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Certificate in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for children level 2: Clinical applications to specific cases
Advance your CBT practice with a structured, skills-based program designed to help you apply evidence-based strategies to anxiety, depression, OCD, pain, and school avoidance in children and adolescents.
This 5-day advanced training program is designed for professionals seeking to deepen their expertise in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for children and adolescents. The series focuses on practical, clinically relevant applications, equipping participants with advanced, evidence-based CBT skills that can be immediately applied in practice.
Covering topics such as anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), pain, somatization, medical concerns, and school avoidance, this certificate program offers tools and frameworks to support a range of mental health challenges in children and adolescents. Whether you are looking to expand your current practice or deepen your work in these areas, each of the five modules that make up this program series is designed to enhance your clinical practice and support improved outcomes for children and youth.
This program is offered as an open module series, allowing the flexibility to register for any of the five individual modules or the full series, depending on your learning goals. Whether you choose to attend one module or all five, this program is designed to provide practical, evidence-based tools for supporting a range of mental health concerns in children and adolescents.
Individual modules include:
Module 1: Using inhibitory learning and exposure-based approaches for child anxiety.
When: February 11, 2027 | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET
Facilitator(s): Daniel Chorney, PhD
Learning objectives:
- Understand the foundations of exposure therapy.
- Define exposure-based treatments and explain their role in anxiety management.
- Differentiate between in-vivo, interoceptive, and imaginal exposures.
- Integrate flexible approaches to CBT.
- Recognize when exposure therapy is appropriate or contraindicated.
- Adapt exposure techniques based on individual cases and comorbid conditions.
- Address ethical considerations in exposure therapy.
- Addressing symptom exacerbation, attrition rates, and safety issues.
- Learn research-supported strategies to minimize risks while maintaining effectiveness.
- Apply advanced exposure strategies.
- Implement inhibitory learning models to help children build resilience.
- Use techniques like expectancy violation, deepened extinction, and variability to optimize learning.
- Develop and implement exposure hierarchies.
- Construct effective step-by-step fear ladders tailored to individual children.
Module 2: Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for depression in youth
When: February 18, 2027 | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET
Facilitator(s): Kathryn Walker, PhD, C.Psych.
Learning objectives:
- Identify common triggers for onset of depression in adolescence.
- Understand and practice key cognitive, emotional and behavioural strategies to draw on when clients describe depression, to support them to break their TFB cycles.
- Examine strategies to help parents/caregivers to support their youth who experience depression, and to avoid unhelpful reinforcement patterns.
- Examine strategies to build resilience and prevent relapse of depression for adolescents.
Module 3: Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and exposure and response prevention for paediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
When: February 25, 2027 | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET
Facilitator(s): Daniel Chorney, PhD
Learning objectives:
- Comprehend the core features and assessment of paediatric OCD.
- Define OCD and distinguish it from other anxiety-related disorders.
- Recognize the primary symptom clusters and how they manifest in children.
- Effectively apply exposure and response prevention (ERP).
- Design individualized exposure hierarchies based on specific OCD symptoms.
- Implement strategies to optimize inhibitory learning, focusing on distress tolerance rather than habituation.
- Address common challenges in paediatric OCD treatment.
- Identify and manage family accommodation when problematic.
- Navigate treatment resistance, including motivational strategies to engage children.
- Address ethical concerns surrounding distress tolerance and exposure therapy.
- Manage varieties of OCD presentations.
- Develop targeted interventions for scrupulosity, pedophilia-themed OCD, harm-related obsessions, and contamination fears.
- Apply creative, developmentally appropriate strategies to help children externalize and reframe intrusive thoughts.
- Enhance treatment outcomes and prevent relapse.
- Teach children and families how to recognize and manage OCD setbacks.
- Using booster sessions and exposure generalization strategies.
Module 4: Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for children and adolescents with pain, somatization or medical concerns
When: March 4, 2027 | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET
Facilitator(s): Kathryn Walker, PhD, C.Psych.
Learning objectives:
- Identify when physical health and mental health symptoms may be presenting and cycling for children and adolescents.
- Learn key cognitive, emotional and behavioural strategies to draw on when clients describe pain or other physical/medical symptoms, to support them to break their TFB cycles.
- Learn when acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) strategies may be particularly helpful for certain medical presentations.
- Apply key ACT strategies with their clients to support them to live well even when chronic pain or medical symptoms will be ongoing.
Module 5: Emotionally-based school avoidance: A multi-systemic cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) approach to problematic attendance
When: March 11, 2027 | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET
Facilitator(s): Daniel Chorney, PhD
Learning objectives:
- Understand the complexities of emotionally-based school avoidance (EBSA)
- Define EBSA and distinguish it from truancy and other attendance issues.
- Explore the four key functions of school avoidance and their behavioural patterns.
- Examine post-pandemic trends in school absenteeism and their implications.
- Assess and identify the underlying causes of school refusal
- Utilize structured assessment tools (e.g., school refusal assessment scale – revised).
- Differentiate between anxiety-driven school refusal and oppositional behaviour.
- Recognize systemic and family-based factors contributing to avoidance.
- Implement effective, evidence-based interventions
- Apply CBT strategies for anxiety-driven avoidance.
- Develop exposure-based hierarchies to gradually reintegrate students into school.
- Use motivational and values-based approaches to enhance student engagement.
- Develop and apply a multi-tiered model of support
- Implement Tier 1 universal interventions for school-wide prevention.
- Apply Tier 2 targeted interventions for students at risk of chronic absenteeism.
- Use Tier 3 intensive interventions for students with severe school avoidance.
- Engage parents and school staff in a collaborative process
- Address family accommodation behaviours that reinforce avoidance.
- Guide parents in building distress tolerance and school readiness at home.
- Train educators on creating a supportive and structured school environment.
Please note: This is a five-module certificate program. You must complete all five modules within a year to obtain the certificate. Each of the modules may be taken on their own as a stand-alone training.
Live webinar series
February 11, 18, 25, March 4, and 11, 2027 | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET
Kathryn Walker, PhD, C.Psych, and Daniel Chorney, PhD
