Upcoming Trainings

ONLINE PCIT INITIAL TRAINING
THIS AUGUST & SEPTEMBER 2025

Auburn University and PCIT South, LLC are pleased to announce our Parent-Child interaction Therapy (PCIT) training workshop for professionals working in community-based family resource and support services, child guidance, mental health, prevention services and education.

PCIT is an empirically supported treatment for preschool children (ages 2-7) with behavioral and emotional problems. PCIT emphasizes changing the parent-child interactions to improve the nature of the parent-child relationship. Parents who participate in PCIT with their children are taught specific skills to develop a strong, positive relationship with their child while increasing the child’s prosocial behavior and reducing the child’s undesirable behaviors. PCIT also has been shown to be an effective treatment for children age 2.5 to 12 with a history of physical abuse or neglect. For more information on PCIT, please visit http://www.pcit.org.

The training program consists of:

  • A 40-hour workshop in which participants will become familiar with all aspects of PCIT.
  • Twice monthly phone consultation for 12 months following the workshop will be provided, with participants expected to be present on 80% of the calls.
  • Detailed review of 4 PCIT session videos (you may be asked to submit more sessions). Participants also receive:
  • PCIT manual with step-by-step instructions for each session and parent handouts.
  • Materials and training necessary to assess parent-child interactions using the Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS).
  • Level of Instruction: The material will be presented at an intermediate level. All participants are required to have at least a Master’s degree and to be licensed to provide therapy to children and families. Because each participant will receive direct instruction and feedback, the workshop will be limited to 6 therapists.

Location & Workshop Dates

This virtual workshop will be held online through Zoom meetings. Our next training workshop will be held in two phases on August 19-21, 2025 (phase 1) and September 16-18, 2025 (phase 2).

Continuing Education Credit

Participants can obtain 40 hours of Continuing Education credit.

This program is sponsored by the Carrol County Youth Services Bureau (CCYSB). CCYSB is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. CCYSB maintains responsibility for this program and its contents. This program is approved for 40 credit hours for psychologists by aPA. Partial attendance, late arrival, or early departure will preclude the issuance of CE credits.

REGISTRATION

The $4500 training fee provides admission to the training workshop.

If you need to make registration changes, please email myard@ccysb.org prior to the program. If contacted no later than seven (7) business days prior to the state of the program, a tuition refund, less a $30 cancellation fee, is available. In the unlikely event that we have to cancel or postpone a program for an unforeseen reason, you will be notified immediately to discuss options.

ADA: Contact us a minimum of 3 weeks prior to the program for accommodations

TRAINING FORMAT

Through presentation, discussion, video modeling, and role-play, participants will:

  • Describe the components of PCIT that lead to improved parent-child relationships
  • Discuss ways to make time-out effective for defiant and aggressive preschoolers
  • Use skills for coaching parents as they interact with their child
  • Demonstrate how to assess parent-child interactions with a behavioral coding system – and how to use these codes to guide coaching and track therapy progress.

Training days begin at 8:15am and end at 3:00 pm

Training Provided By:

TRAINING FACULTY:

Elizabeth Brestan-Knight, PhD., is a licensed clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at Auburn University, where she supervises an active PCIT clinic in addition to teaching graduate and undergraduate courses. For the past 25 years, she has worked in the direct provision of PCIT with families, training fellow therapists, and supervising students in PCIT.

Brestan-Knight received a Bachelor of Arts from Emory University and her Ph.D. in Clinical & Health Psychology from the University of Florida. Most recently, Brestan-Knight has conducted projects focusing on the dissemination and implementation of PCIT to front-line mental health therapists in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Washington DC, Wisconsin, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Taiwan, and Singapore. She maintains ties with these wonderful professionals and provides ongoing consultation to help them establish their own successful PCIT clinics with families around the globe.

Auburn University Parent-Child Lab Graduate Students

Advanced graduate students in the AU Parent-Child Lab will assist in the workshop to provide as much individual instruction and feedback to participants as possible. Graduate students in the AU Parent-Child Lab serve as PCIT therapists at the AUPSC and are experienced in training new PCIT therapists.

Members of the PCIT South, LLC/Growing Oaks Training

Collaborative

PCIT International Regional Trainer candidates will also assist in the workshop to provide their clinical experiences working in a private practice and community mental health settings. They have many years of experience with implementing PCIT and training new PCIT therapists.

Interested in training with us? Please email myard@ccysb.org to register!

All trainers and trainings on this website are certified through and associated with PCIT International. Please visit http://www.PCIT.org for more information.