Agency Training and Organizational Development

If you are interested in talking about custom designing training or consultation for your organization, please contact Liz so we can discuss your particular needs and goals.








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Liz Brenner, LICSW provides customized consultation to organizations to help them meet their mission and goals, improving staff performance and fiscal viability. These services include clinical skill development, coaching and ways to rethink the structure of organizations to enhance work effectiveness and productivity.
Liz helps people provide effective leadership while empowering workers to use their inherent strengths to manage change that is imposed on organizations from within and from external forces. Recent training that Liz has done for agencies includes key note speeches, day long workshops, training series and leadership coaching.  ​
An innovative training model that has been working well for agencies is a combination of sending supervisory staff to the Intensive Program in Family Systems therapy in conjunction with a 15 to 30 hour training series for the clinical staff on site.  This model intensively trains the trainers while providing enough grounding in the theory and practice for all staff to move the agency's work with families to a higher level of effectiveness in a short period of time.

Recent agency training include work with: ​

  •  St Ann's  Home and School
  • Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital
  • Casa Esperanza
  • Riverside Community Care
  • Devereaux Advanced Behavioral Health
  • ​​Fenway Community Health Center
  • The Leggett Group Psychotherapy Practice
  • Burlington Community Life Center
  • UTEC, Lowell
  • New Life Counseling Center
  • Martha's Vineyard Community Services with Corky Becker, PhD and Caroline Marvin, PhD
  • Clinical Staff and Child Psychiatry Fellows at Cambridge Hospital
  • Staff and volunteers at Parents Helping Parents
  • Germaine Lawrence residential and home based programs
  • Daiichi Sankyo, a biopharmaceutical company in New Jersey (through her consultancy with Waife & Associates)​
  • Department for Children, Youth and Families
  • Brookline Community Mental Health Center
  • Bradley Hospital
  • Stoughton Youth Commission
  • North Soffolk Mental Health Center
  • Boston Behavioral Medicine
  • The Massacusetts Department of Public Health at the Shattuck Hospital and the Masachusetts Hospital School
  • Family Service of Greater Boston
  • Abbott Labs, a biopharmaceutical company in Chicago, IL (through her consultancy with Waife & Associates, Inc.)
  • Martha’s Vineyard Community Services
  • The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families
  • The Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership
  • Pittsfield Family Networks, Berkshire Children and Family
  • South Shore Mental Health Center
  • Lyndon State College
  • St. Ann’s Home and School
  • Westborough State Hospital
Comments from former employee of the home based family crisis stabilization program that Liz managed where she developed a family therapy training program for staff and student interns:

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​"I speak of you often. I wanted to send you another note of my appreciation and grateful feeling I have from the experience of working under your leadership. Most of what I learned about supervision came for your model. I am in my element training new social workers (Mostly BA's). I try to be ALL INCLUSIVE, appreciating everyone’s style of work and most of all, I am taking care of my staff in this very taxing work they are doing. 

​Everyone I have interviewed to take positions understands that my style is responsibility, accountability and work ethic. I'm open to providing anyone with training and extra time to do their job, within reason. I just went through a stressful audit of our records. We came out with excellent results by the time the audit was executed. I was proud. From you, I understand that without a humanistic view of Social Work, people may not want to work for you. I mean really work! I enjoyed working for you and will do it again. I love you and feel lucky I had you as a role model."
Bernadette Rucker
Children's Services of Roxbury, Inc., Intensive Foster Care Program Supervisor

Examples of Keynotes, Workshops/
​Training Series
  • "Holding Transformational Couple and Family Meetings" MA NASW Symposium, April 2018
  • "Using Solution Oriented Questions to  Clarify Intentions, Deepen the Conversation and Facilitate Change with Couples" Harvard Couple Conference, December 2, 2017
  • "From Ancient Wisdom to Contemporary Practice:  Mindful Approaches to Conflict in Couple Therapy"  American Family Therapy Academy Conference, Denver CO, June 23, 2016
  • "Healing Anxiety with LifeForce Yoga and Internal Family Systems" with Laura Orth, LICSW,  and Amy Weintraub, Kripalu, May 27 - 30, 2016
  • "Working Effectively with Couples in Conflict" Leggett Group and Fenway Community Health Center Spring/Summer 2015
  • "Holding Couple Therapy Sessions" Leggett Group and Fenway Community Health Center Spring/Summer 2015
  • "Using Problems to Change Difficult Behavior", UTEC, Lowell, 2/21/14
  • "Avoiding 'Bad' Family Meetings:  Lessons from a Family Therapist and Family Member", Family Therapy Training Boston, 3/2/12
  • "Holding Effective Meetings with Families and Providers",  Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership, 7/20/11
  • "From Ancient Wisdom to Contemporary Practice: Yogic Strategies to Manage Mood and Anxiety", with Laura Orth, LICSW, Family Therapy Training Boston, 11/4/11
  • "Healing, Relationships and the Brain:  Mindfulness, Self Care and Clinical Efficacy", Boston Behavioral Medicine, 12/7/10
  • "Solutions to Difficult Problems: Working Effectively with Families Effected by Violence", Juconi 1st International Conference, Mexico, 12/1/10
  • "Working Well with Families:  Engaging Families in the First Session and Beyond", Stoughton Youth Commission, 10/4/10
  • "The Initial Interview: A Structure to Support Every Session", Harvard University Cambridge Series Treating Couples Conference, 10/3010
  • "Mental Illness in the Family: Lessons from a Family Therapist and Family Member", American Family Therapy Academy, 6/10
  • "Acting Out: Therapuetic Responses to Difficult Behavior", 10/19/07 at Bradley Hospital and 4/1/10 at NASW Symposium
  • "Mindfulness as Self Care for the Clinician”, Harvard University Cambridge Series Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Conference, 6/2/07
  • "Team Facilitation: Running an Effective Meeting” with Corky Becker, PhD, Massachusetts Department of Social Services, Marlborough, MA 4/4/07
  • "Working with Adolescents and Their Families”, Family Institute of Cambridge, Watertown, MA, 6/24/05 and 6/25/05; 6/15/06, 3/30/07 and Human Services Training Institute, Lyndon State College, Lyndonville, VT, 10/23/04
  • "Striving For Safety: Family Centered Practices in a Residential Setting” St. Ann’s Home in Methuen, MA, 5/24/06, 6/7/06, 6/21/06
  • "Working with Families”, training series for the social work Department of Westborough State Hospital, Westborough, MA, six sessions, 4/25/05 - 10/7/05
  • "Creating a Climate for Change”, the Behavioral Healthcare Network of Massachusetts, Boston, MA, 7/99, 8/99, 9/99
  • "Managing Family Based Programs in the Managed Care Era”, New England Regional Family Based Services Conference, South Portland, ME, 11/96
  • "Clinical Decision Making in Managed Care Settings”, National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health, Georgetown University, Training Institutes, Traverse City, MI, 6/96
  • "Home Based Services: The Role of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist”, New England Council on Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Belmont MA, 10/94