The Mental and Physiological Health of Girls and Young Women
A Scientific Perspective for Therapeutic Work
NOW CLOSED
Friday 3 February 2023
A live webinar with Donna Jackson Nakazawa and Dr Wanjikũ Njoroge
CE Credits: 4 hours
- Includes a subtitled recording of the event and a transcript, with access for a year (14 days post the event)
- Bookings close at 4:00am EST Tuesday 31 January
Anyone caring for girls today knows that our clients, daughters, and the girls next door are more anxious and prone to depression and self-harm than ever before. The question is, why?
READ MORE...In this seminar, award-winning science journalist Donna Jackson Nakazawa and Professor Wanjiku Njoroge will delve into the problems young girls face and share new evidence that uncovers how and why the mental health crisis facing girls today is a biologically rooted phenomenon that interplays with a society and culture where children seem to grow up earlier and faster. Jackson Nakazawa will speak to how the earlier onset of puberty mixes badly with the unchecked rise of social media and ongoing cultural misogyny, and how this affects girls’ health and well-being. Dr. Njoroge will address how systems of oppression, predominantly racism, affect girls across development. When this toxic biopsychosocial clash occurs during the critical neurodevelopmental window of adolescence for girls, it can alter the female stress-immune response in ways that derail healthy emotional development and harm well-being.
However, our new understanding of the biology of modern girlhood yields good news, too. Though puberty is a particularly critical and vulnerable period, it is also a time during which the female adolescent brain is highly flexible and responsive to certain kinds of support and scaffolding. Based on the latest science, Jackson Nakazawa will share a series of neuroprotective and healing strategies for how clinicians, parents, and communities can help secure a healthy emotional inner life for girls and young women.
FULL PROGRAMME
09.00 EST
Introductions
09.10
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
Growing up female today
In this session, Donna Jackson Nakazawa details startling new statistics on how girls and young women struggling today are faring, how the pandemic has poured gasoline on an already raging fire, and the modern pressures that make it so difficult for adolescent girls to thrive. She will unpack our new scientific understanding of how mounting adversities affect girls’ bodies and brains in surprising and unique ways. Donna will explain why, in the face of today’s ongoing chronic, toxic stressors, these negative effects can manifest at a biological level in distinctly different ways as boys and girls enter puberty and come of age. This, coupled with the stress that simply accompanies growing up female in our society, means it is more important as a driver of today’s mental health epidemic among girls than previously realised.
10.00
Dr Wanjiku Njoroge
How racism and discrimination get “under the sin”
As the world has been struggling with global pandemic, the United States faces an additional ongoing struggle: combating the legacy of racism on many U.S. structures, systems, and institutions. The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that racism has reached the level of a public health crisis. In this session, Dr. Njoroge will share the latest research findings indicating how how negative stressors, including race and discrimination, impact children and adolescents’ developmental trajectories. Research reflects the adverse impacts of racial discrimination and poverty on multiple emerging neurobiological processes including the developing exposome, telomere length, cortical thinning, and physiological dysfunction.
10.45
Q&A with both speakers
11.00
Break
11.15
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
New scientific understanding on why our girls are struggling
In this talk, Donna explains why girls’ rising rates of mental and physical health issues are caused not by any single recent change in their environments, but by a perfect storm of escalating factors. Participants will gain a new understanding of how the developing brain makes sense of toxic stressors as girls approach puberty. For young women, it is during puberty that the cumulation of chronic personal and environmental stressors begins to manifest its high psychological cost. Why? Donna will share the very latest on how genes interact with toxic stressors from the environment – from conception, through puberty, and into adulthood – in very unique ways for girls and females. She’ll also take you on a journey across evolutionary history to explain why puberty is such a high stakes passage for healthy brain development.
