Session Description
 

Ask a professional fiduciary what makes a case hard and you'll rarely hear about the filing. You'll hear about the person. The beneficiary who stopped answering the phone. The family member who reads every decision as an accusation. The meeting that turned negative before anyone could say why. Most of us were trained thoroughly on the duties and left to work out the relationship on our own.

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This session offers a way to understand what's actually happening in those rooms. Amanda Koplin came to this work through hostage negotiation, and the parallel she draws is the heart of it. Two people, each afraid of the other, placed in a relationship neither one chose. The beneficiary is afraid of being controlled. The fiduciary is afraid of being sued. A great deal of what looks like difficulty is two people protecting themselves from each other, and once you can see it that way, it changes how you do the work.

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Amanda gives us:

• Six principles for communication that holds up under pressure, and why consistency does more work than technique.

• What escalation actually is, and why a defensive response reliably makes it worse.

• Where a fiduciary's lane ends and a clinician's begins.

 

Then a working conversation through the situations practitioners land in for real: the solo fiduciary with no budget and nobody to call, the beneficiary who can't engage rather than won't, saying no in a way that doesn't cost the relationship, and how you write any of this into a file so your reasoning is there later.

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Format

A pre-recorded session in two parts: a focused presentation by Amanda Koplin followed by a conversation with Junel Unrein applying the content through a fiduciary practice lens.

 

Following the session release, Amanda will be available in The Commons, our open community forums, to answer questions and continue the conversation with participants.

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What you'll walk away with

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• A way to read resistance and escalation as something other than difficulty

• Six communication principles that hold up under pressure, and the consistency that makes them work

• Language for a no that lands as a boundary rather than a punishment

• A clear sense of where your lane ends, and when to bring in a clinician, a case manager, or counsel

• What to write down after a hard conversation so the file shows your reasoning

• A quick-reference guide to keep beside you

• A certificate of completion

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CEU Note

 

Certificate of Completion provided upon completion of this session. Certificate holders may self-report continuing education where their certifying body allows.

 

Availability

 

Launching September 21, 2026.