Clinics Under Fire: Serving Clients and Community During this Recent Upsurge of ICE Activity in Chicago, A Psychodynamic Exploration

ICSW Alumni Committee Annual Event

Clinics Under Fire: Serving Clients and Community During this Recent Upsurge of ICE Activity in Chicago, A Psychodynamic Exploration

Sunday, March 8, 2025

11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. CT, (12:30-1:30 p.m-Break on your own), 1:30-3:00 p.m.

Description: The Kedzie Center and LoSAH Center of Hope are psychodynamic, culturally-informed mental health centers serving primarily Latine residents in Chicago's North River and Logan Square communities.  This presentation will discuss the multiple levels of support required to provide quality care in a community setting during a time of crisis, upheaval, and collective trauma.   

A case presentation will be used to illustrate the various levels of theory, thought and intention involved in caring for clients, staff, and neighbors in a community mental health setting. Lessons about creating an interdependent infrastructure that supports each level of care will be shared. The multiple levels of consultation that offer multiple paths for processing and developing insight will be highlighted.

The client is a middle-aged Latine dealing with issues of immigration and exposure to partner substance use and violence.  She is also impacted by the effect of these on her family. The Clinician, also Latine, will discuss the client's anxiety and conflict as well as their own feelings of helplessness regarding their inability to mitigate the impact of social injustice on their client. This developing clinician is learning to tolerate and work with their own feelings of anger and helplessness. Cultural and linguistic factors will be discussed. 

The Clinical Supervisor has been challenged to hold the clinician’s anxiety, feelings of helplessness, and the wish to be able to do more. He will discuss how he has endeavored to support the clinician's experience of this collective trauma as well as his own countertransference. He has also been managing similar feelings of impotence for not being able to do more to reduce the clinician’s discomfort. The Supervisor will discuss internal conflicts he has contended and associated feelings of guilt and privilege regarding his own cultural background. 

The consultant has held the clinician's feelings of helplessness and anger while supporting the clinician in exploring their experience. The consultant has also taken on the role of advocacy, including writing to validate the organization’s work and experience. 

The Director has worked to ensure the success of this multi-layered infrastructure of care for staff, their clients, and community members through validation, support of staff, advocacy, and community partnership and support.  She will also discuss relevant agency policies and practices.

Educational goals: The presentation will demonstrate the various levels of theory, thought and intention involved in caring for clients, staff, and neighbors in a community mental health setting during times of upheaval and collective trauma. Lessons about creating an interdependent infrastructure that supports each level of care will be shared. The multiple levels of consultation that offer multiple paths for processing and developing insight will be highlighted.

Presenters:

Angela Sedeño, PhD is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist who earned her doctorate at Loyola University Chicago with a specialty in child and family psychology. She is a native Chicagoan who has worked in community mental health since 1999. Prior to joining The Kedzie Center as Executive Director, she served as Family Services Program Director at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. Her clinical specialties include adolescent psychology, conduct disorders, trauma informed care, acculturation, cultural identity and immigration-related stress and resilience. Other interests include social and restorative justice and the roots and impact of community violence on youth and families. A first generation Mexican-American, she is bilingual/bicultural. 

Katherine Ordonez, MA earned their Master of Arts in Social Work, Social Policy and Social Administration from the University of Chicago's Crown Family School. They have experience working in residential therapy, PrEP and HIV care, and outpatient psychotherapy in private practice and community-based settings. Katherine works with individuals of all backgrounds and ages but has centered the majority of their practice around LGBTQ+ teens and adults. Their therapeutic style is open-ended and exploratory in spirit, typically involving issues related to identity development, life transitions, immigration and complex trauma. They primarily practice from a relational psychoanalytic perspective. 

Bill Singerman,MA, LCPC holds two master's degrees - one in Clinical Counseling and Psychotherapy from the Institute of Clinical Social Work (Chicago) and one in Education from Bank Street College of Education (NYC). Bill provides individual therapy for adolescents and adults and leads groups. While the foundation of his practice is psychodynamic, his approach is integrative, one in which different therapeutic modalities are interwoven to meet the needs of the unique client. He completed postgraduate training in relational psychodynamic therapy and has led group supervision for graduate interns. Before entering the counseling field, Bill taught middle school humanities, at a progressive, independent school in Hyde Park.

Nancy Burke, PhD, ABPP, is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst. Dr. Burke received her PhD from the University of Chicago’s Committee on Human Development and her Certificate in Psychoanalysis from the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. She is an Associate Clinical Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University, and a core faculty member of CCP, where she is also a past-president and board member. She is currently Co-Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Expanded Mental Health Services of Chicago, NFP (EMHS-NFP). 

Interactive Webinar via ZOOM – Will be recorded

Please register by Wednesday, March 4, 2026

3 Clinical CEs

Fees: Free and open to the public

          Three CE's for psychologists, Social Workers and LCPC's $50

           (ICSW CE's  $30, ICSW Alumni in person attendance $30)

 LSW/LCSW, LPC/LCPC, Clinical Psychologists, PEL, MFT

No refunds after Friday, March 6, 2026

(contact Elree C. Smith, esmith@icsw.edu for the Alumni in-person and virtual registration links)

Questions, Contact: Leah Harp - leahharp@gmail.com

Registration and attendance at, or participation in, ICSW classes, meetings and other activities constitutes an agreement by the registrant to ICSW's use and distribution (both now and in the future) of the registrant or attendee's image or voice in photographs, videotapes, electronic reproductions, and audiotapes of such events and activities.