Events
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Edythe Kurz Educational Institute Conference 2025
ZoomThe Annual 2025 WJCS Kurz Conference will explore how digital environments influence the mental health and emotional development of adolescents and young adults. While technology offers connection and creativity, it can also intensify stress, loneliness, and self-comparison. A focus will be the relationship between screen time, social media use, and mental well-being, with a focus on mental health, self-esteem, and identity development.
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Family Volunteer Event: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
WJCS HQ 845 North Broadway, White Plains, NYOn Monday, January 19, 2026, in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., WJCS is hosting a Family Volunteer Event. We are inviting families with children of all ages to participate in collecting nonperishable food items and packing “Winter Hug” care packages with soup, cocoa, hats, and mittens for the Westchester community. This is a great opportunity for families to bond and teach children the values of volunteerism and helping others. Our Westchester families need our help now more than ever. With the rising cost of EVERYTHING and the reduction in support and benefits, families are struggling to buy food. Our school-based clinicians ...
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Theories & Practices to Support Clinicians Working with Grieving Clients
ZoomThe current course aims to provide clinicians with a grounding in psychoeducation and theory behind grief responses in order to increase clinician confidence in working with clients who are experiencing bereavement. Additionally, this course will provide clinicians with examples of and hands-on practice with activities they can use in session to help support clients on their journey through grief and healing. At the close of each day of the course, space will be provided for clinicians to process their thoughts and feelings related to working with grieving clients in an effort to normalize conversation about death and dying and dispel some of the discomfort or concern about supporting grieving clients.
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Understanding the Role of Peer Specialists
ZoomEnrollment Limited To: 20 Contact Hrs: 1.5 CEUs: 1.5 Method: Lecture Learning Objectives: Participants will learn the origins of peer support. Participants will learn the nature of the role and how it intersects with other roles in mental health clinics. Participants will learn the aspects of a recovery-oriented culture. Instructor: Jeremy M. Reuling, LCSW, NYCPS, CPRP Location: Zoom Cost for non-WJCS staff: $75 CLICK HERE TO REGISTER Westchester Jewish Community Services is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0101, and by the New York ...
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Trauma Treatment Across the Lifespan
Clinicians are likely to encounter survivors of trauma in their practice. In addition to clients who meet criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders from single traumatic events, survivors of complex and early developmental attachment trauma may also present more complex clinical pictures.
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Client Alliance, Compliance & Therapist Burn Out
ZoomMental health professionals, perhaps now more than ever, are susceptible to stress and burn out directly related to their job responsibilities. Part of this comes from defining our professional selves based on what we are told our roles should be and what we should be able to accomplish rather than a realistic appraisal of situations and settings.
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Hoarding Disorder: What Clinicians Need to Know
ZoomIt is estimated that 2%-6% of the population suffers from hoarding disorder. Across two sessions, this course will review the common mechanisms associated with the development of hoarding disorder as well as how to recognize, assess, and treat hoarding disorder. The course will also provide an overview of a newly developed eight-week specialty treatment program for hoarding disorder that can be effectively delivered both in office or via telehealth in standard length psychotherapy sessions.
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Dr. Samuel Kahn Memorial Lecture 2026
ZoomDr. Elana Spira, WJCS Director of Research and Evaluation, will review diagnostic features of ADHD, focusing on variations across different subtypes and developmental periods, along with evidence-based guidance for assessment and intervention across the lifespan.
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Grief Special Topics: Ambiguous Loss, Disenfranchised Grief (WJCS Staff Only)
ZoomLosses are ever-present in our lives, yet those that don’t involve death are often overlooked by clients, clinicians, and communities. Join us and deepen your grief-informed practice by considering the many ways your clients experience loss. This training clarifies core concepts such as Ambiguous Loss and Disenfranchised Grief and examines real-world examples across a broad spectrum of client experiences (including trauma, adoption, foster care, divorce, estrangement, immigration, deportation, forced migration, incarceration, brain injury, mental illness, developmental disabilities, gender and sexuality, aging, and caregiving). You will learn practical intervention strategies and principles for working with clients facing ambiguous losses and disenfranchised grief.
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The DD Diagnoses and Community Mental Health
ZoomAlmost all clinicians who are in a general practice setting either in the community, or a school or hospital are finding they need skills in recognizing developmental disorders and adapting treatment strategies to meet the needs of individuals who are either on the spectrum or have cognitive challenges. This course is designed to review the fundamental aspects of these diagnoses, including changes in the DSM 5-TR.
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WJCS 2026 Gala
FeaturedBrae Burn Country Club 39 Brae Burn Drive, Purchase, NY, United StatesMEET OUR HONOREES DONATE TO OUR GALA GIVE FOR GOOD AUCTION! Click here to see our gala highlights! - Thank you to our Corporate Sponsors! Brown and Brown NewYork Presbyterian Westchester Behavioral Health RSM US LLP Eye Gallery Armanino Advisory LLC Enterprise Fleet Management Galleros Robinson White Plains Hospital Alan Dlugash Garfunkel Wild P.C. Grassy Sprain Long Term Care Healthcare Management Associates Loftex Woodworks Construction Co., Inc. Guardian Life Thank you to our GALA COMMITTEE! Anita Abraham-Inz & Richard Inz Lynn* & William Bagliebter Ilana & Jordan Bass Samantha Bauer Stavis & Ross Bauer Amanda & Steven ...
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Intro to Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
ZoomDialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based treatment originally designed for individuals with suicidal or self-harm behaviors. It has come to be an evidence-based treatment for borderline personality (BPD). However, many other clients and disorders have been shown to benefit from DBT, such as depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, or alcohol and drug use disorders. It can be applied as a behavioral therapy to any target behavior that the client would want to change. DBT is built on balancing acceptance and change. Its use of dialectics like this one, the teaching of mindfulness as a core skill, and its group curriculum of mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness skills that have distinguished DBT as a skills-based therapy.
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Initial Assessment & Risk Evaluation / Children
ZoomContact Hrs: 1.5 CEU’s: 1.5 Enrollment Limited to: 20 Participants will learn to perform a thorough mental health assessment of, and risk evaluation for, child clients. This class will address the goals and methods of initial evaluations, and the information that should be obtained. Risk evaluations will be discussed, including eliciting and identifying risk and protective factors, making appropriate responses, and preparing documentation that protects the client, clinician, and agency. Method: Lecture; discussion. Learning Objectives: To perform a thorough mental health assessment for child clients. To elicit and identify risk and protective factors, make evidence-based responses, To prepare appropriate documentation. ...