Pre-Conferences

From deconstruction to deprogramming, the impact of Religious Trauma can create significant challenges for clients across contexts. In this training, Anna Trout Perry, LPC/MHSP will unpack the varying degrees of severity of Religious Trauma experienced by clients, explore best practices in assessing severity of client’s symptoms, and provide resources and treatment considerations for effectively working with clients with experiences across the Religious Trauma Continuum. Anna’s diverse experience in working with clients in Religious Trauma Recovery provides a unique, compassionate perspective to this challenging issue. This training will provide a compassionate, safe space for counselors to learn and process: leaving participants feeling better equipped to navigate working with Religious Trauma in the counseling space.

Objectives:

• Define the varying degrees of severity of Religious Trauma using the Religious Trauma Continuum, developed by Anna Trout Perry
• Explore the impact of Adverse of Religious Experiences (AREs) through the lens of clients’ intersecting identities
• Reflect upon the influence of counselors’ religious beliefs and experiences on the therapeutic relationship
• Identify best practices and treatment considerations for supporting clients with experiences of Religious Trauma

Bio:

Anna Trout Perry, LPC/MHSP brings a fresh perspective to the field of Religious Trauma Recovery after 10+ years of experience in researching the impact of Adverse Religious Experiences (ARE’s) on the minds, bodies, and souls of survivors. The driving force of her research is rooted in her own lived experiences in fundamentalist, high-control religious contexts. After a career in public education, Anna entered the field of counseling to enhance her capacity to support vulnerable populations in Religious Trauma Recovery. Upon completing her M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2022, she completed her Level 1 Internal Family Systems (IFS) Training in NYC. Anna has found an integration of IFS and somatic, body-based approaches to be remarkably effective in supporting clients’ trauma integration. Beyond her cherished work with individual clients in her solo private practice, she also enjoys providing consultation and training for other clinicians seeking evidence-based treatments for this challenging presenting concern.

Clinical documentation is more than just a requirement—it’s a tool that can enhance clinical care, improve client outcomes, and support clinician well-being. Yet, for many professionals, it feels like a constant source of stress, confusion, and even shame.

Whether you’re a new clinician struggling to translate what you learned in grad school into real-world documentation or a seasoned professional feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from the process, this workshop is for you.
This 4-hour preconference workshop offers a comprehensive, practical approach to documentation that prioritizes clarity, consistency, and ethical integrity. We will explore strategies to help you establish documentation habits that feel manageable and effective, while also addressing the emotional roadblocks that often accompany note-taking.

Through a detailed, step-by-step walkthrough, we will deeply explore the lifespan of an individual adult client from intake to discharge, including:

• Informed Consent Paperwork: Understanding what needs to be included and how to communicate expectations clearly.
• Intake Note: Establishing a thorough, streamlined approach to gathering essential information during the first session.
• Progress Notes: Creating notes that are efficient, clinically relevant, and ethically sound.
• Contact Notes: Documenting non-session interactions, such as phone calls or email communication, in a compliant and organized manner.
• Discharge Notes: Ensuring comprehensive closure that meets clinical and ethical standards.

Live demonstrations will be provided using our preferred EHR, Jane App, to showcase practical strategies for streamlining the documentation process and improving your workflow.

Additionally, we will discuss the evolving role of artificial intelligence in documentation—what it can do to support your practice, its ethical limitations, and how to use it responsibly.

Whether you’re looking to build confidence from the ground up or redefine your relationship with documentation for the better, this workshop will leave you feeling empowered with practical tools, insights, and the clarity you need to move forward with confidence.

Objectives:

By the end of this 4-hour workshop, participants will be able to:

• Apply a comprehensive documentation process for individual adult clients, including informed consent paperwork, intake notes, progress notes, contact notes, and discharge notes.
• Implement practical, efficient strategies for streamlining documentation within the Jane App, enhancing both compliance and clinical relevance.
• Develop sustainable documentation habits that support consistency, reduce stress, and improve overall workflow.
• Address emotional roadblocks related to documentation, such as shame, overwhelm, and avoidance, to cultivate a healthier relationship with the process.
• Evaluate the role of artificial intelligence in documentation, including ethical considerations, appropriate uses, and practical limitations.

