pharmacotherapy. Course #40-29 | 2011 | 48 pages | 30 posttest questions

Continuing Education Online for Mental Health Counselors

Economic Distress and Clinical Practice is a 1-hour online video CE course. This is a brief course that defines stress and its physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses and identifies the common indicators of financial stress. It demonstrates a model for performing a financial stress assessment that uses specific tools to identify impact, severity and components of financial stress. It goes on to illustrate a variety of interventions, including thought construct, self-narrative, meaning, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), disputing dysfunctional beliefs, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), learning distress tolerance, and identifying action steps. The course is intended for therapists who are working with clients for whom economic distress is a primary presenting problem. Course #10-80 | 2014 | 63 minute video | 7 posttest questions

Building Resilience in your Young Client is a 3-hour online course. It has long been observed that there are certain children who experience better outcomes than others who are subjected to similar adversities, and a significant amount of literature has been devoted to the question of why this disparity exists. Research has largely focused on what has been termed “resilience.” Health professionals are treating an increasing number of children who have difficulty coping with 21^st century everyday life. Issues that are hard to deal with include excessive pressure to succeed in school, bullying, divorce, or even abuse at home. This course provides a working definition of resilience and descriptions of the characteristics that may be associated with better outcomes for children who confront adversity in their lives. It also identifies particular groups of children – most notably those with developmental challenges and learning disabilities – who are most likely to benefit from resilience training. The bulk of the course – presented in two sections – offers a wide variety of resilience interventions that can be used in therapy, school, and home settings. Course #30-72 | 2014 | 53 pages | 21 posttest questions

Autism: The New Spectrum of Diagnostics, Treatment & Nutrition is a 4-hour online CE course. The first section of this course traces the history of the diagnostic concept of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), culminating in the revised criteria of the 2013 version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5, with specific focus on the shift from five subtypes to a single spectrum diagnosis. It also aims to provide epidemiological prevalence estimates, identify factors that may play a role in causing ASD, and list the components of a core assessment battery. It also includes brief descriptions of some of the major intervention models that have some empirical support. Section two describes common GI problems and feeding difficulties in autism, exploring the empirical data and/or lack thereof regarding any links between GI disorders and autism. Sections on feeding difficulties offer interventions and behavior change techniques. A final section on nutritional considerations discusses evaluation of nutritional status, supplementation, and dietary modifications with an objective look at the science and theory behind a variety of nutrition interventions. Other theoretical interventions are also reviewed. Course #40-38 | 2013 | 50 pages | 30 posttest questions