We're Getting DBT-LBC Certification!

/

Marsha M. Linehan, Ph.D., the founder of DBT and a behavioral scientist, is listed among the likes of Curie, Darwin, Einstein, Newton, and Hawking as one of the great scientists of our time in Time Magazine’s “Great Scientists: The Geniuses and Visionaries Who Transformed Our World.” She strove to understand and effectively treat suicide - driven by relentless pain of her own and others’ suffering, along with the recognition that psychiatric treatment for suicide was costly in lives and dollars and mostly ineffective. She dedicated her life to developing a set of scientifically proven standards and reliable interventions and then set about to teach as many people as she could. The high stakes made treatment success her sole focus, so she joined with the founding members of DBT-LBC to create a certification process to ensure that those providing DBT meet the highest standards and provide reliable care. Take a look at the work they do and DONATE if you can DBT-LBC. They are working hard to change legislation to improve insurance coverage for evidence-based practices at the Medicaid level and most of the expert adherence coders for certification work on a voluntary basis.

We at BHBA are all committed to demonstrating mastery in DBT and have initiated steps towards program certification. This is not easy to achieve. Yet, we owe it to our patients and our community to pursue this path. Please watch this 15-minute interview with Susan Snyder, LCSW, the Director of Program and Staff Development at BHBA, who is leading this charge. She, and the founder of BHBA, Dr. Bellet, discuss what motivates clinicians to work with trauma and suicide and why certification is important.   

Fun Ways to Practice Skills at Home!

/
PHOTO BY KATE GLICKSBERG

PHOTO BY KATE GLICKSBERG

 

Erica Sava, LMSW, a DBT child specialist at BHBA, shares these great strategies to help your child with distress tolerance! Practice these strategies with your child as often as you can (age-dependent). Think of practice like a fire drill to prepare for a real emergency. Role-play and pretend play the likely triggers as much as possible, always ending with modeling distress tolerance skills as well as fully relaxing the body. As always, reward your child with warmth, attention, and praise when they do this!! They are working hard, especially when their emotions are high! Erica recommends:

  • Creating A Comfort Box:
    Create a box with your child and fill it with their most comforting items to increase the use of the distress tolerance skills of self-soothing with 5 senses. Show enthusiasm for how soothing each item is and model how they would use it by focusing on the senses that are engaged. Consider all five senses and pick multiple items. If your child gets a lot of comfort from, say petting a pet, then place a picture of the pet in the box with a note reminding your child to go pet the animal. It is very challenging for us all to remember to self-soothe when upset, so remind your child often to engage with their soothing items often so that they become attuned to the feelings of comfort and how to attain it. Common items: cozy blanket, sentimental pictures or mementos, slime, fidget toys, stuffed animals, pictures of family members, pets, vacation, candy, lotion, or cards/ games. 

  • Encouraging / Positive Self-Talk Projects:
    Create something that provides encouraging words and also boosts self-esteem! Write encouraging statements "I've got what it takes to cope with my emotions!" or "I can cope with any stressor that I face now and in the future!," in order to boost inner strength and grit. Encouragement is an essential DBT distress tolerance skill. They can also write things about themselves and what they are good at on homemade hearts and place them in a jar or bag. When they are feeling incapable, worried, or sad, they can read their own words to boost themselves up. For children who like to craft or draw, use a pillowcase to decorate with their hearts. Get creative!

  • Staycation:
    Have a vacation at home by gathering items that put you in a vacation mindset. Go to the beach! Gather beach towels, sunglasses, an umbrella, beach balls, a frisbee, sounds of waves or seagulls, and lemonade with an umbrella straw. Again, creativity is key! Not only will this help increase the use of the distress tolerance skill of ‘take a vacation’ by stepping away from stressors, it will also help increase imagery skill and accumulate positive emotions. 

  • Contributing Cards:
    Contributing to others’ happiness and well-being can help increase our own happiness. This is an often overlooked and very powerful distress tolerance skill. When your child is sad or worried, have them write cards, send pictures, or other creative projects to family members or friends. If your child does not want to make something, they can also bring food to someone’s house, call them on the phone, or donate their own savings to charity. This also provides an opportunity to praise your child for being thoughtful or generous. 

APA Action Alert: Extend Medicare Telehealth Flexibilities

/

ACT NOW

Retain Medicare Telehealth Services Coverage Flexibilities for 12 months

Thank you for taking part in the more than 10,400 messages sent in March asking for audio-only telehealth services coverage in Medicare. Through your messages you and your colleagues convinced the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to begin covering these services, enabling patients to get the treatment they need during the COVID-19 crisis.

CMS is now indicating that Congress must step in to extend coverage, and we need to preserve Medicare’s behavioral services telehealth coverage expansions for 12 months following the end of the COVID-19 emergency period. Telehealth is helping to ensure that Medicare patients receive timely and crucial mental health services. Older Americans are especially reliant on this telehealth expansion as it allows for audio-only services, treatment of beneficiaries in their homes and removes restrictions of care due to location. Many Medicare patients are isolated at home or in nursing facilities and living in rural areas without adequate provider networks or reliable broadband service. Clinical psychologists have shared heart-wrenching stories with us about how important these services are to their patients.

Because need for telehealth and audio-only services access will remain long after the COVID-19 emergency period, we are urging a 12-month extension of telehealth coverage of psychological services to continue providing flexibility to patients, and to give CMS and Congress time to collect and evaluate data and potentially make some telehealth expansions permanent.

Whether or not you are a Medicare provider, we urge you to contact your members of Congress. We strongly encourage you to put this message into your own words as much as possible, and to include an example or two from your own practice about the importance of telehealth services coverage.

ACT NOW