12.00
Break
12.15
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
Growing our girls
The problems girls face today are entirely different from those of the past. We need to change our techniques and approaches to work with girls and young women if we are to help them flourish and thrive. Drawing on insights from both the latest science and interviews with girls about their adolescent experiences, Donna will guide you through a series of revelatory “antidote” strategies for raising and working towards emotionally healthy girls to help any teenage girl and young woman to thrive in the face of stress. This will include how to nurture the parent-child connection through the rollercoaster of adolescence, core ingredients to building a sense of safety and security for teenage girls at home, the latest research on the importance of early therapeutic interventions, and how to foster the foundations of long-term resilience in our girls so they are ready to face the world.
13.00
Discussion and Q&A with both speakers
13.30
End
FEES (USD)
Bookings close at 4:00am EST Tuesday 31 January
Live Webinar:
$110 (Member $55)
(Click here to become a member)
Includes a recording of the event.
CE
This event is accredited by:
- NBCC
- NYSED (Psychology)
- NYSED (Psychoanalysis)
- NYSED (Social Workers)
Certificates of attendance for 4 hours will be provided.
To receive the full CE credits, you are required to attend 100% of the live event. No partial credit will be given.
This event is NOT accredited by the following organisations:
- ASWB
Please note that if you are unable to attend all of the live event, you will need to undertake our event specific test in order to receive the CE certification. This will be made available soon after the live event has taken place.
Please contact events@conferonline.org for any further questions.
Confer has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7136. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Confer is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
Confer is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychologists #PSY-0169
Confer Limited is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #P-0059.
Confer Limited is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0729.
VENUE
This is a live online webinar using Zoom software. Zoom is free to download and use.
For more information about Zoom click here.
To download Zoom free of charge click here.
For special accommodations for individuals with disabilities see our FAQs.
SCHEDULE
Friday
09.00 EST Introductions
09.10 Growing up female today
10.00 How racism and discrimination get “under the sin”
10.45 Q&A with both speakers
11.00 Break
11.15 New scientific understanding on why our girls are struggling
12.00 Break
12.15 Growing our girls
13.00 Discussion and Q&A with both speakers
13.30 End
CONTENT LEVEL
- Intermediate
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Explain why girls are more anxious and prone to anxiety, depression, and self-harm than ever before.
- Recognise how and why the crisis facing today’s girls is not just a psychosocial phenomenon – it is also a biological one.
- Describe how the earlier onset of puberty in girls mixes badly with increased social media exposure and other chronic toxic stressors in the environment.
- Summarise the latest findings on why the negative effects of ongoing chronic, toxic stressors begin to manifest at a biological level in distinctly different ways as boys and girls enter puberty.
- Identify how and why during puberty the female adolescent brain is also highly flexible and responsive to specific interventions, interactions, and approaches.
- Apply a series of neuroprotective and healing strategies as therapists, to better help girls, parents, and families secure a healthy emotional inner life for
girls. - Describe the criticality of early neurodevelopment.
- Consider the importance of early experiences of face, racism, and discrimination
TARGET
AUDIENCE
- Psychologists
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Psychotherapists
- Addiction Professionals
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychiatrists
- Other related mental health professions.
BOOKING CONDITIONS
Regrettably, refunds cannot be given in any circumstances except as follows:
- You cancel in writing to info@conferonline.org 60 days before the first date of the event you have booked, in which case you will be entitled to a 100% refund.
- You cancel in writing to info@conferonline.org 30 days before the first date of the event you have booked, in which case you will be entitled to a 50% refund.
This does not apply to parts of an event such as a seminar within a series but only to a whole event or complete series. You may give your place to another person if you let us know that person's name at least 24 hours before the event begins.
We reserve the right to change a speaker at one of our conferences without offering a refund. However, if a solo presenter cancels we will offer a full refund OR transfer of your fee to another Confer event. If the entire event is canceled we will offer you a full refund.
We reserve the right to change our prices at any time. Regrettably, discounts offered after you made your booking cannot be claimed or applied retrospectively.