The workshop, “Understanding and Working with School Anxiety and Refusal Impacting Student Attendance” presented by Dr. Patrick McGrath unfolded to a full house of 100 counselors, social workers, school psychologists, nurses, teachers and administrators on March 17, 2017. Dr. McGrath is the Co-Director of the School Anxiety/School Refusal Program at Amita Health Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital and President of the Anxiety Centers of Illinois.
The content and presentation were extremely well received. Dr. McGrath’s presentation was noted as an enlightening framework with hands on strategies to enhance student anxiety intervention. The following are just a snippet of participants’ thanks:
- “It was especially helpful to reinforce that research tells us that best practice is to help kids manage their anxiety instead of to avoid it.”
- “You can’t talk people out of anxiety but you can train them to work with it and overcome it.”
- “One benefit for me was learning that there is an assessment tool available (Chris Kearney) that identifies the four domains of school anxiety/refusal which then determines the best interventions for that particular domain.”
- “I learned strategies I can utilize with a student who was just referred this afternoon.”
- “One of the best presentations I have ever attended in over 20 years of education.”
