Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) Workshop

Michelle is the founder of Zare Paralegal Services.

Michelle is a dedicated advocate for injured workers across Ontario, with a specialized focus on mental stress injuries among First Responders. Her work in this field includes groundbreaking workers’ compensation cases that have set important legal precedents.

With extensive experience with appeals before the WSIB Appeal Services Division, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal (WSIAT), and CPP Disability Appeals before the Social Security Tribunal (SST), Michelle is a highly skilled professional leader and entrepreneur. Her expertise and commitment to justice have earned her prestigious recognitions, including the FirstOntario 1Award for Small Business in 2012 and a place among Hamilton’s Top 40 Under 40 for Business Achievement in 2015. Over the years, her firm has grown into a thriving practice with a dedicated team of 6 licensed paralegals, whom she actively mentors in workers’ compensation law.

Beyond her advocacy, Michelle is deeply involved in legal education. Since 2017, she has co-chaired the Law Society of Ontario’s annual Workers’ Compensation Law program. From 2019-2020 Michelle was a part-time Professor in the Mohawk College Paralegal Program, and she has continued to serve as a member of the Mohawk College Paralegal Program Advisory Committee. She is also a member of the WSIAT Advisory Group.  Recently, she was appointed as the lead co-instructor for the University of Windsor Faculty of Law’s new Workplace Safety and Insurance Practice Certificate—an exclusive program for lawyers and licensed paralegals. Michelle is the 2025 recipient of the Law Society of Ontario William J. Simpson Distinguished Paralegal Award, in recognition of her outstanding professional achievement and contribution to the development of the profession.

Committed to giving back, Michelle has a long history of community service, supporting organizations such as Boots on the Ground, Canada Beyond the Blue, Badge of Life Canada, and Wounded Warriors Canada. She regularly volunteers her time to provide educational workshops for some of the most vulnerable workers in our province.

Are you a mental health professional working with clients impacted by workplace injuries or trauma? Confused with mixed messages and misinformation about your patients’ claims?  Join us for an essential online workshop designed specifically for mental health professionals looking to demystify the WSIB claims system. In this session we will break down the basics of how the WSIB claim system works, what benefits are available, and how mental health claims are handled so that you can support your patients more effectively.

Sage

Drs. Skye Fitzpatrick, Rachel Liebman, and Candice Monson have spent the last several years developing, refining, and testing Sage– a psychotherapy for couples wherein one member has borderline personality disorder (BPD), experiences suicidal or self-injurious thoughts and behaviours, or emotion dysregulation. Sage is a brief couple psychotherapy informed by Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Conjoint Therapy with three targets: BPD symptoms/emotion dysregulation, relationship functioning, and partner mental health. In this two-day workshop, Drs. Skye Fitzpatrick and Dr. Rachel Liebman will illustrate Sage treatment principles and protocols to teach clinicians methods of conceptualizing and treating BPD and emotion dysregulation within a couple frame while working to enhance relationship functioning and partner mental health in parallel.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Couples

In this 4 half-day workshop, Dr. Candice Monson and Dr. Steffany Fredman will provide a comprehensive overview of the theory and background supporting CBCT and introduce the fundamental skills of the intervention.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Learn the fundamental skills to effectively implement Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) with your clients. This workshop will provide an overview of theory and practice and introduce you to core acceptance and change-based strategies.

Crossing the Divides

Case Conceptualization and Treatment Across Five Models. Compare and contrast five distinct approaches (rooted in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Integrative Psychotherapy, Family Systems, and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy)

Update on the CPT for PTSD Comprehensive Manual, 2nd Edition

Clinicians participating in this workshop should have some familiarity with CPT, ideally having delivered CPT previously. Participants will receive the new e-book manual as part of their workshop participation, as well as the compiled client workbook for CPT with and without written accounts.

This workshop is suitable for healthcare practitioners and trainees in psychology, social work, nursing, counselling, medicine, and related fields.


Brief update on the state of the research supporting CPT.Overview of the revisions to the cognitive model underpinning CPT.Present new case conceptualization form and practice using it.Review changes to the client-facing materials to increase accessibility of the treatment interventions.Provide didactic and experiential learning exercises designed to personalize CPT for a range of clients presenting with PTSD, comorbid conditions, and a range of individual sociocultural factors.


:  Candice M. Monson, PhD, was approved by the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) to offer continuing education for Canadian psychologists in 2024. For 2025, the Training Team will be applying to the CPA for CE sponsorship. Once approved, the program will offer a total of 6.0 contact hours with full attendance. 

:  For accommodations on the basis of disability, please contact:  training@candicemonson.com

: If you have questions regarding continuing education, the program, faculty, comprehensive speaker bio, please email training@candicemonson.com.

