Program Wednesday 18.06

ICART Conference 2008 (http://hjem.diakonhjemmeths.no/artk/)

Program before lunch: Quality Hotel Residence.
Program after lunch: ART Center.

08.45	Opening session day 2
09.00 - 10.10	PhD Ellen McGinnis-Smith An introduction of Skillstreaming
10.30 - 11.45	Robert Calame Relation, relation, relation!
11.45 - 13.00	Lunch
13.00 - 14.00	D1: Results from a ART training with a young male with mental disabilities Speakers: Asbjørg Berget & Tony Ravndal D2: Family ART Speakers: Robert Calame, Kim Parker & John C. Choi D3: Prepare in Swedish Prison and Probation Service Speaker. Ola Hall
14.15 - 15.15	E1: ART training - children with asperger syndrome Speakers: Janne Mari Akselsen Sørensen & Asle Hjelmen E2: Family ART in Norway Speakers: Tove Skåren, Monika Stensland & Johannes Finne E3: Research on ART in Norway Speakers: Ph.D Frode Svartdal, Johannes Langeveld & Knut Gundersen
15.30 - 16.30	F1: ART and Autism Spectrum Disorder Speaker: PhD Børge Strømgren F2: Presentation of the Lindøy Center in Stavanger Speaker: Roar Colbjørnsen Presentation for KARAN from Polen Speaker: PhD Father Pawel Rosik F3: ART - Researching in USA Speaker: PhD Eva L. Feindler

Plenary 09.00: Introduction to Skillstreaming, by Ellen McGinnis-Smith
This presentation will provide an introduction to Skillstreaming, a process for teaching prosocial skills to children and adolescents. Just why teaching social skills is necessary as well as research supporting this learning technique will be emphasized. Use of the strategy for children and adolescents with various mental health and behavioral needs will be discussed. The learning components of modeling, role playing, feedback and transfer of training will be briefly illustrated.

Ellen McGinnis earned her Ph.D. in Behavioral Disorders from the University of Iowa. She holds degrees in elementary education, special education and school administration. She has been a teacher and an educational consultant in both public schools and hospital-based programs. Dr. McGinnis also served as principal of the education program at Orchard Place, a residential and day treatment program for children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders. She is currently Executive Director of Student and Family Services for the Des Moines Public Schools and provides support for implementing Aggression Replacement Training across the school district. The author of numerous articles, Dr. McGinnis is a coauthor with Dr. Arnold Goldstein of Skillstreaming the Elementary School Child, Skillstreaming the Adolescent and Skillstreaming in Early Childhood.

Plenary 10.30: Relation, relation, relation! by Robert Calame

Robert Calame is the Coordinator of Aggression Replacement Training Programming at Batshaw Youth and Family Centres in Montreal, Canada. The agency has over 35 separate applications of A.R.T and Family A.R.T. in action. Robert graduated from McGill University's School of Social Work and has been working in the youth care field for 26 years. Robert's interests relevant to A.R.T. are: improving generalization of A.R.T. by working with families of youth in training (Family A.R.T.), training and consultation internationally in "Teaching Pro-social Behavior to Troubled Youth", secretary of the Advisory Board for the International Centre for Aggression Replacement Training (ICART), and member of the Quebec Association of Educators. With the help of co-author Kim Parker, Robert has had numerous articles and writings published on the topic of Family A.R.T.

D1: Results from an ART training with a young male with mental disabilities
ART is a method which has been proven efficient in enhancing social skills and diminishing anti-social behaviour. The method contains three components including training of social skills, anger control and moral reasoning. Individuals with mental disabilities often lack competence in these areas. However, it has been made very few studies in the effect of ART concerning this particular group. Through this presentation, we will portray a project where we have conducted a standard ART training program towards a young male with mental disabilities, and severe maladaptive behaviour. This behaviour has occurred since he was in elementary school, and has been of a character that has caused him to be charged with felonies on several occasions. We will present results in rate per week record of this maladaptive behaviour, Goldsteins checklist and social skills rating system (SSRS). Furthermore, we will describe how the program was implemented and carried out in his own surroundings. And finally we will explain at what time we mean ART is the correct intervention towards this group, and which adjustments we feel ought to be made in order to increase the probability for achieving the desired results.

