The 2023 Families Rising conference is a four-day event from July 18 to 21. July 18 is the pre-conference and will be an entire day of training with a separate fee. July 19 to 21 is the full conference with a variety of workshops to be offered each day.
Pre-Conference Sessions
Date: July 18, 2023
Time: 8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Registration fee: $150
The Pre-conference sessions are day-long, intensive workshops on a particular topic. Pre-conference registration fees are separate from regular conference fees. You can register for a pre-conference session even if you do not attend the rest of the conference. (Registration is for one track).
Check-in starts at 7:45 am.
Track 1: Overcoming Blocked Care: Helping Parents Regain Compassion
Melissa Corkum, The Adoption Connection, Maryland & Lisa Qualls, The Adoption Connection, Idaho
Audience: parents and professionals
In this all-day, in-depth session, participants will learn about blocked care—a self-protective mechanism in a parent’s nervous system activated by excessive stress. Blocked care suppresses the higher brain functions needed for caregiving, causing the parent’s nervous system to develop a defensive stance toward their child. Adoptive and foster parents are at higher risk of blocked care because they are parenting children with a history of adversity. With support and good care, though, parents can regain compassion for themselves and their child. In this session for both professionals and parents, participants will understand how to prevent blocked care, learn to recognize the signs of blocked care, and explore how to overcome it and develop empathy and return to more effective parenting.
Track 2: Leveraging Lived Experience: Improving the Services and Culture of Our Work Spaces
facilitated by: Nathan Ross, MSW, LMSW, Jamole Callahan, JaeRan Kim, PhD, MSW, Mercedes Zahler, Jarel Skinner-Melendez, MBA, and David Simmons, MSW
Audience: professionals with childhood lived experience in foster care, kinship care, or adoption
What does our lived experience tell us and the rest of the world? Through panel discussions and large and small group work, this session will collectively explore what it means to work in child welfare and other human service professions for those who have childhood lived experience of their own in foster care, kinship care, or adoption. The group will explore the added value their experiences bring to their professions and the people they serve, the strengths and importance of inclusivity in effecting positive organizational and systemic change, as well as the personal challenges often encountered in these spaces and the burden that doesn’t stay contained at work.
Keynote Sessions
July 19, 2023 — Be the Difference! Saying Yes to Belonging Is Saying Yes to Unlocking Potential
Gaelin Elmore
In Wednesday’s general session on July 19, Gaelin Elmore will talk about how belonging is a fundamental need pivotal to how we experience relationships, interact with the world, and develop our gifts and talents. Unfortunately, for youth separated from birth or first family through adoption or foster care, the path to belonging is forever changed. To give young people access to their full potential, we must commit to being the difference by saying yes to belonging. In this keynote session, the speaker will share how belonging transformed his life when he was in foster care. He will tell personal stories to explain the three commitments we need to make to be the difference for those we care about.
July 20, 2023 — Moral Injury and Child Welfare
Michelle D. Seymore, MPNA
In Thursday’s keynote session, Michelle D. Seymore, MPNA, will explain how moral injury is the psychological damage caused when an individual has to represent policies and take actions that conflict with their moral code. The session will explore how this comes into play for child welfare system-involved families and service providers when their race, gender, and socioeconomic status affect their experience with government interventions and service providers. In addition, attendees will learn strategies for how they can combat moral injury in child welfare.
July 21, 2023 — The Future of Adoption
Ligia Noemi Cushman, MA
On Friday, Families Rising’s new executive director, Ligia Cushman, MA, will conclude the conference by inspiring attendees with her closing remarks about the necessary steps to achieve positive and significant changes for children and families. Her words will encourage attendees to take action and implement the best practices and innovative strategies learned during the conference to make a meaningful impact on the lives of children, families, and communities.
Breakout Workshops
Wednesday, July 19, 2023
10:30 – 12:00 noon
1A — Creating a Safety Plan for Your Family
Felt safety is essential for building connection. A safety plan ensures that every member of a household feels safe in their home even in the face of aggressive or explosive behaviors. Parents will learn how to create felt safety for children with big behaviors as well as how to keep other members of the family safe when challenging behaviors erupt.
Lisa Qualls, The Adoption Connection, Idaho & Melissa Corkum, The Adoption Connection, Maryland
1B — From Pursuit of Perfection to a Place of Reflection
Adoptive parents may read the books, attend training, or binge watch videos on the best parenting strategies, while still—in the heat of the moment—finding it hard to stay regulated enough to use these tools. Many begin to feel shame and defeat when they’re too stressed to follow through with what they’ve learned. Parenting reflectively can help families discover what it might be like to evaluate parenting decisions based on multiple factors rather than on absolutes, to focus more on how you are than what you do, and to better understand our children and ourselves. This workshop will help families remember that there’s no one way to be a good adoptive parent.
