When Safe Is Good Enough: Practical Strategies to Manage Severe Hoarding
The risk inherent in many hoarding situations is high not only because the living environment is highly cluttered and often dilapidated but because the individual lacks the physical, psychological, and social capacity to live safely and comfortably in a highly-cluttered environment. This interaction between an unsafe environment and poor functional capacity defines severe hoarding. Severe hoarding is a serious and growing problem that can lead to eviction, homelessness, and death. Those with the problem often have other psychiatric disorders as well as little awareness of the consequences they face living in a hoarding environment.
When Safe Is Good Enough: Practical Strategies to Manage Severe Hoarding is a day-long workshop that focuses on a harm reduction approach that includes skills training to assist clients, family members, and concerned others to manage severe hoarding situations.
The workshop includes a description of the phenomenon, the factors that influence harm potential, methods to assess harm potential and develop an intervention plan, motivational interviewing strategies to engage clients, family members, and concerned others in the harm reduction approach and how to teach clients select cognitive and behavioral skills to manage the problem.
Tickets for the workshop cost $35 for students and $50 for general attendance.
The ADAMHS Board is an approved provider through the Ohio Chemical Dependency Professionals Board and the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, Marriage and Family Therapist Board offering Recognized Clock Hours (RCH) to Chemical Dependency Professionals, as well as Continuing Professional Education hours (CEUs) to Counselors and Social Workers and has awarded 6 CEU/RCHs for this conference. All participants must attend the entire conference and complete an evaluation form with full licensure information to receive CEUs/RCHs. No partial CEUs/RCHs will be provided. Please allow 30 days from date of conference for attendance to be recorded in CE Broker and receipt of certificate. Certificates will be emailed to the email address used at registration.
Speaker
Dr. Michael A. Tompkins
Co-Director of the San Francisco Bay Area for Cognitive Therapy
Dr. Michael A. Tompkins is co-director of the San Francisco Bay Area for Cognitive Therapy. He pioneered the application of the harm reduction approach to the problem of hoarding which is highlighted in his two books, “Digging Out: Helping Your Loved One Manage Clutter, Hoarding, and Compulsive Acquiring” (with Tamara L. Hartl) published by New Harbinger Press and “The Clinician’s Guide to Severe Hoarding: A Harm Reduction Approach,” published by Springer Publishing Company. He is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the understanding of hoarding and cluttering by the San Francisco Mental Health Association.
Agenda
| Time | Description |
| 8:15 AM- 8:50 AM | Registration and Breakfast in person Log on and attendance for online registrants |
| 8:50 AM-9:00 AM | Welcome and Introduction of Michael Tompkins Ph.D., Keynote Speaker ●Leshia Yarbrough Franklin Hoarding Connection Co-Chair and ADAMHS Board Cuyahoga County |
| 9:00 AM-10:30 AM | ●Hoarding Behaviors, Hoarding Disorder and squalor. ●Insight functional capacity and harm potential. Rationale for a harm reduction approach to severe hoarding situations. |
| 10:30 AM-10:45 AM | Break |
| 10:45 AM-12:15 PM | ●Assess harm potential and identify harm reduction targets ●Develop a plan and decide where to begin ●Engage and manage pushback with Motivational Interviewing |
| 12:15 PM-1:15 PM | Lunch |
| 1:15 PM-2:45 PM | ●Build skill: sort and discard ●Build skill: solving problems ●Build skill: manage distraction |
| 2:45 PM-3:00 PM | Break |
| 3:00 PM-4:30 PM | ●Build skill: manage distress ●Develop an ongoing plan to monitor harm and keep the door open |
Funded by
