About this webinar
Date: July 7, 2025
Time: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET
Facilitator: Jake Ernst, MSW, RSW.
CE hours: 6
This training is suitable for:
Mental Health Professionals: psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers
Medical Professionals: nurses, psychiatrists, pediatricians, family doctors
Educators: teachers, ECE, school administration, support staff
Level of training: Introductory
Client age category: For professionals who work with clients from birth to adulthood.
Trigger warning: Participating in our programming may evoke powerful feelings and can trigger participants who have experienced personal trauma. Themes of social media content of self-harm and/or eating disorders may be discussed.
Description: The pervasive trend of being “always online” and the doubling of screen time during the pandemic have exacerbated various issues. These include the escalating adolescent mental health crisis, a surge in feelings of loneliness, a decline in social connections, a reluctance of kids not wanting to grow up, and the struggle to detach from our phones and laptops.
In today’s schools, hospitals, doctor’s offices, and therapy rooms, we are seeing the impacts of being constantly online. The adults who are raising and caring for today’s young people don’t have a common roadmap, highlighting the need for a collective therapeutic approach to managing screen use.
This training, will look at the modern clinical approaches for helping people of all ages build better relationships with screens and technology so they can build more balanced brains. Areas of focus will include:
- How addictive algorithms capture our attention, making us more erratic, irrational, distracted, and self-focused.
- How dopamine reshapes our reward pathways and how to rewire the reward circuitry.
- How constant screen use rewires our social instincts and changes our relationships.
- How excessive exposure to screens and technology changes the stress-threat response and impacts our ability to self-regulate and co-regulate.
Learning objectives:
- Learn how to assess the four types of screen use and how to intervene when screen use becomes problematic.
- Understand how to build healthier relationships with screens and technology – in friendships, partnerships and working relationships.
- Learn how to rebalance the brain using the Balanced Brains Protocol – an integrative approach for parents, teachers and helping professionals at all levels.
Register now to gain practical tools and therapeutic strategies for navigating the mental health impacts of chronic screen use—and support clients in building healthier relationships with technology.
Continuing Education (CE) Information: SickKids Centre for Community Mental Health Learning Institute is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) to offer continuing education (CE) hours. Full-day programs equal six CE hours; half-day programs equal three CE hours; for less than half-day programs, one hour of programming equals one CE hour. SickKids Centre for Community Mental Health Learning Institute maintains responsibility for the programs.
Other licensing boards and professional organizations will grant continuing education credits for attendance at their own discretion; participants will need to submit the course outline and Certificate of Participation for their consideration.
Registration closes
If registration has closed and you're still interested in joining this course, please contact Mary Anne at mvanrooyen@sickkidscmhlearning.ca
Accessibility
We strive to ensure our online learning programs are easy for everyone, everywhere. If you have any accessibility requirements (automatic transcripts, closed-captioning, ASL interpreters, advanced access to program materials), please email Mary Anne Van Rooyen at mvanrooyen@sickkidscmhlearning.ca to let us know how we can best support your learning experience.
Photography is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the content is a model, except where indicated.