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Event details

  • April 25-27, 2025

  • In-person event!

  • Atlanta, GA | Westin Perimeter North

  • Up to 13 CE hours

  • Networking, self-care, and fun

  • Special early bird pricing

Hotels and Parking

Click below for rates and booking

Conference hotel - Westin Perimeter North

  • No room block or code necessary. Simply select the dates and book via their website. 


Other nearby hotels: 


Parking details: 

All conference attendees will have a parking day rate of $8. If staying at the Westin, this will be charged to your room. If staying elsewhere, you can pay to park onsite. 



Tentative Event Schedule

Three days of education & community building

Friday  

  • 10am-12pm: Pre Conference Workshops (2 CE) 
  • 2:15pm-5pm: Welcome and Plenary Session 1 (2.5 CE) 
  • 5-6 pm: Socializing & Networking - details to come!
  • 7-9:30pm: GAMFT Board Meeting

Saturday 

  • 8am-9am: Business Meeting* 
  • 9:15am-10:45am: Plenary Session 2 (1.5 CE) 
  • Mindful break 
  • 11am-12:30pm: Plenary Session 3 (1.5 CE) 
  • 2pm-4:30pm: Plenary Session 4 (2.5 CE) 
  • 5:30-7pm: Evening events - details to come! 

Sunday 

  • 8am-8:45am: Early morning wellness activities - details to come!
  • 9:30am-11:30am: Post Conference Workshops (2 CE) 

Using Clinical Supervision to Promote Clinical Success, Job Satisfaction, and Retention

Plenary Sessions 1 & 2 (4 CEs)

Dedicated professionals serving children, youth, adults, and families adversely impacted by hardship, tragedy, and trauma confront many challenges imposed by their complex work ecology. This course will examine two broad, but distinct career paths for professionals. Some navigate these difficulties and consistently achieve desired clinical outcomes, professional growth, and job satisfaction. Others struggling to do so likely underperform, become dissatisfied, and leave their jobs. 

Clinical supervision is one key component addressing challenges in one of the most demanding careers. In this course, we draw on a diverse research database to inform an ethically focused, success-oriented supervisory context and infuse four empirically supported activities. 

You'll learn... 

  • How professionals can use supervision to foster or disrupt career paths
  • Learn what challenges in the workplace hamper clinical success, job satisfaction, and retention
  • Four supervision activities that promote clinical success, job satisfaction, and retention 



Developing Expertise? You Must Engage in Deliberate Practice

Plenary Sessions 3 & 4 (4 CEs)

Research on psychotherapy training methods upsets the existing well-ingrained professional development processes. What does this research tell stakeholders? 

  • Therapist self-assessment is biased toward unfounded overconfidence.
  • Supervision enhances professional development but does not lead to improved clinical outcomes. 
  • Adherence to theoretical models are unrelated to clinical outcomes. 
  • Evidence shows that continuing education workshops do not produce sustained skill development. 

What then must the professional do to develop expertise? Professionals along with relevant stakeholders must shift from an intervention-based to a process-oriented learning approach. 

This course reviews three steps for helping professionals make this shift: 

  1. To focus on known markers of disrupted therapeutic process
  2. To see moment-to-moment exchanges involving disagreement and alliance ruptures as “little outcomes” that cascade and profoundly impact the “big outcomes” 
  3. And to use deliberate practice to help professionals rehearse desired responses to identified markers of disrupted therapeutic process.

In this interactive course, we'll view and discuss video sessions and have opportunities to apply skills to your own roles and work settings. 

You'll learn...

  • Three steps from shifting from intervention-based to process-oriented learning
  • How exchanges that involve involving disagreement and alliance can rupture relationship-based outcomes, impacting treatment outcomes
  • How practice helps professionals respond effectively to a disrupted therapeutic process

Pre- and Post-Conference Workshops


OCD and the Family System

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) doesn’t just impact the individual—it impacts the entire family system. Family members (parents, partners, caregivers, etc.) may have a limited understanding of OCD, and often find themselves inadvertently caught in cycles of accommodation, frustration, and distress, which can perpetuate symptoms and strain relationships. Because of this, family/couple's therapists (and other systemic/relational thinking therapists) are uniquely skilled to assist in these cases, yet many may feel they lack the training to effectively work with OCD. This workshop will equip family therapists with an up-to-date understanding of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (including lesser known subtypes beyond contamination and symmetry), explore the impact of OCD on family dynamics, and offer evidence-based interventions and strategies to assist families in breaking unhelpful cycles. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of OCD’s systemic impact, actionable strategies to apply to their practice, and resources to strengthen the family’s role as a source of support and resilience.

