Cascadia Training for Professional Development

Becoming a Neurodivergent-Affirming Clinician: Understanding ADHD and Autism through a Strengths-Based, Neurodivergent-Affirming Lens
2025-08-20 10:00 - 2025-09-24 13:15 (America/Los_Angeles) | Zoom
Becoming a Neurodivergent-Affirming Clinician: Understanding ADHD and Autism through a Strengths-Based, Neurodivergent-Affirming Lens
Presented by: B Lourenco, MA, LMHC
When: This course will be held over six consecutive Wednesdays: August 20 – September 24, 2025

Wednesday, August 20th, 2025 | 10:00 am – 1:15 pm Pacific / 1:00 pm – 1:15 pm Eastern
Wednesday August 27th, 2025 | 10:00 am – 1:15 pm Pacific / 1:00 pm – 1:15 pm Eastern
Wednesday September 3rd, 2025 | 10:00 am – 1:15 pm Pacific / 1:00 pm – 1:15 pm Eastern
Wednesday September 10th, 2025 | 10:00 am – 1:15 pm Pacific / 1:00 pm – 1:15 pm Eastern
Wednesday September 17th, 2025 | 10:00 am – 1:15 pm Pacific / 1:00 pm – 1:15 pm Eastern
Wednesday September 24th, 2025 | 10:00 am – 1:15 pm Pacific / 1:00 pm – 1:15 pm Eastern

Where: Live on Zoom. You will receive your Zoom link/invitation the week of the workshop.
18 CEs (12 CEs can be used for Cultural Competence or Health Equity CEs, and 6 can be used for Law & Ethics CEs) | $599.00 *** (see below for payment options)
As technology progresses and education on mental health becomes increasingly more available, the population has become more self-aware. The world is changing quickly, and with it, more and more people realize that their brain works differently than others. Due to the influence of social media and the shift to focusing on lived experience as a legitimate means of diagnosis, we are seeing a sudden increase in clients that identify as Autistic and/or an ADHDer. We find that clients are speaking up and finding validation of what they have always known: their brains operate differently than the brains of their peers, colleagues, friends, and families. As a result, we are seeing a sudden increase in the young adult and middle-aged population who identify as being Neurodivergent in a Neurotypical world.
This workshop series is designed to help clinicians build greater awareness and familiarity with ADHD and Autistic experiences. Participants will come away from this course with a deeper understanding of ADHD and Autism from the Neurodiversity-Affirming Paradigm that focuses on strengths and differences, not diagnoses, disorders, and deficits.
Especially following the Covid pandemic and its sometimes long-term impact on the brain and the immune system’s inflammatory processes, many clients report having different and often challenging sensory processing experiences. We are seeing more adults presenting in our offices with reports that they now have issues not only with taste and smell but with a range of visual, hearing, tactile, balance, and internal bodily sensations they never have before experienced, as well as difficulties with attention and memory. This begs the question: have these brain differences always been there but now have been sensitized or magnified by exposure to Covid and months-long isolation?
Many adults are now recognizing they are not alone and are demanding they not be dismissed or invalidated any longer, often having experienced the continued frustration of providers questioning their own lived experiences and, as a result, having been either undiagnosed or underdiagnosed due to outdated and debunked diagnostic criteria still used by mainstream psychiatrists and physicians. These individuals are finding validation for what they have suspected all along: their brains work differently than those of their peers, families, and friends.
With new research available and an increasingly empowered clientele, we see more than ever the need to remain current in our understanding of–and support for–those who have brain differences. Committed to blending cutting-edge scientific evidence with the lived experiences of our clients, Cascadia Training, is delighted to offer a new workshop series designed to help clinicians build greater awareness and familiarity with ADHD and Autistic experiences.
Upon completion of this series, participants will have a deeper understanding of ADHD and Autism from the Neurodiversity Affirming Paradigm that focuses on strengths and differences, not disorders, diagnoses, and deficits!
Woven throughout the series are the law and ethics of working with neurodivergent clients, including the danger of misdiagnoses, and the harm of using biased, outdated, debunked diagnostic criteria leading to the under-diagnosis of ADHD and Autism spectrum experiences. In addition, participants will learn about and identify pathologizing, stigmatizing, and harmful treatment protocols and clinical interventions still utilized by providers in educational, physical, and mental health professions.
This series uses a system developed explicitly by B Lourenco, an expert on ADHD and Autism. The course focuses to a large degree on the internal, lived experience of neurodiversity. Each of the six weekly sessions will include a didactic portion, an experiential section, and direct case consultation time. All modules will include lecture, video, and experiential segments.
Certificate Program Weekly Modules:
Week One: Sensory Systems – Getting in touch with the sensory system is the most critical step in supporting neurodivergent clients. Sensory information can regulate emotional and physical experiences. In addition, we will focus on using sensory profiles, menus, and diets to support day-to-day quality of life.
Week Two: Communication and Relationships – Understanding how those with Autism and ADHD communicate creates room for therapeutic connection. With this understanding, we will dive into tools for managing meltdowns and shutdowns in an affirming way.
Week Three: Attending and Executive Function – This module will explain why those with Autism and ADHD face challenges attending to their environment by addressing social expectations on perceptions of “functioning.” You will also learn how to use the client’s natural rhythms to support positive functionality.
Week Four: Social Systems and Disability – Understanding how society directly impacts the lives of people with disabilities. We will focus on how clinicians can incorporate advocacy into their practice and tools to unlearn neurotypical values by connecting clients to personal values.
Week Five: Differentials and Comorbidities – This module will teach participants how to rule out or “dial in” on other mental health concerns or diagnoses. We will present comorbidities that exist with your neurodivergent clients and how to effectively support them in a non-stigmatizing way. The role of trauma and grief in the lived experience of clients who identify as neurodivergent will be discussed, as well as the impact of these events on the developing brain. We will process how to best support the grief and disenfranchised losses felt by our autistic and ADHD clients and their families.
Week Six: The Use of Joy As a Tool Against Oppression. Creating celebrations of being neurodivergent and finding joy in everyday life as we partner with our neurodivergent clients. The Neurodivergent-affirming certificate program series will conclude with various celebrations we can share with our clients and the shift to viewing “joy itself as a tool against oppression.” As clinicians, it is important for us to first comprehend–and then share– the ways that society benefits from neurodiversity in general and ADHD and Autism, in particular. We will conclude by learning ways to help our clients celebrate their neurodiversity and see themselves through an affirming, strengths-based lens.
Other topics that will be covered in this practice- and life-altering certificate program series include, but are not limited to:

