Join our Workshop Programme

Children and adolescents with mental health problems and disabilities experience strengths and challenges that arise from the interplay between their capacities, skills, personalities, and the facilitators or barriers in their environment. To understand and support individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions, a holistic biopsychosocial perspective is essential—yet many systems still rely mainly on biomedical, symptom focused assessment. This workshop begins with an introduction to the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and its value as a framework for describing functioning, participation, and environmental influences. Unlike the ICD, which classifies diagnoses, the ICF captures how individuals manage daily life and what helps or hinders them, enabling a more comprehensive and contextual understanding. Building on this general foundation, the workshop then focuses specifically on autism and ADHD, demonstrating how the ICF and the ICF Core Sets support individualized, strength oriented and environmentally informed perspectives. Participants will learn how the ICF can integrate biomedical, neurodiversity, and positive psychology approaches and guide clearer communication, better support planning, and more relevant solutions for individuals with developmental conditions in their unique contexts.

Social media and digital communication are central to the everyday lives of children and adolescents and increasingly shape the clinical realities of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy. While digital environments offer opportunities for connection and self-expression, they also introduce new risks that intersect with traditional stressors such as bullying and emotional vulnerability.

This interactive workshop, combines current research and clinical perspectives on bullying, cyberbullying, and social media use in young people. Drawing on recent findings, including evidence from meta-analytic research, the workshop highlights robust associations between (cyber)bullying and youth mental health, with a particular focus on the role of intra- and interpersonal emotion regulation as a key factor influencing vulnerability and resilience.

Participants will also explore emerging evidence on social media use in clinically vulnerable adolescents, including patterns of intensive use, exposure to mental illness–related, self-injury, and suicidality content, and the ways mental health information spreads through user-generated platforms such as TikTok. Through case vignettes, guided discussion, and small-group work, the workshop emphasizes that clinical relevance lies less in overall screen time and more in specific patterns of engagement, content exposure, and individual risk profiles.

The workshop encourages participants to reflect on how to routinely assess young people’s online experiences, promote digital literacy, and address high-risk content use in clinical practice. It is designed for child and adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, and related professionals who are new to the topic and wish to build foundational knowledge and practical confidence in working with digital-media–related mental health challenges.

Working with adolescents and young adults with eating disorders is particularly challenging due to the high mortality rate, potential severe somatic complications, and the often fragile commitment to treatment. In many clinical settings, there is the experience that this patient group does not sufficiently benefit from standard cognitive-behavioral treatment plans, and that intrinsic motivation for recovery appears to be limited.

Current approaches in the treatment of eating disorders therefore increasingly examine to what extent methods of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), such as skills for distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and mindfulness-based interventions, can be meaningfully integrated. However, transferring these therapeutic methods requires a reorientation towards a dialectical stance that actively incorporates patients’ autonomy and personal responsibility into the therapeutic process. This stance is only partially reflected in traditional cognitive-behavioral treatment approaches.

This workshop introduces a comprehensive DBT-A–based treatment approach, including a highly structured, stage-based treatment framework tailored to anorexia nervosa, the different treatment stages (Stages 0–3), and the role of the consultation team (CT). The consultation team plays a central role in both outpatient and inpatient settings by maintaining the dialectical balance between acceptance and change. Following the DBT treatment hierarchy, the approach simultaneously addresses life-threatening behaviors (e.g. weight loss) and the development of skills, particularly in the domain of emotion regulation.

Nonsuicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) can occur as a transdiagnostic phenomenon across a variety of mental health conditions. It is a common behavior, with around one-fifth of adolescents worldwide having self-injured at least once. Although the underlying causes of NSSI can vary, its occurrence requires an appropriate psychotherapeutic response. This seminar aims to provide basic knowledge about the forms, frequency, and neurobiological, social, and psychological backgrounds of NSSI. Building on this foundation, participants will learn about various forms of intervention and deepen their understanding through real-world examples. Beginning with initial assessment and motivational approaches, NSSI will be explored primarily from the perspective of cognitive-behavioral therapeutic interventions, using examples from clinical practice. The main focus will be on working with emotion regulation. In addition to imparting theoretical knowledge and offering opportunities for practical exercises, the seminar will also provide ample space for discussion of individual cases. Participants are encouraged to bring their own therapeutic experiences to collaboratively explore options for addressing NSSI in their patients.

Early detection of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is increasingly feasible. However, clinicians are often faced with complex questions: How early can autism be reliably identified? How should uncertainty and heterogeneity be managed in young children? And how can early diagnostic findings meaningfully guide treatment planning and family counselling?

This 3-hour interactive workshop offers a practice-oriented, evidence-based overview of early autism detection and its implications for intervention. Building on the speakers’ extensive clinical and research experience, participants will learn how to recognize early developmental markers, apply structured and developmentally sensitive diagnostic pathways, and translate early assessment results into individualized, family-centered treatment strategies.

Key topics include early behavioral and developmental signs, differential diagnosis and common comorbidities, stepwise diagnostic decision-making, and the role of early intervention in supporting communication, social development, adaptive functioning, and emotional regulation. Particular attention will be given to communicating diagnostic findings to families, managing uncertainty, and planning follow-up and outcome monitoring.

The workshop combines evidence updates, clinical case discussions, and small-group exercises, with a strong focus on everyday clinical decision-making across different service settings.

It is suited for child and adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, and other professionals that have little or mid-level expertise in the field.

