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Helping Youth Who Self-Harm, with Sheri Van Dijk, MSW, RSW

It’s hard for most people to understand why someone would purposely inflict pain on themselves, and yet this isn’t uncommon, with rates of youth self-harm ranging from 1.5 to 6.7% in community samples; and as high as 50% in adolescent psychiatric samples. While self-harming behaviours typically decrease in late adolescence, youth who engage in this behaviour repetitively seem to be at high risk for continuing to use dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies such as substance misuse even after stopping the self-harming behaviour. This, in addition to the fact that self-harm is one of the strongest antecedents of suicide in youth, makes this a behaviour that requires effective intervention. Of course, intervening is often easier said than done!

In this webinar, you’ll develop a better understanding of self-harming behaviours and why youth turn to this as a means of managing emotions. We’ll discuss ways you can help your youth by managing your own emotions in healthy ways, as well as how you can intervene more skillfully with your loved one.

Participants will learn:
• What self-harming is and why people do it
• How to support your loved one without reinforcing the self-harming behaviour, through skills such as emotion regulation and validation

Feb 23, 2022 07:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)