Continuing Education
The College of Health and Human Services offers continuing education programs on evidence-based practices and emerging health issues relevant to health care and human service professionals. We offer in-person and virtual opportunities for continuing education credits.
Often these programs are led by our own faculty, leading sessions in topics in which they are expert practitioners. But we also partner with outside organizations to provide training that is relevant to the disciplines we serve - including our instructors and alumni.
We strive to provide quality CE programming that helps practitioners grow as professionals and meet CE requirements related to professional licensing.
Virtual and in-person trainings
Navigating Parental Bias in Clinical Work with Children
Instructor: Anyssa Grendel, LMSW
Date: October 9, 2025
Time: 8:30 a.m. – 12 noon
Number of CE hours: Three
Live or synchronous online: Synchronous online
Course description: This 3-hour continuing education course is designed for social workers and mental health clinicians who work with children and families. The training focuses on recognizing and mitigating parental influences that may lead to a clinician’s parental bias and reducing the impact this could have in the process of clinical assessments, treatment, and therapeutic relationships. Clinician’s will explore how parental bias may be influenced by cultural norms, socioeconomic stressors, and systemic racial inequities. Clinician’s will assess and reflect on their own implicit biases and how these may influence their work with children and families of color. Participants will gain practical strategies for ensuring child-centered care while maintaining ethical and professional boundaries in family dynamics.
Trauma Informed Removals and Placements in Child Welfare
Instructor: Bryan Warner
Date: Thursday, November 6, 2025
Time: 9 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. EST
Number of CE hours: Three
Live or synchronous online: Live in-person
Location: WMU College of Health and Human Services
1101 Cass Street
Kalamazoo, MI 49008
Child welfare research reveals that child removal from a parent/parent(s) into foster care/kinship care is most often a traumatic experience. Separation from a parent/parents, acclimating to a new family with whom often the child does not know, and the unpredictability and uncertainty of what will happen next creates anxiety, fear, and relational loss of the attachment person. This in person course is designed to provide child welfare staff with knowledge and skills to effectively implement a trauma informed removal process that reduces traumatic stress when children are entering substitute placement. This training will integrate trauma theory, research, and presenter experience into a trauma informed removal model. Participants will learn the key principles of trauma informed child welfare systems and practices that can be applied to the removal and placement process. Specific strategies to increase psychological safety for the child will be provided addressing engagement, communication, and safety planning.