 (CPT: Resick, Monson, & Chard, 2024) comprehensive manual was released by Guilford Press on April 11, 2024. We are offering a 1-day workshop that provides an overview of the changes and additions to the manual. One of the most substantive changes to the manual is the expansion of case conceptualization to help personalize CPT for clients with the myriad presentations of PTSD and comorbidities. We will also review the streamlined worksheets designed to be more user-friendly, using language that is more accessible to clients. There is also greater attention paid to implementing CPT with clients who are situated in low resource contexts, may meet criteria for Complex PTSD per ICD-11, have suffered moral injuries, or have intersecting individuality in their race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, spiritual/religious practices, etc. 

Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint Therapy (CBCT for PTSD)

"I am extremely confident that this approach will be a turning point in my career and make a huge difference for veterans and their loved ones." - comment from past trainee

  Participants are encouraged to read the latest version of the CBCT for PTSD manual (Monson & Fredman, 2012) prior to attending the workshop, available for purchase at Guilford Press here.

  Opportunity for additional learning via post-workshop consultation will be discussed during the training, including information related to achieving CBCT for PTSD Provider status. For details about structure and cost, please click here.

  The CBCT Training Team has applied for CE credit approval through the Canadian Psychological Association. Once approved, the details will be made available.

Additional information about the workshop, including presenters' bios and learning objectives is available 

Please email 'training@candicemonson.com' if you have any questions.

Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CBCT for PTSD)

 workshop helps therapists conceptualize individual mental health problems within a couple context, using specific cognitive-behavioral interventions to improve the individual and intimate lives of their clients. Participants in this workshop will receive specific instruction in the manualized therapy. CBCT for PTSD is time-limited (fifteen 75-minute sessions) and problem-focused, and has the simultaneous goals of improving individual PTSD and enhancing intimate relationship functioning. Case examples and role plays allow participants to have hands-on experience with the interventions. Clinical considerations in the application of this therapy to different types of couples (e.g., dually traumatized, both partners presenting with mental health disorders) and specific issues that might arise in the delivery of the therapy (e.g., intimate aggression, substance abuse) are discussed.

Maximizing PTSD Treatment by Incorporating Significant Others

Trauma Informed Mindfulness (MBSR) Workshop

This workshop will introduce the stress reduction program created by Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), offered by medical centers, hospitals, and health organizations worldwide. The program uses a well-researched, effective methods to address stress associated with diverse medical and mental health issues. Outside of people with known medical or challenging emotional issues, many people have participated in the program to assist with general stress management and improvement in quality of life.  Research has even shown that provider burnout is reduced in providers who practice mindfulness.

Please join us in learning more about mindfulness and experience the practice first hand led by Dr. Brandi Luedtke of Nellie Health Inc.

Dr. Luedtke is a Clinical Psychologist and was introduced to mindfulness during a doctoral practicum training in 2007. She began training to become a certified teacher in MBSR in 2011. She has completed a formal eight-week MBSR course and has participated in numerous courses for teachers of MBSR at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. She is committed to a daily practice of both meditation and yoga as a way to further develop both a personal and professional practice of mindfulness.

Mindfulness-based treatments have emerged as promising complementary and integrative intervention approaches to treating trauma and/or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One such treatment, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), provides an alternative technique for targeting symptoms of hyperarousal, avoidance and negative cognitions, including self-blame, shame, and guilt. 

Research indicates that mindfulness-based treatments may be effective in counteracting the fight-flight response often triggered with individuals with PTSD, by restoring connectivity between brain networks and dampening of neuronal circuits associated with fear conditioning. Through MBSR, one learns to intentionally shift awareness to the present moment, allowing for the reduction of arousal associated with trauma-related stimuli. Individuals with PTSD can learn to cultivate an acceptance of thoughts, experiences, and emotions and sit with rather than avoid the discomfort that may arise, leading to a reduction in overall symptoms and distress. 

Participants in this workshop will learn key components of MBSR and its adaptations to be used as a trauma-informed treatment intervention aimed at reducing symptoms of PTSD.

One CE will be offered (sponsored by the Canadian Psychological Association).

Written Exposure  Therapy for PTSD: A Brief Treatment Approach

At the conclusion of this workshop, participants will be able to:

 PhD. Participants in this workshop will learn how to deliver Written Exposure Therapy. Participants will learn about how WET was developed, understand the data supporting WET as an effective treatment for PTSD, and will be provided with nstructions for how to use the treatment in practice. Information will also be provided regarding how to deliver the treatment via telefhealth. Throughout the workshop, strategies for conceptualizing and dealing with psychiatric co-morbidity, managing avoidance, and keeping patients optimally engaged are provided.

Online Education

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Online Education

Coming Soon...

Get alerted about upcoming workshops

Get alerted about
upcoming workshops