Welcome!

Come join us at Intuition Wellness Center on March 7, 2026 at 9:00 AM for this 3.0 CE event. Children heal in rhythm—through movement, play and connection. Yet when trauma, adversity, or overwhelming experiences disrupt a child’s internal world, their natural rhythms often fall out of sync. This continuing education workshop is designed to help pediatric therapists step into an embodied, play-based approach to restoring rhythm and regulation. Grounded in Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART), participants will explore how rhythmic play can become a powerful clinical tool for supporting children’s nervous systems—both in the therapy room and beyond.

Registration Coming Soon! 

Educational Objectives:

After attending this intermediate level program in full, participants will be able to:

• Identify three ways in which human beings regulate and provide an example of each.
• Describe two likely outcomes of choosing to follow the child’s natural rhythm, even when their play is irregular or unpredictable.
• List two considerations when exploring synchronous rhythms as a means of building regulation capacity in play therapy.
• Observe the impact of engaging in playful, rhythmic games on their own arousal and reflect on their interoceptive experience.
• List two to three ways to explore and engage in playful, embodied, rhythms with a child in a play therapy session to promote somatic regulation.

Presenter:

Heather Finn, LCSW is a practicing clinical social worker licensed in Arizona and Massachusetts. Her clinical specialization focuses on treating children, adolescents, adults and families impacted by stress, trauma and adversity. She earned her MSW from Smith College School for Social Work in 2001, worked for almost ten years at Trauma Center in Brookline, MA and was trained under the medical director, Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk. In her tenure at the Trauma Center, Heather embraced several roles including that of a therapist, clinical supervisor, agency consultant, trainer and eventually was promoted to the role of Clinical Director.

As a therapist, Heather is passionate about increasing access to high quality trauma informed training and effective treatments that support safe opportunities for people to move, explore, heal and grow as individuals and members of their community. She currently works part time at Intuition Wellness Center, maintains a virtual private practice, and is a founding Partner of SMARTmoves, LLC a training, consultation and education entity for mental health practitioners. In her role as lead trainer and consultant, Heather facilitates learning opportunities for clinicians, milieu counselors and educators across the United States and internationally.  She also is a co-author on the SMART book – “Transforming Trauma in Children and Adolescents: An Embodied Approach to Somatic Regulation, Trauma Processing and Attaching-Building” (2020),  and lead co-author of the article The Boy Who Was Hit in the Face:  Somatic Regulation and Processing of Preverbal Complex Trauma, published through the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma in 2017.

Description of Program:

“Life is playfulness,” (Flora Colao, Italian Philosopher) and rhythm is at the heart of all life.  When trauma, adversity or overwhelming experiences disrupt a child’s world, the fundamental rhythms of their lives are often derailed. They can fall out of sync with themselves and others. This “out of sync” experience often impacts children in significant ways including: experiences of emotional and behavioral distress, patterns of disrupted sleep or appetite, difficulty accepting help or support from others, abrupt changes in focus or attention, and notable shifts in a child’s sense of self. 

In this workshop, participants will be introduced to Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART), an evidence-informed therapeutic approach that uses movement and fully embodied play as a foundational entry point for helping children building effective interpersonal and self regulatory capacities. Using the SMART lens, participants will explore and experience the power of incorporating full body rhythms into play therapy and learn selected tools and skills that guide the therapist‘s clinical decision making when using Rhythmicity to build somatic regulation capacity.  Attention will also be given to discussing incorporating rhythmic games discovered in the play room to support regulation in the child’s daily life. Teaching methods will include didactic presentation, viewing and discussing video case examples and clinical demonstration with invitational opportunities for movement-based experiential learning.    

Participants:

This workshop is open to all psychologists and mental health professionals interested in learning more about treatment approaches to working with children, adolescents and families. This program is intended for those with an intermediate to advanced level of knowledge and experience.

Registration Coming Soon! 

Continuing Education:

This program is available for three (3) continuing education credits. Participants must attend 100% of the lecture. Upon completion of a program evaluation form, a certificate will be issued. This serves as documentation of attendance for all participants. Intuition Wellness Center, PLLC is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Intuition Wellness Center, PLLC maintains responsibility for the program and its content.

Intuition Wellness Center, PLLC is committed to accessibility and non-discrimination in continuing education activities and will conduct all activities in conformity with the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles for Psychologists. If participants have special needs, reasonable efforts will be made to accommodate them. Please contact Gina Babunovic at 520-333-3320 with questions, concerns or to request special accommodations. There is no commercial support for this program nor are there any relationships between the CE Sponsor, presenting organization, presenter, program content, research, grants, or other funding that could reasonably be construed as conflicts of interest.

This workshop is co-sponsored between Intuition Wellness Center, PLLC and SMARTmoves, LLC. The presenter Heather Finn, LCSW is an employee of Intuition Wellness Center and founding partner of SMARTmoves, LLC, contributing developer of Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART) model and co-author of the book – “Transforming Trauma in Children and Adolescents: An Embodied Approach to Somatic Regulation, Trauma Processing and Attachment Building.”