Asbjørg Berget
Innlandet hospital, Habilitation Services in Oppland county, Norway

Tony Ravndal
Innlandet hospital, Habilitation Services in Oppland county, Norway

D2: "FAMILY ART : PREPARE Curriculum approaches to improve Family TIES" by Robert Calame, Kim Parker and John Choi.
This workshop-type presentation will demonstrate an expansion of the Aggression Replacement Training® (Goldstein, Glick and Gibbs 1998) when applied in a family/ systems context. The potency and potential for transfer of this cognitive behavioral/ psycho-educational program is magnified when the approach includes the training of A.R.T. ® with parents and significant others with the youth. We now refer to this training of A.R.T. with families as Family Training In Essential Skills or Family TIES

The belief that successfully treating youth in difficulty, is most effectively done when the youth's family and significant others in his/her system are included, is the motivation for this simple yet powerful approach. A "how to" approach will be used to quickly describe the recruitment of parents as well as delivery and maintenance of Aggression Replacement Training® methods. During the process, family members and significant others train to become "coaches" for youth trainees studying the PREPARE curriculum.

Family TIES programming has been offered in Canada since 1993 and the focus is on developing social skills in youth and their families so communication can improve. The bulk of Family TIES intervention is done using Skillstreaming. The development of empathy in all family members is also an important interest of the Family TIES program, in the hope that communication between family members can be one that strengthens family relationships. With that in mind, Empathy Training, Character Education and Moral Reasoning elements are also built in to the approach. Anger Control and Problem Solving techniques are also incorporated into this family skills training strategy.

This approach has been translated into Norwegian and Swedish and pilot projects have been set up and evaluations conducted. In Montreal Canada where the model originated, evaluation involving researchers from McGill University, Université de Montréal and Université de Sherbrooke has been underway since 2004. Family satisfaction results and findings of a literature review will be looked at during the presentation. More in depth results will be examined when they become available which should be prior to this workshop in June 2007.

In October 2007 Robert received an award for "Meritorious Achievement" in the field of child and youth care at the Ruth and Manny Batshaw Award of Excellence ceremonies.

Kimberlee Parker
After graduating from Acadia University, Kim began a 30 year career working with youth in Quebec, Canada. When A.R.T. was introduced at Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, she began animating Family groups at their inception, was instrumental in the creation of an agency-wide A.R.T. Implementation plan. Kim provides support for A.R.T. through animation, training and coaching, and has been responsible for the collection of evaluation data. At the elementary school level, she has developed a conflict resolution program that incorporates A.R.T. into other established programs. Kim acts as consultant to many A.R.T. programs and trains A.R.T. and Family A.R.T. internationally. Along with Robert Calame, Kim has had numerous articles and writing published on Family A.R.T. In 2006 Kim was honored as "Youth Care Worker of the year" by the Quebec Association of Educators. In 2007, Kim was recipient of the Ruth and Manny Batshaw Award of Excellence for her significant contributions in the field of child and youth care.

John C. Choi. Upon graduating with a BA in Psychology from McGill University, John continued working with youth and in the community. From parks and recreation to community based group homes to social services, he has worked with all ages, from the elderly to preschool children. His relationship with Batshaw Youth and Family Services now approaches its 14^th year, with Goldstein's Prepare Curriculum, in particular Problem Solving and A.R.T. being an integral part of his practice since Intermittent Custody Program was developed in January 1996. He uses these tools, and others, as a practitioner, a trainer, in public schools, and in his private practice as well as in Batshaw. "We are all teachers, role models, mentors, regardless of what we say or do, people perceive the truth? so why not show it."

D3:Prepare in Swedish Prison and Probation Service, by Ola Hall
Maine themes for the presentation:
1. Motivation, Motivational Interviewing
2. What is ART and PREPARE?
3. ART and PREPARE in the Swedish probation service
4. PREPARE trainer ART and PREPARE in the Swedish probation service

Ola Hall has been a program leader in probation service for 7 years. Most of the time has worked with youth in the youth department in Kristianstad, as a program leader for ART and PREPARE in addition to Motivational Interviewing (MI). Ola Hall is behaviour therapist. He is a MI trainer and master trainer in ART and PREPARE. Now he is responsible for courses for ART and PREAPARE trainers within the probation service all over Sweden.

E1: Treatment programs within social skills for children with autism, By Janne Mari Akselsen Sørensen & Asle Hjelmen
Treatment programs within social skills for children with autism have often been a deficient and a challenging area for both teachers and parents. The skill streaming program in ART for early childhood, have been very useful to give a systematic treatment of social skills for children with autism.

Individual adjustments for children with autism; Further simplifications of the steps for different social skills. Visual help from observation cards, role playing cards, pictures/symbols as a help to answering different questions, visualization of the steps in social skills.

Pre training to manage participation in an organized group; Before participation in the group, the children often needs individual training to learn the meaning of different pictures/symbols, to teach them to answer different questions about the skills, and to teach the children how to role play.

Training in group; Small group with 2-4 children. Focus on tempo (short sessions). The use of direct reinforcement contingent on specific responses, and the use of token economy for the whole group, or for each child. The same skill should be trained 2-3 times

Generalization of the skills; Video

Janne Mari Akselsen Sørensen is Consultant/Social Educator 1 at SUS, Psychiatrisk avdeling, Barne- og ungdomspsykiatrisk avdeling, Autismteam. Bachelor Social Educator (vernepleie), elementary level special pedagogic, and Masters Degree, Behavior Analysis. She is ART-instructor and have 10 years experience from children with autism.

Asle Hjelmen is Section leader at SUS, Psykiatrisk avdeling, Barne- og ungdomspsykiatrisk avdeling, Autismteam. He have Bachelor as Social Educator (vernepleie) and further education in Applied Behavior Analysis. He is ART-instructor and have 12 years experience from children/youth with autism and Asperger syndrom

E2: FamilyART in Norway, by Tove Skåren, Monika Stensland & Johannes Finne
The Norwegian Family A.R.T is built on the work that Robert Calame and Kim Parker has done with the extension of Aggression Replacement Training (Goldstein, Glick and Gibbs 1998). The work with Family A.R.T started when the implementation guide by Robert Calame and Kim Parker was translated into Norwegian in 2006, by trainers at the Lindøy Center in Stavanger.

The experience from the programs has been congruent concerning the method, the contents and the feedback from the Family A.R.T. program. The participants emphasized that during these sessions they did practice on situations that were very similar to the ones they experienced in real life. The effect of being a group and learning by weaving other family's role playing was also very central in their learning process.

Family A.R.T at the Lindøy Center is a part of a short time institutional treatment; along with this they are offered individual family guiding using ART and PMTO principals. Both this and Family A.R.T is voluntarily. 4 to 8 families are adequate in the Family A.R.T. The sessions are hold ones a week. All together we use 9 sessions.

In this workshop we will present what has been emphasized in the Norwegian implementation guide, what it contains and which experiences we have done.

Tove Skåren, graduated from Stavanger University College, Norway 2000. Since then been working primarily with youth. Started 2004 as familiytherapeut at Lindøysenteret, receiving my ART-training courses. I have participated in Lindøysentererets work with Family-ART from the beginning in 2006. In addition I have been involved in developing the Norwegian family-ART manual. As of today I have started education in PMTO (Parent Management Training-Oregon) finishing in 2008.

Monika Stensland, bachelor in religion and intercultural communication, has for the past four years worked on Lindøysenteret. She did the translation of the implementation Guide by Robert Calame and Kim Parker into Norwegian. She is one of the trainees in the Lindøysenteret`s Family A.R.T program.

Johannes Finne has a Bachelor of Social Education with 60 credits post graduate education in "Training in Social Competence". He has several years experience as leader of the ART-program at the Lindoy Centre and is current working as a lecturer at Diakonhjemmet University College. Johannes Finne has been responsible for developing implementation systems including ART and family ART, and is also a co-author for ART training manual in norwegian. Johannes is a master ART trainer and has been responsible for a number of ART-trainer seminars supervisions and workshops and also lecturing at the post-graduate education. He is now responsible for organizing the ICART-conference.

E3: Research on ART in Norway
At Diakonhjemmet University College, Sandnes, a 60-credit further education course in training of social competence has been arranged during the past six years. As part of this course, the students participated in research projects examining the effects of ART on behavioural problems. Knut Gundersen and Frode Svartdal have published two articles on the effects of ART and its implementation in peer-reviewed international journals. Another two articles are in preparation. After our initial studies in which we have found that ART does have significant effects on behaviour problems in youngsters, we are currently investigating how ART effects on the behaviour of youngsters. In an attempt to test some of the theoretical assumptions regarding the effects of ART, the focus of research in our ongoing study is on factors mediating the effects of ART on behaviour in young individuals. More specifically our attention is on social skills, cognitive factors, and affects regulation as possible mediating factors between ART and change in behaviour. In this presentation, we will give an overview over our research on ART along with a presentation of our most recent findings on mediating factors.

Knut Gundersen is associated professor and the leader of the ART department at Rogaland University College. He has written several books and articles in the area of social competence, environmental therapy and networking. He has presented on several national and international congresses and is one of the key persons for implementing ART in Norway, Island and Russia. Knut is also a member of the ICART board.

Frode Svartdal, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at the University of Tromsø, and at Diakonhjemmet Rogaland College. His main research interests relate to the psychology of learning (operant conditioning, verbal control, extinction), cognitive psychology, and research methodology. He is the author of numerous research articles and books. With Knut Gundersen he has conducted several evaluations of A.R.T. in Norway.

Johannes Langeveld is a clinical and research psychologist at the Stavanger University, the ART-centre at Diakonhjemmet University College in Sandnes and the Faculty of Psychology at Bergen University. His main topics of interest are assessment and psychological treatment of behavioural problems and psychotic disorders in adolescents. He has been connected to the ART-centre in Sandnes, Rogaland since june 2007. Together with Knut Gundersen and Frode Svartdal he has evaluated the ART student-projects in Norway in 2007.

F1: Aggression Replacement Training and Autism Spectrum Disorders,
By PhD Børge Strømgren
In general children with Asperger's Syndrome (AS) have problems with social interactions and social/situational perception; this deficit is a core symptom in all diagnosis groups comprising the term Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Problems with aggression are also common in children with ASD and overrepresented in AS, and are among the most important causes for referral to psychiatry, often leading to requirements of acute ward treatment. Typical treatment procedures involve medication, either in order to treat the AS core symptoms or in order to treat a perceived co-morbid psychiatric illness.

Social-cognitive treatments are considered effective for treating social skills deficits and/or aggression in typically developing children, but for the AS group such interventions are scarce and mainly constitute social skills groups or social stories. Social-cognitive interventions administered to children with AS in their local school by their ordinary teachers were therefore examined. The program Aggression Replacement Training (ART) was used.

The possibilities of ART used in one-on-one training with children with AS was investigated and results revealed that one-on-one ART training could reduce aggressive and disruptive behaviours at school.

The possibilities of using ART in group-based training with children with AS together with typically developing peers was investigated, and the results revealed that group-based ART training could increase social skills and reduce problem behaviours and aggressive behaviours. Results furthermore revealed that some children with AS showed the same improvement trends in social skills as well as aggressive reduction trends as their typically developing peers did.

Finally the possibilities of an adaptation of ART in a whole class social skills intervention with children with AS and their regular class was investigated. Results revealed that whole class ART training could have some effect on improved social skills, but not on aggressive behaviours for children with AS

PhD Børge Strømgren is an assistant professor at Akershus University College (Høgskolen i Akershus) where he works on implementing evidence based therapies in community settings. He has formerly been working as a habilitation consultant at Vestfold Mental Health Care Trust, Glenne autismesenter, where he conducted research on ART and autism spectrum disorders, specifically Asperger's syndrome. He is a co-editor of a book on replacement of aggression with children and youth - including ASD - displaying anti-social behavior and aggression.

F2:

The Lindøy Center, by Maiken Saxeide Offerdal
The Lindøy Center, which opened as an institution for boys in 1888, restarted in 2002 and became a treatment center for youth with behaviour problems and their families. Based on the results of the meta-analytic review of Tore Andreassen (2003), ART was implemented together with level system and token economy. We believe that successfully treating provide a close cooperation between school, family and the youth. We also believe that motivation is the key of changing. Participation in school, ART, familyART and other training arenas should be based on the free will, and their capability of making good choice is an important goal for all training in social competences. The presentation will focus on the importance of implementing functional systems of motivation and reinforcement.

Maiken Saxeide Offerdal , Bachelor in Child Welfare, have worked at the Lindøy Center for the last two years and have been one of the main ART trainers.

KARAN implements ART since 2001 in sociotherapeutic clubs, as well as to re - adaptive centers and into schools. In re -adaptive centers ART workshops have been included into daily drug addiction therapy. The trainnigs are suplementing the therapy. Since 2007 KARAN begin to promote new program - Peace 4 Kids. Each two years KARAN organized "Stop Violence Conference". In 2007 in conference participated 1500 people. The conferences are for teachers, psychologists and others specialist who work with children and with adolescents.

Father Pawel Rosik, holder of a Ph.D. in sociology, psychologist, theologian, trainer, and addiction therapy specialist of the Polish Psychological Society; graduate of the psychiatry college of the Catholic University of Lublin. Founder and Chairman of the Board of the KARAN Association, one of the largest Polish non-governmental organisations engaging in programmes of assistance to addicted persons and their families, and to children from dysfunctional and impoverished families. Today, the KARAN Association run 6 live-in centres for drug addicts, 18 socio-therapy day care centres, and 8 family counselling centres and consulting offices.

F3: Evaluation of ART Program, by PhD Eva L. Feindler
This presentation will review the specific objectives and methods of program evaluation that are relevant to ART programs. Multiple methods of data collection from multiple sources will be reviewed. Targets for measurement as well as specific assessment tools relevant to the ART content will be suggested and examples of ART program evaluations will be presented. Finally, obstacles and solutions to comprehensive program evaluation in applied settings will be discussed.

Eva L. Feindler, Ph.D. is currently a professor of psychology at the Long Island University Doctoral program in Clinical Psychology. As a faculty member of the Specialty Track in Family Violence and as Director of the Psychological Services Clinic, she is directly involved in programs to help children and families manage their anger and resolve conflict. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Mount Holyoke College and her masters and doctoral degrees from West Virginia University. Her clinical internship training was completed at the Children's Psychiatric Center in Eatontown, New Jersey. Prior to her position at LIU, Dr. Feindler was an associate Professor of Psychology at Adelphi University where she also directed the Masters Degree program in Applied Behavioral Technology. She has authored several books (Adolescent Anger Control: Cognitive-Behavioral Strategies; Handbook of Adolescent Behavior Therapy, Assessment of Family Violence), numerous articles on parent and child anger, its assessment and treatment and has conducted professional training workshops across the United States and internationally. She is featured on a training video (published by Research Press) which presents the various components of Aggression Replacement Training. Currently she is writing a book entitled The Comparative Treatment of Anger Disorders.
Finally, she has served an appointed term on the New York State Board for Psychology, a term on the Board of the Nassau County Psychological Association and was the Program Coordinator for the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy Conference in 1995. She also served on the APA Commission on Violence and Youth from 1992-1995 and on the APA Task Force on Violence and The Family.

ICART Conference 2008

Training in Social Competence
June 17-18 • Sandnes, Norway

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