Jennifer Polizotto, DSW, LCSW

03/07/2024

I highly recommend this professional development workshop hosted by my friend and colleague.

📣 Join us for an impactful School Social Work Professional Development Webinar! 🌐

🌈 Webinar: Grief Goes to School: Fostering Safe and Inclusive Spaces for Major Life Changes

📅 Date and Time: Tuesday, April 2, 2024 (12:00 PM - 1:00 PM) (EDT)

👉 Webinar Description:
Grief is a universal experience, extending beyond death to encompass major life changes like divorce, foster care placements, deployment, or incarceration. In this webinar, gain insights into applicable grief theories and trauma-informed approaches. Learn how to support students coping with grief and explore the impact on school social workers. Our presenter will also provide essential self-care suggestions.

Equip yourself with knowledge and tools to create safe, inclusive school environments, guiding students through life's changes and challenges. Don't miss out on this valuable opportunity for professional development!

🔗 Register Here: https://ow.ly/yE8m50QHt7f

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10/04/2023

Calling all social work students! Join us on October 19th for a program designed to ignite your passion and guide you toward a fulfilling and flexible career in social work. Discover how to love what you do from 9 to 5 and beyond. Let's unlock your potential and make your career dreams come true! Learn more and register at: https://ow.ly/5PT250PSrXn

08/22/2023

As educators, the job of nurturing our students’ potential and well-being can often take a toll on our own mental health. Those in academia, K-12 education, or any other related fields understand how difficult it can be to make sure we nurture ourselves-outside of the classroom. That’s why this blog post aims to focus on making space for educators to take time out for themselves and prioritize their wellbeing.

Preparing for the Academic Year: As professionals in the field of education, including educators, administrators, faculty, and staff, we are about to embark on another academic year. It is crucial that we take a moment to reflect on our emotional needs before diving into the year ahead. The demands....

07/06/2023

The key to connecting and listening to your older teen. You can read here to gain insight as a parent.

As parents, we must maintain an unwavering commitment to stopping and genuinely listening to our older teens as they navigate important life decisions. Even when our teens consistently make good choices and effectively communicate their needs, actively listening to their every word allows us to genu...

04/30/2023

Giving teens space and time. Read my post to learn how parents can give their teenagers space and time to process their emotions and the importance of this process.

Adolescence can be a challenging time for both teenagers and their parents. During this phase, teenagers undergo many physical, emotional, and social changes, which can overwhelm them. As a result, they may experience various emotions, from joy and excitement to anger and sadness. Parents need to un...

03/12/2023

A Therapeutic Approach to Helping Teens Manage Difficult Emotions

The teenage years can be difficult for teens to deal with their feelings. Identifying and exploring strategies to help young people everywhere better manage their emotions is arguably one of the most important topics for mental health professionals today. When therapists, school personnel, and paren...

02/26/2023

Therapists, school faculty, and parents, please read my blog highlighting the urgency to support our teen's mental health based on the recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention article released Monday, February 13, 2023. Here is the link to my post:

Therapists, teachers, parents, or members of the academic community are likely to be aware of the importance of supporting teenagers. However, one may not be aware of the recent urgency in doing so. According to the CDC's February 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS report), youth mental health ha...

02/05/2023

As parents and therapists, we are often presented with difficult decisions when our adolescent children make poor choices. Here are some strategies that can help better support adolescents after they’ve made a mistake or acted inappropriately:

As parents and therapists, we are often presented with difficult decisions when our adolescent children make poor choices. This is an incredibly challenging scenario for those of us who have worked hard to ensure that all guidelines and expectations around behavior have been clearly outlined – to ...

01/01/2023

Family relationships, work situations, or any other life experience can cause overwhelming and confusing emotions. Read this post to understand and learn how to harness the power of mixed emotions to find inner peace.

Mixed emotions can be incredibly overwhelming and confusing. It feels like we are constantly swinging back and forth between two (or more) completely different emotional states, and we don't know how to make it stop. We feel guilty for feeling happy when our loved one dies or angry at ourselves for....

12/26/2022

Strengthen Your Parent-Teen Relationship Through Active Listening. Read my post for valuable insight.

It's no secret that the parent-teen relationship can be a tricky one. Both parties are constantly trying to figure out their place in the family hierarchy, and it can often feel like neither side is heard. Studies have shown that teens who think they aren't being listened to are more likely to engag...

11/19/2022

As we approach this busy time of year, feelings of fatigue, overwhelm, and burnout can be hitting us. Reestablishing for ourselves how boundaries can be an effective form of self-care is crucial to protect our personal space. Read my new blog post to jump-start the realignment of your boundaries:

"And all around your island, there's a barricade. It keeps out the danger. It holds in the pain." Tom Petty Working as a therapist and a professor, I have accumulated years of experience and stories of people experiencing burnout, fatigue, and resentment in their personal, family, and professional l...

11/11/2022

You Got Yourself Stuck in a Moment. How to Get Out of It.

Stuck - The feeling or longing to start something new or change an aspect of your life, but you can't. Unfortunately, the feeling of being stuck can look or feel like this: I want to start a new relationship, but I don't know how I have outgrown my job, but it's too overwhelming to look for another....