Live Webinar
April 11, 2024 4pm IST, 11amEST, 8am PST
MAGPIES for Social Skills?
Many interventions targeting young people’s “social skills” promote conforming to the neuromajority at the expense of authenticity and wellbeing. Learning how to authentically be ourselves whilst simultaneously gaining understanding of what others in our environments might need, demonstrating respect for our individual needs and for the needs of other humans are important skills for all children to learn. In the context of seeking relationships with others, all children should be supported in clarifying their values and selecting the most helpful and prosocial behaviors, free from aversive control. This workshop introduces attendees to MAGPIES for “social skills”, a developmentally appropriate, neuroaffirmative, contextual behavioral approach to teaching children self & other awareness, teaching interpersonal skills to navigate the complexities
of these everyday relationships with compassion. Through didactic presentations, attendees will review neurodiversity, the double-empathy problem, and a reconceptualization of “social skills” as values-guided social behaviors. Through experiential exercises, attendees will be invited to practice exercises relevant to healthy selfing and interpersonal relationships, including self- advocacy, communication, and perspective- taking. Attendees will also plan for challenges that may show up when young people are experimenting with values-guided behaviors in social contexts. Finally, attendees will receive a suite of easy-to-implement MAGPIES protocols that teachers/clinicians/other professionals can trial when aiming to strengthen children’s values- guided social behaviors in naturalistic group settings where children may be experiencing mental health difficulties as a result of struggling in areas relating to social skills or self-awareness. The training series is appropriate for all levels of practitioners.
What you’ll learn
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Explain the importance of a neuroaffirmative approach to self and interpersonal skills with reference to neurodiversity and the double- empathy problem.
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Discuss how and why we might reconceptualize “social skills” as values-guided social behaviors.
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Use MAGPIES protocols to support children in exploring their own values in the context of seeking relationships with others.
Meet your instructors
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Meet your instructors ✳
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B.Sc. (Hons.) Psych., Ph.D., Prof. Cert. CBT, Cert. Adv. ACT & MBI, C. Psychol. Ps.S.I.
Dr Sarah Cassidy is an Educational, Child and Adolescent Psychologist and a peer-reviewed ACT Trainer. She is a Chartered Psychologist with the Psychological Society Of Ireland (PSI) as well as a serving Council Member of the PSI. She is also in the Division of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychologists with the American Psychological Association.
She is the Founder and Director of Smithsfield Clinic, a private Community Mental Health Service in Athboy, County Meath where she has offered neuro-affirmative psycho-educational, neurodevelopmental, and emotional/behavioural assessments and treatment for all ages of children, adolescents, and young adults and their families for over 2 decades now.
She is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the New England Centre for OCD & Anxiety, Ireland Branch (with Dr Lisa Coyne) which is a highly specialised assessment and treatment centre for those experiencing anxiety ranging from everyday anxiety to very severe and treatment-resistant anxiety and OCD. This service employs ACT (+ERP) and RFT principles in all interventions. Dr Cassidy is also the Co-Founder and Chief Education Officer at RaiseYourIQ.com which is a behavioural educational technological research company that came directly out of her doctoral research at Maynooth University (with Professor Bryan Roche) which continues to conduct cutting-edge behaviour analytic research nationally and internationally to evaluate how children learn best and to maximise their learning potential using Relational Frame Theory interventions and which is now widely known as SMART (strengthening mental abilities with relational training). Dr Cassidy is the former Chairperson of the Association for Contextual Behavioural Science Membership Committee and continues to serve on this and many other committees and SIGS within this organization, including being a member of the Steering Group for the Neurodiversity-Affirming Research and Practice Special Interest Group.
She has been a Lecturer in Child, Educational and Counselling Psychology at Maynooth University as well as a mentor and trainer to professional psychologists and behaviour analysts, ACT therapists and specialist teachers on multiple university programs and professional courses in Ireland and abroad for the last 15 years+. She regularly is invited to be a peer reviewer and guest editor for scientific journal articles and books. She is a clinical consultant on several professional boards and companies at senior management level including Compassionate Behavior Analysis and Reach Children Services both offering neuroaffirmative and compassionate behaviour analytic assessment and therapies.
Dr Cassidy has also designed a children’s mental health program, called MAGPIES, which is now being used in clinics all over the world to support children in learning how to build emotional regulation skills, build self and other awareness skills, increase self-esteem and to learn to cope with anxiety. She continues to conduct research nationally and internationally on this programme to improve mental health outcomes for children.
She has recently co-authored Tired of Anxiety; A Kid’s Guide to Befriending Scary Thoughts and Living your Life Anyway (which has recently been featured on several radio shows and popular podcasts) and Tired of Teen Anxiety; A Young Person’s Guide to Discovering Your Best Life and Becoming your Best Self. There are 3 more books in this series on the way. Dr Cassidy is best known for her ability to break down scientific principles into bite-sized pieces such that they can be understood by broader audiences, including children, adolescents, and those outside of the scientific community. She is passionate about building bridges, neuroaffirmative practice, and equitable access to evidence-based science.
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B.A. (Hons.) Psych., Ph.D., Cert. Adv. ACT & MBI, Prof. Dip. CBT, C. Psychol. Ps.S.I.
Dr Alison Stapleton is a Chartered Psychologist of the Psychological Society of Ireland, Postdoctoral Fellow at Smithsfield Clinic and University College Dublin, and a Lecturer in Psychology at Dublin Business School and the Institute of Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy. Alison coordinates the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) Neurodiversity-Affirming Research and Practice Special Interest Group (SIG), served on the Steering Committee for the ACBS Relational Frame Theory SIG, and currently works at ACT Now Purposeful Living, a leading provider of ACT training in Ireland. Alison regularly delivers national and international level trainings, and has experience working in psychological services to identify, accommodate, and support a range of neurotypes. Alison has published two book chapters and 13 scientific articles, most recently contributing to The Oxford Handbook of ACT and a systematic review of adults’ experiences of being identified as autistic in adulthood (manuscript submitted for publication).
