Where Healing Takes Root Session - Parenting Through the CASA Lens: Understanding Parenting Skills & Supports

This presentation provides practical strategies for parent navigators, child welfare advocates, and Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) working with families navigating child welfare and reunification proceedings. Drawing on extensive experience as a school counselor and counselor educator, Dr. Chris Schimmel outlines a collaborative, consultative approach centered on radical acceptance, non-judgmental empathy, and Adlerian psychology. Key topics include shifting from authoritative advice to strengths-based communication, understanding purposeful child behavior through the STEP (Systematic Training for Effective Parenting) model, addressing immediate behavioral triggers using the HALT framework (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired), and supporting overwhelmed parents through boundary-setting. Viewers gain actionable tools to build trusting relationships with parents, validate caregiving challenges, and foster positive family outcomes.

Presenter

Christine Schimmel, Ed.D., LPC

Professor and Associate Provost, WVWC

Christine Schimmel is currently the Associate Provost and Professor of Counseling at West Virginia Wesleyan College. Chris has more than 27 years of experience as a counselor educator, consultant, and author. Chris' teaching and writing focus on the areas of creative counseling, group counseling, counseling children and adolescents as well as topics related to school counseling, school-based assessment, and youth mental health in rural areas. Chris has successfully garnered federal grant monies for projects from SAMHSA and the US Department of Education to support public school employees around youth mental health and to support and train a more diverse cadre of school-based mental health professionals in rural WV. Popular texts authored by Dr. Schimmel include Group Counseling: Strategies and Skills (9th ed.) and Counseling Children and Adolescents (6th ed.), two popular counseling texts used in many counseling training programs.