Allison Douglas, MS, Harmony Family Center, Tennessee
1E — Recruiting Non-Related Foster/Adoptive Families in a Time of Kinship Preference
These days, the child welfare system rightly prioritizes placing children with relatives and others known to them. But we still need to recruit and engage foster and adoptive families for children who don’t have a kinship placement identified. Come learn how to adjust your recruitment and preparation strategies, including how to look for families for older children and those with higher needs. The speakers will also cover how to help prospective foster/adoptive parents understand the value of relative preference for children and prepare and support these parents to partner with kin—whether for a placement or as a resource.
Denise Goodman, PhD, ACSW, trainer/consultant, Ohio and Maureen Heffernan, LISW, consultant, Ohio
1G — Interactive Tools to Build Resilient Families
Resilient families are able to bounce back in times of crisis. This session will describe protective and risk factors of families involved with the child welfare system and provide social workers with tools to increase family resilience. Participants will learn tools they can use with families of all types: post adoption, post reunification, kinship, guardianship, foster, or families working to prevent entry into foster care. This is an interactive program and participants will leave with several new skill building tools to use with families. The facilitators will divide the participants into small groups and the groups will rotate around the room to learn the new skills.
Chrissy Triplett, LCSW, & Sarah Bolick, MSW, Catawba County Social Services, North Carolina
1H — Strengthening Agencies and Communities Through Trauma-Informed Training
Understanding the cause and impact of trauma on child welfare professionals and those they serve is critical to a healthy workforce and positive client outcomes. This workshop provides an overview of a training series for professionals at all of levels of the agency that teaches about trauma from the inside out. In addition, the presenter will explore how such training can help organizations move from being trauma-informed to trauma-responsive.
Janice Goldwater, MSW, & Lisa Dominguez, LCSW-C, Adoptions Together/FamilyWorks Together, Maryland
1I — Decreasing Racial Disparities in the Foster Care System
In 2020, African American children made up 33 percent of the foster care system while they were only 15 percent of the overall population. In this session, the speaker presents the results of her action research project to decrease racial disparities of children in foster care in her agency, and offers implementation strategies and recommendations for others to address these disparities in their communities.
Tatenda Perry, MSW, LCSW, Methodist Home for Children, North Carolina
1J — What I Wish Caseworkers and Families Would Have Said: Foster Care Alumni Panel
In this session, the presenters will share their experiences as alumni of the foster care system. They will discuss what it was like not knowing what was happening in their lives when information was withheld rather than given in an age-appropriate manner and how they filled in the empty spaces with what they thought was happening – or what they wished was happening – and how that led to more trauma. The panel will also share ideas regarding needed systemic changes and advice they have for current foster/adoptive parents and why they shouldn’t be afraid to foster or adopt older youth.
Rebekah Carroll, Crystal Hunsperger, Ashley Whitehead, Shakyra Sargent, Kejuan Allen, Makayla Edberg, & Denny Lahm, Central Missouri Foster Care & Adoption Association, Missouri
Central Missouri Foster Care & Adoption Association
12:00 – 1:30 pm: Lunch Break
Grab lunch on your own and explore the Exhibit Hall!
1:30 – 3:00 pm
2B — Launching Differently: Parenting Adults Who Experienced Trauma As Children
Parenting children with trauma histories takes a different kind of parenting, and it doesn’t end when the children turn 18. In this workshop, the speakers will explore how to adjust expectations, make accommodations, and set children up for success by launching them in a way that meets their unique needs.
Barb Clark, North American Council on Adoptable Children, Florida and Kim Stevens, MEd, project manager, Vermont
canceled: 2C — Self-Care: Keeping Ourselves Well When Our Children Have Big Needs
*added* 2C — Exploring Identity, Celebrating Relationships, and Navigating Differences
With the calendar as a guide, transracially adopted person and host of the popular podcast Born in June, Raised in April: What Adoption Can Teach the World, April Dinwoodie will candidly explore the importance of healthy identity development, the power of building strong relationships, and the urgency of facing differences of race, culture, and class.
April Dinwoodie, June in April LLC, Rhode Island
2E — NTDC: A Free Curriculum to Prepare and Support Those Parenting Children Who Have Experienced Trauma
This session will provide a brief overview of the research-based National Training and Development Curriculum, including its components and an overview of outcomes to date. In addition, the presenters will deliver the Trauma Informed Parenting module of the curriculum allowing participants to experience the videos/podcasts, activities, and accompanying teaching materials. Participants will learn how they can use and adapt this free, flexible training in their community.
