Registration

This event can be attended either virtually or in person. Lunch is included for in-person attendees. A Zoom link will be sent to those attending virtually. 

CSEE Member Schools

• Registration through April 20: $150 for the event 
• Late Registration after April 20: $200
  

Non-Members

• Registration through April 20: $300 for the event 
• Late Registration after April 20: $350

Hotel for Sunday Night

• $225 for one night at Homewood Suites by Hilton Philadelphia-City Avenue 

Target Audience

This workshop is designed for school administrators and leaders alike. 

About

The U.S. Surgeon General’s recent advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents highlights the increasing pressures parents and caregivers are facing. These pressures are increasingly showing up at the doorstep of our schools in the form of more complex and highly charged interactions with families. While it may feel like they are giving you a hard time, it is likely more accurate that they’re having a hard time.

This workshop will explore strategies to de-escalate these situations while fostering positive partnerships with parents, including practices for:

• Establishing connection, compassion, and perspective across conflict
• Maintaining supportive boundaries without taking a defensive or combative stance; slowing down, pressing pause, and knowing when and how to interrupt a contentious spiral
• Identifying your own responses to anxious behaviors and creating a proactive care plan to become less reactive during difficult conversations
• Using language that validates and normalizes strong feelings, helps people to feel heard, and gets at what’s underlying challenging requests
• Proactive communication and nurturing a sense of partnership

Participants will leave with a set of practical tools to manage heightened interactions effectively, support parental well-being, and build stronger relationships within the school community.  

Presenters

Alan Brown (he/him) is a resilience educator who helps schools create cultures of belonging, balance, and connection. Alan has 15 years of experience as a classroom teacher in the humanities and as a high school administrator — most recently as a Grade Dean and Director of Integrative Learning at Grace Church School in Manhattan. Alan specializes in supporting people in extreme nervous system states — something he has done as a mindfulness teacher and trainer at Mindful Schools where he trained thousands of educators to practice and teach mindfulness; as an LGBTQ+ youth crisis counselor with the Trevor Project’s Suicide Hotline; and as a coach and support group facilitator for people with Tourette Syndrome (TS) & tics through the Tourette Association of America and multiple clinical trials for TS. www.learningtothrive.nyc

Linda Rosenberg McGuire is an avid blogger, speaker, parenting coach and consultant whose focus is supporting, coaching and educating parents and teachers as they live and work with the teenagers in their lives. She works with schools to inspire and reinvigorate their faculty so they can successfully work with the most challenging teenagers. Linda also helps parents understand and respond to their teenagers effectively, stressing the importance of listening, limits and building a sense of competence and independence in their adolescents.

She is currently the Dean of Students at St. Stephens and St. Agnes School. Linda has 39 years of experience working with children, most of that time focusing on teenagers and their relationships with their parents. Linda got her start as a caseworker and trip leader for teens-at-risk, eventually working as a psychotherapist in community mental health as well as a school social worker and counselor. She has spent the last 20 years in independent school administration, working as both a program director and a dean.

She is passionate about her work with teenagers who she describes as engaging, generous, often hilarious, and uncannily articulate in ways most adults can't imagine. Furthermore, her work has expanded to include parenting classes, school consulting, and speaking on a number of topics including adolescent development, working with difficult teens, the anxious teen, parenting the older teenager, and how to raise independent and confident young adults. She received her BA from Bowdoin College, her MSW from the University of New England, and her MOL from Nichols College.