Strategies for Supporting Youth after a Caregiver’s Overdose

While both fatal and nonfatal overdoses have begun to decline in the past few years, the numbers of overdoses in the US are still in the many hundreds of thousands each year.  Many people who witness or experience the fallout of an overdose, whether fatal or non-fatal, report experiencing the event as traumatic.  This can be especially true for young people who often do not understand what is happening or why.

When children and youth do not have adequate support in the aftermath of a potentially traumatic event they often internalize the experience in unhealthy and potentially harmful ways.  Using case studies and interactive discussions, this training will provide a foundation for understanding addiction and overdose and ways that children and youth often experience and respond to potentially traumatic events and grief.

It will introduce strategies for talking to and supporting young people and helping their caregivers with supporting them, both in the immediate aftermath of a caregiver overdose and longer term.  Participants will be given opportunities to practice some of the strategies.  The training will emphasize the importance of self and community care for providers doing this work.

Objectives:

After this training, participants will be able to:

• Identify risk factors, protective factors and warning signs for substance use disorders
• Describe the scope of fatal and nonfatal overdoses in the US
• Name three potential ways that the impact of a caregiver overdose could show up for and impact a child
• Differentiate between indicators that a child is experiencing grief versus trauma
• Demonstrate different ways to support youth both in the immediate aftermath of a caregiver overdose and longer term

PENDING CE Credits: 3.5

Presenter:

Joanna Bridger, LICSW, Director – Safety, Hope, & Healing Counseling & Consulting

Joanna is the Director of Safety, Hope, & Healing Counseling & Consulting. She has worked with youth, families, adults, and communities that have experienced trauma and loss in a wide range of settings in the U.S. and abroad for more than 20 years. For ten years she was the Clinical Director for Riverside Trauma Center and provided counseling, critical incident response, clinical consultation, organizational consultation, and training for hundreds of families, schools, and organizations throughout Massachusetts and beyond.

Prior to that she worked for ten years with people experiencing homelessness in a variety of settings including homeless and domestic violence shelters as well as organizations focused on helping people to find and maintain housing. She was the clinical consultant to the Support After Death by Overdose Program for many years and much of her clinical practice is working with programs and families affected by the opioid epidemic.