Amy Martin, Spaulding for Children, Missouri, Jennifer Meyer, FosterAdopt Connect, Kansas, and Joel Driskell & Kassandra Driskell, resource parents, Missouri
2G — Adoption Assistance
In this session, you will learn the basics of adoption assistance for children adopted from foster care. Topics include eligibility, benefits, taxes, and more. Participants will receive state-specific information and will come away with concrete information and strategies to better advocate for children to receive the support they need. The workshop will provide an overview of the federal adoption tax credit.
Josh Kroll, North American Council on Adoptable Children, Minnesota
2H — Implementing the Indian Child Welfare Act After the Haaland v. Brackeen Case
In 2023, the US Supreme Court will issue a decision in the Haaland v. Brackeen case that will have implications for the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a federal law that contains requirements for American Indian and Alaska Native children in state child welfare proceedings. This workshop will discuss the decision and its impacts on implementation of ICWA. Participants will also learn about other federal child welfare law requirements that complement ICWA that can provide additional protections for American Indian and Alaska Native children and families along with other strategies to support the best interests of American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.
David Simmons, MSW, National Indian Child Welfare Association, Oregon
2J — Lean on Me: Creating Connections Between Youth Seeking Unconditional Commitment and the Adults in Their Support System
This workshop will explore the importance of community building and proper family and youth engagement to achieve the goals of ensuring that young people have an unconditional commitment from adults in their lives. The presenters will help participants understand why youth in care may seek a “safe distance” from others and how to work collaboratively with young people and their community to achieve permanency. Together, we can re-humanize child welfare services.
Nyamekye Reynolds, Michelle Lyles, & KimAlysha Seligmiller, You Gotta Believe! , New York
2K — Compassionate Co-Parenting: Understanding Birth Parent Trauma
While we talk a lot about the impact of trauma on children, we don’t always think about the impact of trauma on birth families. Birth families are always present in our children’s lives—sometimes physically, but always energetically and emotionally. And if foster and adoptive parents apply everything they know about the impact of trauma to their children’s birth parents, it will allow them to lean into those relationships with connection, compassion, and boundaries. Changing the way we see birth family is good for our children.
Robyn Gobbel, LMSW, Robyn Gobbel pllc, Michigan
3:30 – 5:00 pm
3A — Therapeutic Parenting Strategies to Promote Attunement, Attachment, and Felt Safety
Professionals serving adoption/guardianship families often have limited understanding of the issues contributing to mental health challenges, especially the impact of trauma, treatment of attachment injury, and the resulting effects on development. We will present therapeutic parenting tools and strategies for supporting attachment, attunement, and promoting felt safety embedded in the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI).
Lisa D. Maynard, LMSW, RYT, Center for Adoption Support and Education, New York & Edna Davis-Brown, MPH, Center for Adoption Support and Education, Maryland
3B — Building Positive Relationships with Teens
Why do teens make the choices they do? What could they possibly be thinking? How can we guide them into adulthood with the tools they need to lead healthy, productive lives? In this interactive session, the presenter will explore the development, neuroscience, and internal and external factors that affect teen choices and behavior. Attendees will gain insights about how BioSocial Cognition can help them cultivate positive, productive communication and relationship with their teens in foster care and adoption.
Thomas C. Rector, Accrescent Institute, California
3C — Loss and Identity for Intercountry Adoptees: Exploring Narrative Therapy
It is often thought that intercountry adoptees’ losses are centered around race, culture, and language, but their rich stories tell us more about the depth of what they have lost. Meanwhile, misunderstood identity narratives amplify these losses. This presentation centers adoptees’ storytelling to examine loss as one of the core adoption issues, and provides collaborative clinical intervention tools using narrative therapy.
Bruno Jung-Millen, MSW, RSW, Intersections Therapy Collective, Ontario
3H — Countering Experiences of Abandonment in Foster Care: An Agency Commitment to Relationships
Family Focus Adoption Services offers four programs based on the same philosophical model—one worker commits to building a strong, lasting relationship with a youth being served by the program as long as they need it. Together the worker and the young person move in lockstep, building a shared history of joint decision-making. Serving youth seeking a permanent family, those who have aged out of care, and alumni of the system, the programs make a commitment to stay with the young person until they have successful adult lives. Come learn about how making relationship the center of our interventions has helped us better support young people who have not been well served by the foster care system.
Jack Brennan & Liam Irwin, Family Focus Adoption Services, New York
3I — Cultural Competence: Should This Be Our Goal?
This workshop will highlight the difference between cultural competence and culture humility—cultural competence denotes mastery while cultural humility is process oriented. One can never master a client’s culture since each client is unique. Using her personal and professional experiences, the presenter will provide strategies to help participants bring cultural humility into their daily practice, mission, and goals.
