Upcoming Events

When: Wednesday, September 23 - 12:00 PM

Duration: 2 hours

Location: Zoom

Event Details:

This training will help mental health clinicians develop greater awareness of the challenges associated with assessing risk for suicide in culturally-diverse,  pluralistic adolescent clients, and explore practical strategies for navigating these challenges in a manner that is culturally responsive and youth-centered. 

By the end of the training, participants will be able to:

• Recognize developmental, cultural, family, identity, and contextual factors that may influence suicide risk and how adolescents communicate distress

• Identify how a provider’s own social location, personal identity, implicit biases, cultural assumptions, and emotional responses may influence assessment

• Summarize the core components of assessment, including risk factors, protective factors, culturally relevant strengths, developmental considerations, and other contextual variables

• Describe the challenges (empirical, developmental, cultural) that influence suicide assessment with adolescents and how to address these in practice

• Describe current trends in adolescent suicide, including disparities across racial, ethnic, sexual and gender minority, disability, and other marginalized youth populations
  

About the Presenters

Nicole Lee, LCSW

Nicole Lee is a Senior Clinical Manager at Spring Health, where she supports the clinical operations of an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and oversees global critical incident response services. In her role, she provides clinical leadership and operational oversight, supports the development and implementation of clinical processes and best practices, and works to ensure the delivery of high-quality, responsive services to employees and organizations navigating a wide range of workplace and mental health needs.

In her past professional roles, Nicole has worked with crisis centers across the US to ensure quality service provision for 988, the national suicide and crisis lifeline, directed an outpatient child and family mental health program serving survivors of gender-based violence, led a team providing emergency transitional housing to families fleeing domestic violence, managed a school-based mental health clinic program, and served as an administrator at a NYC public hospital.  She also has been in private practice serving children, adults, families and couples since 2016. After earning her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from New York University, she matriculated into NYU's Silver School of Social Work.  Nicole has earned a post-master’s certificate in Advanced Clinical Practice from NYU, training in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and is a certified supervisor in field instruction (SIFI). Nicole is passionate about centering the profession of social work as a vehicle toward social justice through core applications of empathy and advocacy.

Michael Van Wert, MPH, MSW, LICSW

Michael Van Wert is the Associate Director of Research and Evaluation at the Center for Practice Transformation at the University of Minnesota’s School of Social Work. Michael joined the Center in 2022 after working for the previous 12 years in community psychiatry programs using group and individual therapy rooted heavily in cognitive-behavioral and dialectical behavior orientations, helping adults cope with and heal from acute mental health challenges. He has been involved in mixed methods research and quality improvement initiatives to study the prevention and treatment of psychological trauma, stabilization of acute behavioral health symptoms (e.g., suicide, self-harm, substance abuse), integration of routine measurement-based care into mental health practice, human cognition, the use of technology in mental health care, and the impact of health disasters on psychological well-being.  As an educator, he has trained mental health clinicians and students in effective therapeutic techniques, and public health practitioners in program evaluation and research methods. At the Center, Michael develops curriculum, trains clinicians/students, and evaluates training initiatives.