2025 Annual Yellowbrick Conference

LIFT OFF!! Facilitating Successful Launch for Emerging Adults

December 5, 2025
8:30am – 4:30pm

6.5 CEU Credits

Registration

Hybrid Conference will include in-person (continental breakfast and lunch provided) and virtual attendance for 6.25 CEU’s. New this year: Our partnership with Trusted Providers Network will insure that CEU’s can be issued by TPN for all 50 states. Both in-person and virtual attendance offering CEU’s is complimentary/free. Must attend full day to receive full CEU’s.

Yellowbrick Consultation and Treatment Center
One Rotary Center
1560 Sherman Avenue
3rd Floor Auditorium
Evanston, IL 60201

Parking in One Rotary Center is limited; Public parking available on street and in parking deck off of Davis, one block away.

A block rate of $169 per night at Hyatt House is available anytime from Dec. 2nd – Dec. 6th.
Please book your room ASAP as space is limited
Hyatt House Booking Link

Conference Description:

LIFT OFF! Facilitating Successful Launch for Emerging Adults
Across the country, clinicians, educators, and families are witnessing a growing crisis among emerging adults—young people who appear stalled in their transition to independent adulthood. Often labeled with the discouraging phrase “failure to launch,” these individuals struggle with anxiety, depression, executive dysfunction, and identity uncertainty in a rapidly changing world.

But what if we reframed this narrative?

Liftoff! is a call to action for mental health professionals to shift the paradigm—from pathologizing stagnation to cultivating launch readiness. This year’s conference explores how clinicians, family systems, and treatment programs can better equip emerging adults to thrive, not just survive, in the transition to adulthood.

We’ll explore the developmental, family, neurobiological, and psychosocial factors that underpin stalled independence. Most importantly, we’ll spotlight evidence-based practices, pathways and innovative program models that build confidence, competence, and connection.

Liftoff! challenges professionals to turn the traditional “failure to launch” concept on its ear—recognizing that the journey to adulthood is not a single moment, but a series of developmental lifts that require insight, skill, and community.

Join us as we invite you into the conversation, share transformative strategies, and redefine what it means to help emerging adults launch—with purpose, direction, and lasting stability.

Our Topics and Speakers:

Jesse Viner MD

Founder, CEO, Chief Clinical Officer
Yellowbrick

US Cultural Evolution and the Internalized Relationship to Power & Authority Within Gen-Z

David Baron, MD
Medical Director
Yellowbrick

Pete Myers
Director of Group and Therapeutic Community Services
Yellowbrick

Bryn Jessup, PhD
Director of Family Services and Systems
Yellowbrick

Taylor Parks, MSOT, OTR/L, QMHP
Occupational Therapist
Yellowbrick

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Facilitating Change: Neurotherapeutic Approaches for Emerging Adults

Dr. Roger Pottenat, MD
Medical Director of McLean’s 3East Residential DBT Programs and Founder & Director at Boston Precision Neurotherapeutics

“Maps Without Roads: The Search for Independence amid Countless Directions

Kerry Horrell PhD

Inpatient Services Coordinator and Staff Psychologist
The Menninger Clinic

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“Promoting Self-Direction in Young Adults through Dyadic and Social Learning

Dr. Spencer Biel, PsyD

Director Online Intensive Outpatient Program for college students and emerging adults
Austen Riggs Center

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Echo Chamber or Reflective Lens: AI, Psychotherapy and Young Adult Mental Health

Dr. Molly Pachan, PhD

Staff Psychologist
Lindner Center of Hope

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Register Now:

Register Now

Yellowbrick Consultation and Treatment Center
One Rotary Center
1560 Sherman Avenue
3rd Floor Auditorium
Evanston, IL 60201

Parking in One Rotary Center is limited; Public parking available on street and in parking deck off of Davis, one block away.

Parking in One Rotary Center is limited; Public parking available on street and in parking deck off of Davis, one block away.

A block rate of $169 per night at Hyatt House is available anytime from Dec. 2nd – Dec. 6th.
Please book your room ASAP as space is limited
Hyatt House Booking Link

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Questions:

Call Tracy Ashworth 847-869-1500 ext. 207