Gender, Orientation, and Identity Issues(8 CE Hours)

Description: This workshop is an introduction to gender identity. This highly engaging and interactive training provides clinicians with the knowledge and skills necessary to assist a wide array of patients and clients. This is accomplished through developing a clear and distinct differentiation between gender and sexual orientation, a practical understanding of the complexities of gender and orientation that includes social and cultural influences on both, and the ways in which clients’ chosen identities may or may not create challenges within their daily lives.

The workshop provides practical tools for assessing issues related to gender and orientation, for working sensitively with clients across gender spectrums and from varied orientations and for effective work when the identified issue relates to the client’s sexual identity.

The workshop uses interactive learning methods supported by adult learning theory to ensure high levels of not only retention, but also participant engagement, self-efficacy and application.

This workshop will help attendees develop a practical understanding of gender, orientation and identity that will allow clinicians to effectively work with clients from varied gender and orientation experiences as well as to help clients for whom these issues are the presenting problem.

Learning Objectives: 

Define Gender, Orientation and Identity and Differentiate between them.

Describe professional practices that communicate sensitivity to clients of different genders and orientations.

List client challenges that may be related to gender, orientation and identity, including challenges related to social and cultural realities

Apply useful therapeutic interventions to use when working with client challenges that may be related to gender, orientation and identity.

Evaluate practice approaches for their efficacy in working around issues of gender, orientation and identity

Activity Schedule: 

1 Hour: Opening and Introduction

1 Hour: Organizing Constructs: Gender vs. Orientation

2 Hours: Psychosocial Challenges for Gender and Orientation Diverse Clients

1 Hour: Cultural Implications

1 Hour: Value Awareness

2 Hours: Developing Affirmative Practice

Speaker Bios:

Brent A. Satterly, PhD, LCSW is a Full Professor at Widener University’s Center for Social Work Education. With over 25 years clinical and educational experience, his areas of expertise include human sexuality and social work pedagogies, clinical work with LGBTQIA+ populations, professional identity management & intersectionalities, HIV/AIDS, family and sex therapy, and the use of pop culture in teaching social justice. He is well published, including his recent 2020 co-authored textbook, Sexuality Concepts for Social Workers (2nd ed.). He is a member of good standing in the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and the Pennsylvania Association of Undergraduate Social Work Education (PAUSWE).

Dr. Don Dyson is an Associate Professor and Ph.D. Program Director for the Center for Human Sexuality Studies (CHSS) at Widener University.

Dr. Dyson received his undergraduate degree from Eastern University in Communications studies, his Masters of Social Service from Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research and his PhD in Education Leadership and Human Sexuality from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Certified Sexuality Educator with AASECT.

Dr. Dyson worked as the Director of Education and Training with Planned Parenthood of Delaware, Project Manager and Co-Director of the North Atlantic Training Institute for Sexual Health Educators for CAI Global in New York City, and as a Research Scientist for the New Jersey Department of Health in their statewide STD Prevention Program. He began teaching as an adjunct for Widener University’s Center for Social Work Education in 1997 and has continued his work with the University, joining the faculty of the Center for Human Sexuality Studies full time in September of 2005.