Building Skills for Working with Black Youth

Description

*Notez que ce webinaire sera interprété en direct de l’anglais vers le français.

From his extensive community-based clinical practice, Dr. Belfon notes the large number of Black families who are looking to connect with a psychologist who shares some of their life experiences. However, many families do not have access to mental health professionals who share this lived experience – especially experiences with systemic and interpersonally mediated racism in Canada. The latter is often ignored when mental health professionals are conceptualizing cases and developing plans for treatment. Dr. Belfon will use several case studies to illustrate how Black youth are adversely impacted by their interaction with systems (e.g., education, health care, child protection, youth justice), and will discuss how clinicians can start to integrate this information into their case formulations, treatment, and ethical decision making when working with Black youth. This workshop looks to get mental health practitioners to dig deeper and self-reflect about their practices. The goal is to help mental health trainees and practitioners examine and potentially modify their content and approach in a way that is more inclusive to Black Youth and families.

• 
  Dr. Kofi Belfon is a clinical psychologist who works with children, adolescents and families. He did his graduate training at the University of Guelph and is registered with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. He is the Associate Clinical Director at Kinark Child and Family Services, is a member of the board of trustees for Strong Minds Strong Kids (formerly the Psychology Foundation of Canada), and sits on the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee at the College of Psychologists of Ontario. He is also the director at Belfon Psychological Services, which is his private practice in the Durham Region where he provides both assessment and therapeutic services. He brings an EDI lens to all his ventures, working to make programming more inclusive both in his own practice and at a systems level.