Serious Emotional Disturbance in Children and Adolescents: Assessment, Treatment Planning, and Care Coordination

Bring your toughest clinical questions. Olivia answers participant questions throughout the webinar, so you leave with clarity on the situations that actually show up in your caseload rather than generic guidance.

Work through realistic SED assessment and care-coordination scenarios as a group. Hearing how experienced clinicians reason through diagnostic ambiguity and multi-system involvement builds the clinical judgment that written materials alone cannot teach.

Complete a full 3 CE hours in one focused, structured session. Your live CE certificate is issued after the webinar, giving you a meaningful block of your renewal requirement in a single afternoon.

Counselors frequently serve as the primary clinician for youth with complex emotional and behavioral needs. This training helps counselors sharpen their assessment of serious emotional disturbance, write treatment plans that families can actually follow, and coordinate effectively with schools and other providers.

Social workers often sit at the intersection of clinical care and the larger systems a child moves through. This ASWB ACE-approved webinar strengthens social workers' skills in SED assessment, strengths-based treatment planning, and coordinating care across child welfare, schools, and community agencies.

Family therapists understand that a child's emotional disturbance is inseparable from the family system. This training provides MFTs with strategies for assessing SED within the family context, involving caregivers in treatment planning, and helping families navigate the multiple systems that support their child.

Substance use frequently co-occurs with serious emotional disturbance in adolescents. This NAADAC-approved webinar helps addiction professionals recognize co-occurring presentations, assess risk and functional impairment, and coordinate integrated care across behavioral health and other youth-serving systems.

Psychologists conducting assessments, providing therapy, or supervising trainees need current, developmentally grounded approaches to serious emotional disturbance. This webinar covers evidence-informed assessment, treatment planning, and care coordination relevant to psychological practice with children and adolescents.

Clarify what serious emotional disturbance means, how federal and state definitions frame functional impairment, and how SED differs from more transient emotional and behavioral concerns. Explore how developmental stage, family stress, and environment shape how these conditions present in real clients.

Learn to gather and organize information across domains, including symptoms, functioning at home and school, risk factors, trauma history, and strengths. Practice pulling together caregiver report, school data, and clinical observation into an assessment that reflects the whole child rather than a single diagnosis.

Turn assessment findings into measurable, achievable goals that families understand and support. Explore how to write objectives that guide treatment, track progress, and satisfy documentation and medical-necessity expectations without losing sight of the child's own priorities.

Review intervention approaches appropriate for children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance, including cognitive-behavioral, family-based, and skill-building strategies. Learn how to match interventions to the child's developmental level, presenting concerns, and family context.

Explore how to collaborate with schools, primary care, child welfare, juvenile justice, and community agencies so that services reinforce rather than contradict one another. Learn practical strategies for release of information, shared treatment goals, and communication that keeps everyone aligned.

Close with the ethical and practical realities of this work: consent and confidentiality with minors and caregivers, defensible documentation, and recognizing when to escalate care or respond to safety and crisis concerns.

1. Register. Reserve your spot for the July 16, 2027 webinar. Individual registration is $60 for all 3 CE hours, or attend at no additional cost with an Unlimited Plus membership.

2. Receive your access link. After you register, you will receive a confirmation email with the live webinar link and instructions for joining. A reminder is sent before the event.

3. Attend live. Join on Friday, July 16, 2027 from 12:00 PM to 3:15 PM EST. Attendance for the full session is required to earn your 3 live CE hours. Participate in the Q&A and case discussion throughout the session.

4. Complete the post-test and earn your CE certificate. Complete the post-test (required for all live webinars) and course evaluation to receive your 3-hour live CE certificate. Your certificate includes all information required by licensing boards.

Step 1: Gather Comprehensive History. Collect developmental, family, trauma, medical, and educational history from the child, caregivers, and available records to understand how the presenting concerns emerged over time.

Step 2: Assess Symptoms and Functional Impairment. Evaluate not only diagnostic symptoms but how they affect functioning at home, in school, and in the community, which is central to the definition of serious emotional disturbance.

Step 3: Identify Risk and Protective Factors. Screen for safety concerns, co-occurring conditions, and environmental stressors, while also identifying strengths, supports, and reasons for optimism that will anchor the plan.

Step 4: Integrate Collateral Information. Bring together input from caregivers, teachers, and other providers so the picture reflects how the child functions across settings rather than in the therapy room alone.

Step 5: Develop a Shared, Measurable Plan. Write family-centered goals and objectives that are specific and measurable, and confirm that the child, caregivers, and collaborating providers understand and agree with them.

Step 6: Coordinate, Monitor, and Adjust. Establish communication channels across the care team, track progress against the plan, and revise goals and services as the child's needs and circumstances change.