Teens Aren’t Just Little Adults: Clinical Considerations When Working with Adolescents, with Fernando Peña.
Training Description:
This two-part training equips behavioral health practitioners with a developmental, evidence-based framework for working with adolescent clients. Day 1 grounds participants in adolescent brain science — including what current neuroimaging suggests about risk versus consequence — and in national substance use trends from the 2025 Monitoring the Future survey. Day 2 addresses the clinical realities of trauma, co-occurring disorders, how youth arrive in treatment, prevention strategies that delay onset, and overdose safety planning. Both days will incorporate facilitated group discussion to connect content to participants' practice settings.
Objectives:
Participants will be able to:
Describe how adolescent brain development shapes risk-taking and substance use initiation.
Interpret current national youth substance use trend data and apply it to their client populations.
Identify how youth arrive in substance use treatment, including school discipline and criminal-legal referral pathways, and apply that awareness to clinical judgment.
Apply trauma-informed, prevention-oriented strategies — including overdose safety planning — to support delayed onset in adolescent clients.
Free to register.
A Certificate of Attendance is available upon completion of this virtual training.
Our trainings are open to the workforce in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. If you do not work within our region you can visit here to find your regional ATTC.
September 10th & 11th, 2026
10:00am - 12:00pm PT