Bio:

Christine Finnegan, LPC-MHSP, Founder and Clinical Director of Replenish Counseling, is a licensed counselor and the founder of Replenish Counseling, serving women, men, teens, couples, and families. With over 15 years of experience, Christine is passionate about helping clinicians build documentation systems that feel ethical, efficient, and purposeful.

Christine’s love for teaching has guided her throughout her career. She has served as an Adjunct Professor at Belmont University, teaching Music Therapy classes, and has supervised master’s-level counseling students through Replenish Counseling since its founding in 2017, empowering them to build confidence and competence in clinical practice. She enjoys providing practical strategies to help clinicians overcome documentation overwhelm and build habits that support their clinical care goals.

She began her career in 2010 as a Music Therapist in inpatient psychiatry and earned her master’s in Clinical Mental Health from Trevecca Nazarene University in 2016. Christine has developed and launched programs across various settings, including a Women’s Mental Health IOP, a treatment mall curriculum for geriatric and adult populations, and music therapy in the ICU and Sarah Cannon Cancer Hospital. In each setting, she emphasized building systems for documenting and measuring progress while protecting client privacy.

Presented by Dr. Mark Loftis, Dr. Tony Michael, and Paige Seymour.

As mental health services increasingly take place within multidisciplinary teams, counselors and counselor supervisors face complex ethical challenges that require careful navigation of professional boundaries, confidentiality, informed consent, and interprofessional collaboration. This interactive presentation will explore the implications of the ACA Code of Ethics in multidisciplinary contexts, emphasizing the unique responsibilities of counselors and supervisors.

Objectives

• Identify and Interpret Relevant ACA Ethical Standards
  Participants will be able to identify and interpret key ACA Code of Ethics standards (e.g., confidentiality, informed consent, and boundaries of competence) that are particularly relevant when working in multidisciplinary teams, and analyze how these standards apply in diverse collaborative settings.
• Examine Ethical Dilemmas and Decision-Making Models
  Participants will examine common ethical dilemmas faced by counselors and supervisors in multidisciplinary environments and apply ethical decision-making models to case scenarios involving conflicting professional standards or responsibilities.
• Develop Strategies for Ethical Collaboration and Supervision
  Participants will develop practical strategies for maintaining ethical integrity while engaging in interprofessional collaboration and supervision, including effective communication, role clarification, and advocacy for ethical practices across disciplines.

Dr. Mark Loftis

Dr. Tony Michael

Paige Seymour

Presented by Jordan B. Westcott, Ph.D., MCC; Jennifer Moralejo, Ph.D., LPC/MHSP(S); Amanda Green, MS, LPC-T, NCC.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States, with outsized risk presenting at specific points in the lifespan. Counselors are responsible for noticing, assessing, and intervening when their clients are at risk of suicide. However, more attention is needed to recognizing unique presentations of suicide risk at different life stages, as well as how to adapt your practice to meet clients where they are developmentally when intervening for suicide. In this session, you will learn about risk factors and warning signs for suicide across the life course, best practices in suicide assessment at different developmental stages, and prevention and intervention practices you can use with your clients.

Objectives

• Identify one or more risk factors for suicide in clients at different developmental stages
• Utilize one or more strategies for suicide assessment at different developmental stages
• Utilize one or more intervention to reduce suicide risk

Jordan Westcott is an Assistant Professor of Counselor Education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research focuses on ensuring that all people have access to high-quality culturally responsive mental health services. Her clinical experience was primarily in crisis intervention settings, and much of her scholarship has focused on suicide prevention and intervention approaches for older adults. She has twenty peer-reviewed publications and more than 40 peer-reviewed international, national, and regional conference presentations.

Jennifer Moralejo is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Counselor Education and Clinical Director of the Counselor Training Clinic at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her interest and focus are related to crisis and trauma, counselor training and development, and clinical supervision. She has been a practicing clinician for 15 years and has worked in a variety of settings mostly focusing on crisis intervention and working with populations like at-risk youth, victims of violence and IPV, and supervising counselors-in-training.

Amanda Green, LPC-T, NCC, is a clinical mental health counselor based in Knoxville, Tennessee. She has worked extensively in crisis settings with individuals experiencing thoughts of suicide and survivors of sexual and domestic violence. She has also engaged in direct client advocacy and community outreach focused on mental health education and violence prevention. In her private practice, she primarily supports individuals who have experienced trauma and members of the LGBTQ+ community.