Navigating Ethical Dilemmas in Trauma-Informed Behavioral Health Practice
2026-09-25 09:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Presentation Information:
The training integrates trauma-informed principles with ethical decision-making to strengthen clinicians’ ability to navigate the complex situations they encounter in everyday practice. Participants will explore a structured ethical decision-making framework grounded in core professional values, including client welfare, autonomy, beneficence, competence, integrity, and cultural humility. The workshop begins with an overview of trauma-informed ethical practice, clinician well-being, and the professional use of self as foundations for ethical decision-making. Participants will then apply the framework to real-world clinical dilemmas through collaborative case discussions, identifying practical strategies they can immediately integrate into their behavioral health practice.

Objectives:

Participants will gain an understanding of the core principles of trauma-informed care and their application to ethical decision-making in behavioral health practice.
Participants will apply a structured ethical decision-making framework to analyze complex clinical dilemmas encountered in behavioral health settings.
Participants will evaluate ethical dilemmas by considering professional values, client circumstances, and potential courses of action.
Participants will develop practical, ethically informed strategies that can be immediately integrated into behavioral health practice.

This training has been approved for four (4) contact hours, including four (4) hours of professional ethics, by the Maine Board of Alcohol and Drug Counselors.

Register Here

Agenda for the Day:
9:00am to 10:30am – Welcome, Housekeeping, and Introductions, and Presentation
10:30am to 10:45am – Break
10:45am to 12:00pm – Presentation Continues
12:00pm to 12:15pm – Break
12:15pm to 1:30pm – Presentation Wrap-Up & Open Discussion

About the Presenter:
Johanna Creswell Báez, Ph.D, LCSW is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the MSW Program in the Department of Social Work at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She completed her Master’s of Science in Social Work at Columbia University in 2006 and then worked at several non-profits as a director of clinical and research programming and as a private practice clinician before completing her Ph.D. in clinical social work at Smith College in 2016. She then served as the Manager of Course Development at Columbia University School of Social Work beginning in the fall of 2018 through summer of 2021. Dr. Báez’s research focuses on issues related to trauma, children and families, immigration and technology. She has a particular interest in artificial intelligence (AI), trauma-informed practice, mental health support for immigrant youth, school-based mental health services, culturally responsive interventions, and qualitative and mixed methods research. She published a book on how to do qualitative research in 2021 with SAGE Publications, co-authored by John W. Creswell, 30 Essential Skills for the Qualitative Researcher (2nd ed.), and just published in 2025 with Routledge the edited book, Issues of Equity: Key Concepts in Qualitative Methods. She is also an Associate Editor for the international journal, Qualitative Health Research and currently is editor for their special issue on AI and qualitative health research. Most recently she has been exploring the use of large language models and technology use within social work practice as a Network Lead and Grand Challenges Futures Fellow with the Grand Challenges for Social Work to “Harness Technology for Social Good.”

Register Here
