Navigating Moral Distress

This immersive continuing education course explores the profound emotional and ethical challenges faced by professionals working with young children impacted by trauma. Central to the course is the concept of moral distress—the inner conflict that arises when professionals know the right course of action but feel powerless to act due to systemic, institutional, or relational barriers.

Participants will engage in a guided case study following the unfolding story of Juan, a 4½-year-old Latino boy, as they assume the role of a therapist conducting a trauma-informed evaluation. Using the 12 Core Concepts of Childhood Trauma as ethical and conceptual lenses, learners will explore how trauma-informed care intersects with moments of ethical uncertainty, particularly in the face of suspected sexual abuse and complex family dynamics.

The course emphasizes how a caregiver’s reactions to trauma can shape a child’s recovery—and how such dynamics can become a source of moral distress for clinicians. Participants will examine how personal values, professional responsibilities, and systemic limitations can collide, resulting in emotional strain and ethical dilemmas.

By the end of the course, learners will not only understand how to identify and differentiate moral distress from other forms of occupational stress, but will also leave with concrete strategies to manage and mitigate moral distress at the individual, team, and organizational levels.

Learning Objectives:

• Define moral distress and differentiate it from related occupational stressors.
• Identify personal and systemic sources of moral distress in clinical work with traumatized children.
• Apply the 12 Core Concepts of Childhood Trauma to guide ethical reasoning within complex case scenarios.
• Analyze how parent/caregiver responses influence both the child’s trauma experience and the clinician’s ethical decision-making.
• Develop practical strategies to navigate and mitigate moral distress in trauma-informed care settings.

Format: Synchronous Online

CECHs: 6 Continuing Education Contact Hours. 5 hours of Social Work Ethics CECHs

Skill Level: Recommended for LMSW intermediate and advanced skill levels.

Refunds: You can refund yourself up to 10 days before event on Eventbrite.

Accommodations: Please email us directly with any special accommodations you may need at sstellato@kzoofamilycounseling.com

Contact Info:Please email us directly with any special accommodations you may need at sstellato@kzoofamilycounseling.com

Instructor: Jeff Laponsie, LMSW

Jeff LaPonsie, LMSW, is a licensed clinical social worker with over fifteen years of experience specializing in trauma-informed care for children and families. He has been nationally certified in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) since 2017, completing the model with over 200 families and supervising numerous clinicians and graduate students. Jeff is also internationally certified in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) and serves as a within-agency trainer. He is a certified facilitator of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s Core Curriculum on Childhood Trauma (CCCT) and provides consultation and training to various child-serving organizations. Jeff teaches part-time at Western Michigan University in the Health Services and Sciences Program and the School of Social Work. He is the founder and clinical director of Kalamazoo Child and Family Counseling (KCFC), a large pediatric mental health agency serving over 700 families each month. His clinical interests include early childhood trauma, attachment disruption, and multidisciplinary work with systems responding to abuse and violence.

Instructor: Connie Black-Pond, LMSW, LPC

Connie Black-Pond MA, LMSW, LPC is Co-Founder of the previously named Southwest Michigan. Children’s Trauma Assessment Center (Resiliency Center), having retired in 2017. She has over 30+ years of experience, with expertise in assessing and treating traumatized children and adults, and presently provides supervision and consultation to trauma trained therapists. Connie also teaches in the Trauma Across the Lifespan curriculum at Western Michigan University. As a developer-trained TF-CBT supervisor, Connie has facilitated and provided TF-CBT consultation with over 40 cohorts of therapists in Michigan, including those supported by the MSU/WMU Field Instructor project. She is also certified as a NCTSN Advanced Core Curriculum trainer and is presently an Independent Affiliate of the NCTSN.