SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) Strategies for Schools with Mindy Szelap, LCSW

From Rescue to Resilience: Addressing Accommodation in School Settings

Workshop Overview

This interactive workshop focuses on understanding and reducing parental and school-based accommodation behaviors that can inadvertently maintain or intensify student anxiety and related challenges. Drawing from the evidence-based principles of SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), participants will learn how to recognize, assess, and strategically reduce accommodation within the school environment to foster student autonomy, resilience, and emotional regulation.

School psychologists frequently encounter students whose anxiety leads to significant classroom disruptions, avoidance behaviors, or repeated requests for reassurance. Educators and school staff, with the best of intentions, often make accommodations that can unintentionally reinforce anxiety cycles. This workshop provides a structured framework and practical strategies to address these dynamics effectively within the educational setting.

Learning Objectives

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

1. Define and identify accommodation behaviors in both home and school settings that reinforce student anxiety and avoidance.

2. Understand core SPACE principles and how they translate to school-based practice. 3. Collaborate effectively with teachers and parents to develop and support plans that reduce accommodation while maintaining empathy and alliance.

4. Apply specific strategies and scripts for responding to anxious behaviors in the moment.

5. Design gradual accommodation reduction plans that are developmentally appropriate and achievable in real-world school contexts.

Takeaways

• Practical tools and conversation scripts for supporting anxious students without reinforcing anxiety
• A structured framework for consultation with parents and teachers on accommodation reduction
• Case-based examples and reproducible resources adapted from SPACE for school use

This workshop will not be recorded.

I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and child behavioral therapist in Oakland with over 25 years of experience working with children, teens, and families in pediatrics. I received my Masters in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. I spent almost two decades in Bay Area Children's Hospitals, including Stanford Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital Oakland, and UCSF. I am also a lecturer in UC Berkeley Public Health Family Advocacy Program. Currently, I am a Faculty at the National Pediatric Hypnosis Training Institute, teaching mental health providers, pediatricians, and medical specialists nonpharmacological interventions for pain, anxiety, and chronic medical conditions in children and teens.

I specialize in SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), an evidence-based treatment that focuses on reducing parental accommodation while supporting children through anxiety and related challenges. SPACE empowers parents to make targeted changes in their responses to their child's symptoms, helping break cycles of anxiety and avoidance without requiring the child to be directly involved in treatment.

In addition to offering SPACE, I specialize in the treatment of anxiety, OCD, depression, and pediatric chronic illness and pain. I utilize evidence-based treatments, including cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure/response prevention, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), strategic therapy, internal family systems (IFS), and clinical hypnosis. I also work extensively with families of young children to interrupt anxious patterns before they take hold. My background is strongly rooted in pediatrics, child and adolescent development, and behavioral therapies.

I also provide workshops, trainings, and professional consultation for clinicians, educators, and healthcare providers on evidence-based interventions for child and family mental health.

This course meets the qualifications for 3 hours of continuing education credit for LEPs, LMFTs, LPCCs and LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. This course also qualifies for 3 hours of continuing professional development for Nationally Certified School Psychologists, under provider number 1025. CASP maintains responsibility for the program and its content.

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Membership fees:

• Regular/Associate: $30
• Retired/Student: $20

For disability assistance, please contact events@sccasp.org.