Presenter: Ashley Lanier-Pszczola, LMFT


The Therapist's Dilemma: Balancing Accessibility, Effectiveness, and Professional Integrity

Have you ever wondered: What are best practices for providing sustainable, quality services? What are the costs and benefits of establishing a caseload of both private pay and insurance-based clients?

This program will explore the complex challenges therapists face in navigating service accessibility, treatment effectiveness, and ethical standards from the perspective of different payment models (private pay vs. insurance). Presenters will discuss ethical considerations, managing burnout, and maintaining quality care while ensuring financial sustainability. Additionally, fostering diversity and inclusion plays a significant role in shaping our work and the care we provide. In consideration of these topics, we will examine the impact of socioeconomic status (SES), racial factors, and further barriers to mental health services. This presentation is intended to provide strategies to balance your professional values while making a profit in a complex macrosystem.

Presenters: Dr. Kinsey E. Pocchio, Ph.D., LMFT, QS and S. Anni Skurja, LMFT-S 


Dollars & Decisions: Strengthening Substance Use Rehabilitation & Recovery Through Financial Empowerment

According to Northstar Behavioral Health, a long-term consequence of addiction is acute financial strain. For example, impoverished households are more likely to experience addiction or their addiction can lead to poverty (Grinspoon, 2021). The interplay between substance abuse and financial instability is a cyclical pattern, and regardless of which comes first, the road to financial ruin is a swift, downward slope.

One solution to help those in recovery is to integrate financial therapy into existing rehabilitation interventions. Financial therapy is “a process informed by therapeutic and financial competencies that help people think, feel, communicate, and behave differently with money to improve overall well-being” (Financial Therapy Association, n.d.). Research has shown that those in recovery often report feeling overwhelmed and isolated due to financial devastation. Financial therapy can serve as a therapeutic approach to help recovering addicts better reintegrate into society and improve their overall wellbeing.

Presenters: Naomi Hill and Kristy Archuleta, Ph.D., LMFT, CFT-I™

Instructor(s)

Instructor Bio:

Dr. Steve Simms, PhD, LMFT, is a distinguished psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, and an AAMFT approved supervisor recognized for his innovative work in systemic family therapy. He holds a PhD in School Psychology and an M.Ed. in School Psychometry from Georgia State University. As the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Child and Family Therapy Training Center and an independent practitioner in Media, Pennsylvania, Dr. Simms has dedicated his career to helping caregivers liberate children, adolescents, and young adults from self-defeating, life-altering, and life-threatening patterns. With a wealth of experience in teaching and consulting, Dr. Simms has made significant contributions to in-home family therapy programs, mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities, and public children and youth services. His expertise extends to his tenure as a staff psychologist at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic and the Division of Oncology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, as well as his previous role as an Associate Clinical Professor at the Medical School University Pennsylvania through Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Pediatric Oncology Treatment Center and was an Adjunct Professor at Chestnut Hill College. Dr. Simms is an accomplished author, having contributed to numerous scientific papers, clinical articles, and book chapters in the fields of pediatric oncology, pediatric psychology, family therapy, and clinical supervision. His acclaimed book, Breaking the Cycle: How to Turn Conflict into Collaboration When You and Your Patient Disagree, co-authored with Dr. George Blackall and Dr. Michael Greene, was released in April 2009, providing valuable insights into transforming conflict into collaboration in clinical settings.

Dr. Steve Simms, PhD, LMFT

About the Philadelphia Child and Family Therapy Training Center


The Philadelphia Child and Family Therapy Training Center offers Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy (ESFT) training, education, consultation, and research in family and couples therapy, and developmentally-based approaches to child, adolescent and adult behavioral health issues.

PCFTTC is an outgrowth of the Training Center founded in 1975, by Salvador Minuchin, MD, for systemic family therapy and training. His training center was associated with the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic connected to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

To learn more, visit https://pcfttc.com/