Morning Session & Afternoon Session

Will You Love Me Forever? 

presented by Donna Reed

“Will You Love Me Forever,” will discuss open and honestly the love and understanding it takes to transition a child into your heart and home permanently. The workshop will encourage caseworkers, social workers, caretakers, foster & adoptive families with tips on how to successfully deal with a new family member, anger, emotions, sadness, happiness, multiple placements and permanency. Donna Reed will share her compelling story with humor and sincerity as an adoptee and adoptive parent and her search for her biological family. The topics, discussion and questions and answers will give the attendees inspiration, motivation and education to permanently place children into hearts and homes.

Morning Session

Moving Beyond Consequences

presented by Melissa Robinson

In this class you will be introduced to the concepts of moving beyond consequences and shifting from behavioral based parenting to relationship driven.  This is done through moving beyond consequences and nurturing a deep emotional connection with your child. This course will arm parents with ways to deeply connect with their children and to deepen and renew their relationship.
Working from a love-based approach, this class supports parents to help them better understand their children and themselves.  Course components are based on the clinically-proven Beyond Consequences Institute model.

Morning Session & Afternoon Session

Transforming the Difficult Child: The Nurtured Heart Approach

presented by Howard Glasser

Adoptive parents and professionals often find themselves struggling with the intensity of challenging children. Faced with uncontrolled anger, aggression, defiance and disrespect, most adults react by increasing the severity of normal parenting methods, which regularly make the situation worse.  Join us to be introduced to an approach that helps children to use their intensity successfully and leave with a powerful understanding and skill set to help all children to fully engage life in positive ways, ignite greatness and flourish.

Morning Session & Afternoon Session
 

Successes in Resource Parenting: Using the 3-5-7 Model© to Support the Work of Grieving and Relationship Building for Children and Youth in their Care

presented by Stephanie Wolfe

The 3-5-7 Model© is an effective relational practice that supports the work of children, youth and all families to express and resolve traumatic life events through clarification, integration and actualization processes.  It is a strengths based approach that empowers them to engage in grief work and relationship building activities.  The 3-5-7 Model© is practical, doable guide and approach for foster and adoptive parenting. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the 3-5-7 Model© and experience using the concepts and activities of the model to support their efforts to create safe environments and secure relationships for children, youth and their families; two foundational steps to develop permanency, safety and well-being. Tools are provided that supports this work around issues of separation and loss, identity formation, attachment and relationship building, and feelings of belongingness for the child, youth, and family.

Morning Session & Afternoon Session
 

Finding Permanent Parents for Teens & Young Adults Before They Age Out of Care

presented by Pat O’Brien

This workshop will discuss how to find unconditionally committed permanent parent(s) for teens using You Gotta  Believe’s this three-prong Saving F.A.C.E (Friends, Acquaintances &Community Education) Approach. The ‘aging out to homelessness’ crisis is explained including how the inappropriate permanency goals cause half the homelessness in our culture. We will discuss outcome studies about what happens to youth after their discharge from foster care alone and how our attitude is the only obstacle to finding permanent parents for any teen in our care. Then it’s time to get practical with how-to guidance for finding permanent parents for every teen in our care using the Save F.A.C.E. approach that involved recruiting from the youth’s lifecycle, creating opportunities for youth to meet people who come to us via general recruitment, and also going over how educating the community at large about this need can lead to homes for many teens and young adults aging out of care.

Morning Session

"Kid-Power Transitioning"

presented by Donna Foster

This workshop focuses on transitioning children into adoption. There are changes in children's lives whether they are adopted by their foster families or by new adoptive families. Our goal as a support system is to concentrate on eliminating further trauma in children's lives.  Allowing the child some power and control in how they move is crucial. Participants will learn about the "survival needs" of a child and how to meet them. The stages of transition and the stages of grief will be explored. How to use a child's life book to encourage connections will be discussed. Participants will share what they did to help children feel safe and loved during and after their move. This will be a fun and informative time.

Afternoon Session

Afternoon Session

Afternoon Session