This dynamic, interactive CE training equips mental health professionals with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to provide ethical, developmentally attuned telehealth services to children and adolescents. Participants will explore the essential ethical foundations of teletherapy with youth—ensuring privacy, safety, informed consent/assent, scope of competence, mandated reporting, and digital boundaries—while also learning how to create sessions that are engaging, creative, and clinically effective in a virtual space. Grounded in evidence-based best practices, this course demonstrates practical strategies for building rapport online, adapting therapeutic modalities for a digital setting, and fostering active participation through playful, age-appropriate interventions. Attendees will learn how to integrate online tools, virtual activities, games, and expressive techniques that support emotional regulation, cognitive-behavioral interventions, mindfulness, and social-emotional growth—all while upholding professional standards and ethical decision-making. Through case examples, demonstration, and hands-on practice, participants will leave with a comprehensive understanding of how to deliver high-quality, ethically sound, and engaging teletherapy to children. Whether you are new to virtual work or looking to elevate your current telehealth skills, this training will provide the practical guidance and creative approaches needed to make online therapy safe, meaningful, engaging for children and youth.

Overview: 

• Overview of telehealth service delivery with children and adolescents
• Review of professional Codes of Ethics and ethical decision-making in teletherapy
• Confidentiality, privacy, informed consent, and documentation when working with minors online
• Managing boundaries, safety planning, and appropriate parental involvement in virtual care
• Legal and ethical considerations unique to teletherapy with children and youth
• Developmental and clinical considerations for engaging children and adolescents via telehealth
• Evidence-based, active tools and engagement strategies to enhance participation in online sessions
• Creative and interactive teletherapy techniques (games, visuals, movement, and structured activities)
• Building rapport, therapeutic presence, and connection through a screen
• Practical, ethically sound strategies clinicians can immediately apply to teletherapy practical strategies 

Featured speaker:

Melissa A. Aldrich, LMSW With nearly two decades of clinical experience, Melissa A. Aldrich, LMSW, is a master’s-level social worker who earned her MSW from Wayne State University and has built a career dedicated to integrative mental health care, trauma-informed practice, and mind–body healing. She is the founder of Renew Counseling & Wellness Center, where she provides therapy to children, adolescents, adults, and families through a holistic and evidence-based lens combining CBT, mindfulness, GI behavioral health, trauma-informed approaches, therapeutic play and art, and somatic practices such as yoga and breathwork. Melissa is also the co-creator and host of the Mini Shift Podcast, an educational mental health podcast that explores how small, intentional shifts can create meaningful personal transformation. The podcast blends neuroscience, neuroplasticity, and practical therapeutic strategies to make emotional and behavioral change accessible and relatable for a wide audience. Her clinical background includes extensive work in outpatient therapy, school social work, trauma programming, crisis response, and the development of innovative mental-health initiatives. Most recently, she designed and implemented the Behavioral Health Program at Huron Gastro, providing GI hypnotherapy, brain-gut education, and integrated behavioral-health support for patients navigating complex digestive conditions. Throughout her career, Melissa has facilitated therapy groups, wellness circles, and community programs focused on trauma recovery, emotional regulation, divorce support, and wholeperson healing. She maintains advanced training in trauma-informed care, DBT, GI hypnotherapy, mindfulness-based interventions, childhood trauma frameworks, and integrative wellness practices. Melissa is also a member of the National Association of Social Workers. Rooted in compassion and guided by both science and intuition, Melissa brings a warm, integrative, and experiential teaching style to her clinical work, community education, and professional trainings.

This training is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $$650,000 with 0% percentage financed with non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov.