Art of Friendship: A Comprehensive Treatment Approach Providing Acceptance, Emotional-Behavioral Support, & Social Development for Neurodivergent Youth | Thursday, September, 11, 2025 | 8:30am-4:30pm

$169.00

Are you looking to deepen your skill set in providing neurodiversity-affirming, strength-based care for children with autism, ADHD, or learning differences? Do you want to empower parents with effective strategies for home support? Join Mike Fogel, a master clinician and educator in neurodiversity-affirming care, to learn the A.R.C.H. Method—a practical and compassionate framework for fostering social and emotional growth in neurodivergent children.

In this training, you’ll learn to:

  • Create strength-based reinforcement cycles that build trust, communicate deep acceptance, and motivate social learning.

  • Deliver compassionate social coaching to address social misunderstandings, missteps, and emotional dysregulation with empathy and clarity.

  • Use the Emotional G.P.S. model to recognize four levels of frustration and apply tailored interventions, including proactive meltdown planning.

  • Set strategic boundaries and consequences that teach—not punish—while addressing disruptive or unsafe behaviors.

  • Introduce creative, concrete language and imagery to help children understand nuanced, unwritten social rules that often stand in the way of connection.

Ideal for therapists working in individual or group formats, in schools or in amily therapy, this program blends theory with real-world tools to help you confidently guide neurodivergent children and their families toward meaningful social development.

Are you looking to deepen your skill set in providing neurodiversity-affirming, strength-based care for children with autism, ADHD, or learning differences? Do you want to empower parents with effective strategies for home support? Join Mike Fogel, a master clinician and educator in neurodiversity-affirming care, to learn the A.R.C.H. Method—a practical and compassionate framework for fostering social and emotional growth in neurodivergent children.

In this training, you’ll learn to:

  • Create strength-based reinforcement cycles that build trust, communicate deep acceptance, and motivate social learning.

  • Deliver compassionate social coaching to address social misunderstandings, missteps, and emotional dysregulation with empathy and clarity.

  • Use the Emotional G.P.S. model to recognize four levels of frustration and apply tailored interventions, including proactive meltdown planning.

  • Set strategic boundaries and consequences that teach—not punish—while addressing disruptive or unsafe behaviors.

  • Introduce creative, concrete language and imagery to help children understand nuanced, unwritten social rules that often stand in the way of connection.

Ideal for therapists working in individual or group formats, in schools or in amily therapy, this program blends theory with real-world tools to help you confidently guide neurodivergent children and their families toward meaningful social development.

Learning Objectives: Participants will be able to:

• State why neurodivergent children often find themselves in negative feedback cycles with the world - and the mindset caregivers need to adopt to disrupt and repair this destructive dynamic.

• List at least five forms of structure therapists, educators, and caregivers can use to decrease neurodivergent clilents’ anxiety and stress and bolster their social (and treatment) engagement.

• Verbally validate what a child CAN DO using T.P.R. (Targeted Positive Reflection) to generate positive cycles and motivate social practice.

• Utilize facilitative question-based Compassionate Social Coaching to help clients learn from social miscues, misunderstandings, and big feelings without a sense of shame or punishment.

• Employ appropriate support interventions for four escalating levels of frustration and anger, including a meltdown safety plan using Emotional G.P.S.

Class Outline:

• Define operational terms: neurodiversity, neurodivergent, neurotypical, and ableism

• Why it’s not neurodivergent clients’ fault when they struggle to engage socially in mainstream activities or educational settings

• Discover the moral imperative for society to truly accept, embrace, and support neurodivergent individuals and avoid superficial lip service about ‘inclusion’

• Overview the strength-based, holistic A.R.C.H. Method of neurodiverstiy support and social development and detail each of the letters in the acronym

• A: Anticipate and teach: proactively understand how neurodivergent people generally think and experience the world, and then individualize support for each individual.

• How to provide external structure to decrease anxiety and increase engagement in treatment and the child’s lived social settings

• Engaging, multisensory sample lessons with visual aides from The Art of Friendship Social-Coping curriculum that illuminate unwritten social expectations in

• R: Reinforce and Reward: why and how to give Targeted Positive Reflection to generate positive cycles and reinforce social and coping skill practice

• An optional child-centered, strength-based reward system that supercharges social learning

• C: Compassionate Social Coaching: experience and practice facilitative question-based coaching that enable clients to learn from social miscues without shame, blame, and punishment

• H: Holding Environment: how to provide boundaries and limits in a social-education model to positively shape disruptive and unacceptable behaviors

• The Emotional G.P.S. framework to understand four levels of frustration, including effective support interventions for each level and a meltdown safety plan

• How to use strategic rewards, rules, and consequences to shape unhelpful/unacceptable behaviors towards positive coping

• Discover a model for a social development therapy group program based on 25+ years of weaving evidence-based ingredients into the Art of Friendship Social-Coping Program

Child and Family Art Therapy Center

“VISUAL, ACTIVE, AND ART-BASED CBT LESSONS FOR CHILDREN & ADOLESCENTS”

NBCC Approved Continuing Education Provider™ ACEP No. 7373

Feel free to contact CFATC with any questions or concerns at:

600 Haverford Rd. Ste. G-101 Haverford. PA 19041,

(610) 649-1080 x1 or at candice@childandfamilyarttherapycenter.com.