Alexithymia and Dysthymia
ARFID
Misophonia
Gender and sexuality in the ADHD and Autistic communities
The role of menstruation on ADHD and Autistic brains
Interdependence vs codependence and/or independence
Myths and stigmas about neurodivergent people
Experiences of abuse in neurodivergent people
Pervasive Desire for Autonomy (PDA)

***Payment Options:
Cascadia Training values quality continuing education that is accessible, inclusive, and without barriers to all. We never want the cost of our workshops to be a barrier to attending one of our workshops, particularly our multi-session workshops.
We offer several options to make our workshops cost-inclusive: payment plans, a limited number of full and partial scholarships, discounts for students, and discounts for early professionals. Please email us at hello@cascadiatraining.org for more information.
For payment plans, you can select paying 50% today and 50% due by September 30, 2025.
REGISTER HERE

Introduction to Nature Therapy: More than a Walk in the Park
2025-09-20 09:30 - 17:00 | Shoreline Center, 18560 1st Ave NE, Shoreline, WA, 98155, United States
2 Law & Ethics CEs!
Introduction to Nature Therapy: More than a Walk in the Park
Presented by: Becky Robbins, MA, LMHC, CEAT, CYT, NBT
When: Saturday, September 20th, 2025 | 9:30 am – 5:00 pm Pacific Time
Where: Live, In-Person event at Shoreline Center & At noon, we will break for an hour lunch and will then reconvene at Hamlin Park, located at 16006 15th Ave NE, Shoreline, WA, at 1:00 for the remainder of the workshop, which will be outdoors.
Continuing Education Credit Hours: 6 CEs – 2 count as Law & Ethics CEs | $190.00
This Introduction to Nature Therapy: More than a Walk in the Park workshop offers participants the opportunity to become familiar with nature-based therapy, and specifically, what is involved in a “walk-and-talk” therapy session outdoors in a natural setting. Participants will become aware of the legal and ethical considerations necessary to provide this option for client sessions. Participants will learn the key concepts and significant benefits to providing therapy sessions outdoors, in a natural setting, complemented by using expressive arts modalities. The presenter will also teach how these approaches connect through a polyvagal lens.
Participants will learn what it takes to provide ethical, impactful, confident, and competent therapy for clients in an outdoor natural setting. The presenter will teach participants how to include expressive arts modalities and somatic awareness techniques into nature therapy, as these techniques will be interwoven throughout this daylong experience. Experientials will be facilitated to aid participants in their own embodied experience of a session in nature. Participants will leave this course ethically and legally prepared to facilitate an outdoor, nature-based therapy session, understanding the client appropriateness (what clients are a good fit for this type of therapy), location considerations (parks, trails, beaches, weather conditions, parking, etcetera), and critical skills needed for facilitating a helpful walk-and-talk session outdoors (multidimensional awareness, various approaches to facilitation, and safety considerations). Participants will leave this experiential workshop feeling confident and inspired to offer a more integrated clinical approach than they thought possible!
Objectives:

Consider legal, ethical, and documentation implications for doing nature-based therapy outdoors.
Identify important considerations for specific populations.
Understand the legal and ethical considerations of practicing nature-based therapy in a walk-and-talk session.
Describe differences among ecotherapy, nature-based, adventure-based, and wilderness therapies.
Identify key concepts of ecotherapy and nature-based therapy
Assess who to work with and when, where to go and why, what to expect and consider in various regions and environments when using nature-based therapy.
Understand the therapist’s identity in nature-based versus ecotherapy practices.
Introduce common types of nature-based approaches into walk-and-talk therapy sessions.
Understand how to incorporate several approaches from a range of ecotherapy, expressive arts, and nature-based modalities.
Learn appropriate applications of each of these approaches.
Gain an experiential understanding and demonstration of three nature-based and expressive arts concepts with specific populations and/or symptomologies.
Explore and practice techniques for doing walk-and-talk therapy sessions that can be used immediately with appropriate clients through demonstrations in this workshop.
Identify the benefits of nature and the use of expressive arts modalities as a way to complement your existing clinical practice.
Learn how to become a better container for working with your clients through self-care, self-regulation, and personal practice.

REGISTER HERE
