We’re delighted to bring together our vibrant community of members and guests for a day of connection & inspiration. This cherished annual gathering offers a wonderful opportunity to meet and greet colleagues, share lunch in good company, and enjoy an engaging presentation from our featured speaker. Whether you're reconnecting with familiar faces or making new professional connections, we’re thrilled to have you with us as we honor the spirit of collaboration and continued learning that defines PSCSW.
Agenda:
12:00 PM - Arrival & Networking
12:30 PM - Lunch
1:15 PM - Clinical Excellence Awards
1:30 PM - Presentation
3:30 PM - Event Wrap-Up
Presentation: Grief as Sacred Terrain: Moving from Personal Pain to Collective Release
Jennifer C. Jones, PhD, LCSW* (she/her) will provide an Internal Family Systems- and Gestalt Therapy-informed experiential talk designed for those of us feeling and working with people who are feeling the weight of collective crises—from ecological collapse to systemic injustice—and invites us to transform our experiences of isolation and being overwhelmed into sacred connection. Guided by the wisdom of Francis Weller (author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow) and Camille Barton (author of Tending Grief), we will explore our grief as sacred territory that traverses personal grief and intertwines with the world's sorrow. Through brief teachings and guided embodied reflection, we will be invited to bring our grounded, compassionate presence to some of our protective parts that are responding to overwhelming times and that sometimes make us turn our hurt on one another. We will end the session in a communal grief ritual, creating a brave container to honor our pain and release it back to the collective, with the intention of fostering our resilience, increasing our capacity to hold our own and our clients’ grief, and deepening our connections.
Learning Objectives:
1. Identify and get to know our protective parts that arise in response to collective crises.
2. Practice cultivating a grounded, compassionate presence to hold personal and communal grief.
3. Experience the transformative power of a communal grief ritual to release sorrow and restore connection.
Speaker:
Jennifer C. Jones, PhD, LCSW is a multi-racial African American, queer cisgender woman in her 50’s who lives with social privileges related to her current physical and mental abilities, educational attainment, citizen status and economic stability (at this moment). She is a clinical social worker who incorporates an economics human rights perspective, a harm reduction framework, Gestalt Therapy principles and the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model in her work and engagement with others. For the past 25 years, Jennifer has worked as a psychotherapist with individuals, couples and groups who identify as: lesbian, gay, queer, or bisexual; transgender or gender non-binary; people of color; sex workers; substance users; struggling with class oppression; living with a positive HIV status; seeking psychedelic integration; and/or healing from physical, spiritual and/or emotional pain.
In addition to providing clinical supervision, Jennifer has developed and co-facilitated numerous workshops and trainings on topics suicide assessment, sexual abuse, trauma, grief and loss, embodied Gestalt Therapy with individuals identifying as transgender, trauma-informed care in medical settings, affirmative care for sex workers, working with people living in poverty from an economic human rights perspective, working with social location, rupture and repair processes in therapy, and psychedelic-assisted therapy. She has taught in the MSW programs at Widener and Temple Universities, and she became a member of University of Pennsylvania SP2’s adjunct faculty in January 2024. Jennifer was also a supervisor and faculty member at the Gestalt Training Institute of Philadelphia (GTIP) and served as executive director of the GTIP training program. In addition, Jennifer served as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer of Philadelphia FIGHT Community Health Centers and a Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion consultant and assistant trainer for Lykos Therapuetics (formerly, MAPS MPBC). In 2021, she co-founded Rising Caps Collective with Aisha Mohammed, LMFT supporting expansive healing to address the traumatic legacies of colonization, slavery and capitalism.
She received her undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature from Northwestern University, her Master of Social Work from Smith College School for Social Work and her Doctorate of Philosophy in Social Work and Social Research from Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. As a parent who believes a just world is possible, Jennifer is committed to the unity of the global poor and dispossessed, organizing across color lines to fight for everyone’s economic human rights.
This event is open to PSCSW members and non-members. Participants who attend this program must be present for its entirety to earn 2 continuing education credits.
Continuing Education Credits:
FOR PENNSYLVANIA SOCIAL WORKERS, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS, AND PROFESSIONAL COUNSELORS: This program is approved for 2 credits for professional workshops sponsored by the Pennsylvania Society for Clinical Social Work, a state affiliate of the Clinical Social Work Association listed in Section 47.36 of Title 49, Chapter 47 of the PA Code, State Board of Social Work Examiners. This program is also approved for 2 credits for professional workshops for marriage & family therapists (Section 48.36) and professional counselors (Section 49.36).
FOR NEW JERSEY SOCIAL WORKERS: This program is approved for 2 clinical credits. Attendance at programs or courses given at state and national social work association conferences, where the criteria for membership is an academic degree in social work, are a valid source of continuing education clinical credit (N.J.A.C. 13:44G-6.4(c)4).
PSCSW Members - Before you begin any registration, you must log in to the website to pay the member rate. If you register without logging in, you will pay at the nonmember rate. If you need assistance logging in, please contact the PSCSW office at: pscsw@pscsw.org.