• education and inspiration for educators, health care and mental health professionals who support people adjusting to trauma, life-threatening illness, death and bereavement
  
  
• insight into internal stressors that affect caregiver effectiveness and satisfaction
  
  
• key factors impacting resilience in the wake of high-visibility death and suicide
  
  
• skills and strategies for caregivers seeking to enhance their effectiveness

• Enhance understanding of historic and philosophic views of coping with loss.
• Discuss strategies for maintaining equilibrium after traumatic loss.
• Discover ways to transcend loss individually and collectively.
• Delineate culturally appropriate interventions from the micro, mezzo, and macro systems on regaining functioning after loss.
• Explore the concepts of hope, meaning, and purpose within the framework of ensuing tragic optimism.

Dr. Cacciatore, currently Assistant Professor and researcher at Arizona State University, specializes in counseling those affected by traumatic losses, most often the death of a child. Board Certified in Bereavement Trauma by the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, the National Center for Crisis Management, and the American Psychotherapy Association. Therapeutic interventions to manage PTSD include Mindfulness Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Logotherapy, and Repeated Exposure Therapy.

Matthew Cordova, PhD
Co-director Palo Alto University’s Early Intervention Center

Joseph Ruzek, PhD
Co-director Palo Alto University’s Early Intervention Center

• Identify best practices in treatment of PTSD in the context of grief and loss.
• Understand overlap and distinctions between PTSD and complicated/traumatic grief.
• Learn strategies for addressing obstacles that may impede recovery after trauma.

Dr. Cordova earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1999 from the University of Kentucky, completed a predoctoral internship at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. His research interests include traumatic stress, behavioral medicine/ health psychology, psychosocial oncology, chronic pain, and positive psychology. Dr. Cordova has been an Assistant Professor at the PAU Pacific Graduate School of Psychology since 2002.

Dr. Ruzek is Director of the Dissemination and Training Division of the National Center for PTSD, located at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in Palo Alto, California, an Associate Research Professor at PAU and Clinical Professor (Affiliated) in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. He is a developer of the joint VA-DOD Clinical Practice Guideline for Management of Traumatic Stress and an editor of two editions of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies for Trauma. Dr. Ruzek is a past member of the (VHA) Undersecretary’s Special Committee on PTSD and currently serves on the Board of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Early Intervention Strategies for Treating PTSD and Complicated Grief

Matthew Cordova, PhD and Joseph Ruzek, PhD

Concurrent Workshops - Part 1

• Crisis Support for Adolescents and Children,
  Carlos Aguila, EMQ/Families First
  
  
• Avoiding Caregiver Burnout
  John Ruark, MD and Jim Bronson, MS, MBA (OD)

Concurrent Workshops - Part 2

• Treating Traumatic Stress with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprogramming (EMDR)
  Gerald Puk, PhD, EMDR Institute
  
  
• Helping Communities Move Forward After the Unthinkable
  Joanne Cacciatore, PhD, LCSW, FT

Panel:
Helping Palo Alto Heal After Teen Suicides

Moderated by: Cyndy Ainsworth, Executive Director, Kara, Palo Alto, CA