Comorbidity is the rule rather than the exception in child and adolescent psychiatry. Most young patients present with overlapping symptom profiles that cut across diagnostic categories, posing substantial challenges for psychopharmacological decision-making. Clinicians are frequently required to balance competing treatment targets, evaluate risks and benefits across disorders, and adapt medication strategies over time in the context of development, family factors, and service constraints.

This workshop explores the challenges of co-existing disorders, helping clinicians optimize treatment, improve outcomes, and tailor medication plans to complex patient profiles. Drawing on current research, clinical guidelines, and extensive real-world experience, the speakers will discuss core principles for rational medication use when multiple disorders co-occur.

Using ADHD as an illustrative example, the workshop will explore how comorbidity can influence symptom expression, treatment response, tolerability, and longer-term trajectories. Common clinical challenges such as distinguishing primary from secondary symptoms, avoiding unnecessary polypharmacy, and adapting treatment plans across developmental stages will be addressed. Factors relevant to medication use in everyday practice, including side effects, adherence-related issues, and communication with patients and families, will be integrated throughout.

The workshop combines concise evidence updates, structured case discussions, and interactive clinical decision-making exercises, enabling participants to apply general psychopharmacological principles to a range of complex clinical scenarios.

Refugee and migrant children and adolescents are exposed to multiple psychosocial stressors while often facing significant barriers to timely and appropriate mental health support. Skills4All is a stepped care approach that builds on the WHO EASE intervention and embeds it within a broader framework of low-threshold, community- and skills-based prevention and care, closely linked to existing structures and systems of support.

This workshop introduces the Skills4All model and shares hands-on implementation experiences from working with migrant populations in Switzerland. Participants will explore the psychosocial toolbox at the core of the approach by actively engaging with selected exercises from EASE-program and related tools, and discuss how different elements can be combined, adapted, and embedded within local systems of care. The focus lies on scalable, culturally sensitive implementation across the early steps of a stepped care framework.

The field of ADHD has moved on in recent years, with most child and adolescent mental health clinicians now comfortable with the general management of children and young people presenting with ADHD. What is often more challenging is when ADHD presents in the context of other mental health conditions or where there is a suboptimal response to ‘first-line’ treatments. This workshop will focus a clinical lens on those situations. We will discuss multimodal approaches to managing ADHD in the context of comorbidity, delve into the complexities of treatment sequencing with a particular focus on the place and use of non-stimulant medications, and examine the assessment and management of ADHD in the context of coexisting mental health conditions including depression and irritability, psychosis and bipolar disorder, substance use disorders, eating disorders and personality disorders. While we will take an evidence based approach where possible we will also discuss the gaps in the evidence and the need for clinical judgement and resoning.

In this interactive workshop, we explore the impact of migration and forced displacement on the mental health and identity development of children and adolescents. Alongside evidence-based input on key topics such as migration processes, transgenerational trauma, and intercultural competence, the workshop offers ample space for discussion, reflection, and—most importantly—hands-on practice.

Through experiential exercises and practice-oriented examples, participants will gain a deeper understanding and develop concrete skills for transcultural clinical work—both in routine therapeutic settings and in challenging treatment situations, such as addressing experiences of discrimination and racism.

The workshop is aimed at psychiatrists and psychotherapists who are interested in transcultural work or who already have experience in this field and wish to further develop their knowledge and clinical competencies.

Worldwide, access to reliable diagnostic services and evidence-based parent training remains highly unequal, particularly in low-resource settings, due to financial constraints, a lack of trained professionals, and insufficient infrastructure.

This interactive workshop addresses how core principles of standardized procedures can be preserved in low-resource and culturally diverse settings, while modifying tools and interventions to enhance feasibility, cultural relevance, and sustainability. To exemplify these processes, the workshop focuses on the adaptation and implementation of autism-specific diagnostic tools and parent-mediated interventions, jointly developed by Kurdish and German professionals in Kurdistan/Iraq. Using examples from clinical practice, particular emphasis is placed on early identification, caregiver involvement, and ethical considerations in resource-constrained environments.

Over the past decade, clinical presentations of gender dysphoria in children and adolescents have increased markedly, accompanied by ongoing scientific and societal debate. This workshop provides a structured, evidence-informed overview of current knowledge and key areas of uncertainty relevant to child and adolescent mental health professionals.

First, the workshop addresses conceptual perspectives on gender identity development and self-interpretation in youth. Developmental, psychological, and sociocultural dimensions will be discussed, including the roles of distress, co-occurring mental health problems, and narrative meaning-making in clinical assessment and formulation.

Second, the empirical evidence regarding medical interventions—particularly puberty suppression and cross-sex hormone treatment—will be critically reviewed. Developmental implications, potential risks, and methodological limitations of the existing literature will be examined.

Third, the workshop explores core medical-ethical questions in the care of minors with gender dysphoria. Emphasis is placed on the professional obligation to promote health and well-being and to avoid harm, as well as on the requirement that medical interventions be justified by credible evidence of overall benefit. The session critically evaluates approaches that ground treatment primarily in patient desire or autonomy and clarifies the limited - though important - role of autonomy within established ethical frameworks. Ethical implications of evidentiary uncertainty, the possibility of irreversible interventions during development, and the prioritization of psychosocial and exploratory approaches when benefits of medical treatment remain unclear will be addressed. The overall aim is to support clinically responsible, evidence-based, and child-protective decision-making in a field marked by scientific uncertainty and societal polarization.

The workshop integrates research findings with clinical case material and encourages reflective discussion. Participants will gain practical tools for nuanced assessment, ethically grounded communication, and evidence-sensitive treatment planning when working with gender-diverse children and adolescents.