Presenter Bio:
Margaret Newbury Jones, PsyD has worked in the field of disability and neurodivergence for her entire career. She currently works as a Clinical Specialist for Children and Youth for Shared Health Manitoba. Prior to that she worked as the Mental Health Clinician for the Intensive Community Reintegration Service (ICRS).
Chelsea Champagne has been working as an Adolescent Mental Health Counsellor for 12 years with the Intensive Community Reintegration Service at Child and Youth Treatment Services (formerly known as Manitoba Adolescent Treatment Centre) under Shared Health. She is a Child and Youth Care Diploma graduate and has been working alongside children, youth and families for 15 years in a variety of settings with frontline and management experience in addiction treatment services, mental health, recreation services and justice. She is the President of the Child and Youth Care Workers’ Association of Manitoba and the Treasurer of FICE-Canada.
Marife Cabaguio, MOT, brings years of experience working with neurodivergent children and youth as an Occupational Therapist since 2017. She currently practices within Shared Health Manitoba’s Child and Youth Treatment Services, where she is a dedicated team member of the Intensive Community Reintegration Service. Marife is passionate about helping children and youth achieve their full potential through client-centered, evidence-based occupational therapy.
Presentation:
Adapting the Skills System© for Use with Neurodivergent Youth in a Time-Limited Day Treatment Program
The Intensive Community Reintegration Service (ICRS) of Manitoba’s Shared Health Child and Youth Treatment Services is a service for neurodivergent youth (10-17) who are having difficulties in their community school. ICRS is a mental health day-program service that includes skills-based treatment, parent/caregiver support, onsite schooling, and transition services back to a youth’s community school. Youth attend ICRS full-time for six months.
In the fall of 2024, ICRS began to use the Skills System©, a DBT informed system created by Dr. Julie F. Brown to teach youth how to use the Skills System© for regulation and problem solving across environments. This workshop will provide an overview of the ICRS program and of how ICRS staff have adapted the Skills System© to meet the needs for a full-time day program that is repeated multiple times during youth’s attendance at ICRS and upon their return to their community school.
Participants in this workshop will be given an opportunity to understand the basics of the Skills System© and apply the information to their own programming. They will recognize that within a mental health program, dysregulation can be addressed in a deliberate, trauma-informed, and concrete manner.
