By Sofia Chernoff, PsyD, Beck Institute Assistant Director of CBT Programs

As Assistant Director of CBT Programs, I was especially pleased to learn that Beck Institute was selected as the winner of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy‘s (ABCT) 2021 Outstanding Training Program Award. This award is particularly meaningful to our team because we care deeply about our trainees and their communities, and about getting good CBT into the hands of health and mental health professionals around the world.

Our Training team consists of a diverse group of individuals, each uniquely dedicated to the mission of Beck Institute. Some have been with BI for nearly a decade. These staff members frequently recognize trainees by name, as many trainees continue their education with us year after year. Other team members have been with BI for less than a year and fuel the entire team with their fresh vision and excitement for our work.

It’s a great honor to hear of our selection for this award. I’m proud to be part of such a driven and compassionate team, prioritizing our trainees’ learning experiences and dissemination of CBT worldwide. We are incredibly grateful to the extraordinary individuals and organizations we serve who thought of us for this award. Thank you!

Morgan Hagner, Certification Specialist

This team exemplifies BI’s value of engaging with compassion. They build relationships with trainees and strive to meet trainees where they are. Our team continually solicits feedback from trainees which we use to guide and inform future trainings. We regularly receive feedback from trainees like Tameka S., LMSW, who took one of our CT-R live trainings in Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy (CT-R) this past year:

This is one of the best workshops I have attended. The material was organized and relevant. I liked the examples, discussion, and group work. The breaks were also appropriate. [The instructors] Ellen and Paul were personable, knowledgeable, and accessible. I enjoyed this format [non-consecutive]. It gave me time to absorb, reflect, and use what I learned – and build on top of that skill each week.

Tameka S., LMSW

And we wholeheartedly welcome critiques and recommendations from our trainees. As the landscape of mental health services shifts, our team is building new trainings that reflect the ever-changing needs of our trainees and the communities they serve. In 2021, we introduced new topics such as Affirming LGBTQ Lived Experience in CBT, CBT for Perinatal Mood Disorders, CBT for Insomnia, and others.

In 2022, we look forward to introducing even more commonly requested topics such as CBT for Eating Disorders, CBT in Primary Care, and Delivery of CBT through Telehealth. These topics complement our longstanding trainings in the core competencies of good CBT.

To receive recognition from ABCT is incredibly gratifying for our hard-working team. At the end of the day, it is the stories we hear from trainees about the impact of our trainings on the lives of clients in various communities that motivates us to show up and work as hard as we do to fulfill our mission.