Delois A. Pearsall, LCSW-C, Adoptions Together, Maryland
3J — Substance Misuse Among Youth in Foster Care
Substance misuse is a problem for young people today, especially those who have experienced trauma. This session offers practical tools and insights to address substance misuse that are solution-focused and informed by evidence-based practice. The speakers will cover essential information learned after they investigated the lived experiences of foster care workers, foster parents, and Medicaid-eligible youth in foster care in Michigan.
Deidre Hurse, PhD, MPA, & Victoria Lucia, PhD, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, Michigan
3K — Kinship Care Is Hard (But Worth It)! Exploring Trauma in Kinship Families and Strategies that Promote Healing
When children can’t live with their parents, they should stay with family whenever possible. While kinship care is the best option for children, it is also hard. In this session, the presenter will discuss the unique dynamics of kinship families and talk about the potential trauma of relative care on children, caregivers, parents, and the family as a whole. We will explore how to effectively support kinship families and promote healing from within. You’ll leave feeling encouraged and empowered to support the kinship families in your life!
Trista Miller, Foster Kinship, Nevada
Thursday, July 20, 2023
10:30 – 12:00 noon
4A — Trust-Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®) Immersion Experience
Let’s play together as we immerse ourselves in Trust-Based Relational Intervention®! We will explore the impact of trauma on the brain, body, biology, beliefs, and behaviors and share ways to support holistic healing through experiential activities and discussion. TBRI® is an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention designed to meet the complex needs of children and youth who have experienced adversity, early harm, toxic stress, or trauma.
Jill Crewes, MSW, AGCI, Colorado
4B — Raising African American Youth in Adoption and Foster Care
Given the racial tension, discrimination, and violence against African Americans, especially young African American men, transracial adoptive and foster parents have a big task when raising African American children. Parents need to recognize the differences between personal bias and institutional racism and the impact that both are likely to have on their children and family. Come to this session to learn how parents can help promote the development of a healthy racial identity while also teaching young people about the racism, stigma, and challenges they may encounter.
Zachary Fried, New York & Sue Badeau, Badeau Family Books and Consulting, Pennsylvania
4C — Caregiver Resilience
Did you know that half of foster parents quit after one year? Yet other foster parents continue for 20+ years! What do long- term foster parents and adoptive parents have that keeps them going? Resilience! We’ll talk about the stages of resilience and the strengths these families have. We’ll also learn how to quit taking things personally!
Jennifer Meyer, FosterAdopt Connect, Kansas
4G — Resource Family Disruption Prevention and Retention: Model of Practice Essential Strategies
Presenters will explore the dynamics of disruptions in foster and adoptive families. By understanding these dynamics and stages, participants can learn how and when to intervene to help prevent and respond to disruptions that impact all family members and staff. Join this workshop to discuss how to implement a model of practice that is mission-driven, commitment- focused and trauma-informed.
Eshele Williams, PsyD, LMFT, EDW Consulting & Eileen Pasztor, DSW, School of Social Work, California State University, Long Beach
4H — Changing the Narrative: The Key to Child Welfare System Change
During this interactive workshop, the presenter will challenge attendees to rethink the narrative of the child welfare system. Foster and adoptive parents are often seen as the story’s hero, while children are the damsels in distress that need to be saved. When those roles are assigned, it feels natural to make the birth family the villains that need to vanish. But this narrative is damaging to all involved. When we challenge that narrative—when we make the birth parents the hero and foster parents the ally—we shift the entire perspective of the child welfare system. This session will offer practical steps participants can take to begin to change this broken narrative, and in turn, shift the whole system.
Erin Bouchard, Trauma Based Parenting, Ontario
4J — SOUL Family: A Youth-Led Proposal to Expand Permanency Options for Teens in Foster Care
We invite you to this session to learn about SOUL Family—an innovative proposed permanency option designed to allow young people ages 16+ to maintain existing family connections and establish a new legal relationship with one or more adults. This proposed option offers a flexible alternative that expands pathways to legal permanency on the same continuum as adoption, guardianship, and reunification while also providing access to critical benefits and services to support young people along the path to adulthood and throughout their lives.
Doreen Chapman, MSW, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Maryland & Sonia Emerson, Child Focus
4K — A Roadmap to Successfully Engage Kinship Families
Children in foster care do better when they can live with and be connected to their family—it’s that simple! In this session, we’ll dive deeply into the nuances of relative placement and involvement, share practical skills for building trust with family members and addressing power dynamics, and provide a roadmap for meeting the unique needs of family caregivers through meaningful engagement. Together we can transform the system!
Patrick Pisani, The Institute for Child Welfare Innovation, Missouri
12:00 – 1:30 pm: Lunch Break
During your lunch break, be sure to explore the resources in the Exhibit Hall!
1:30 – 3:00 pm
5A — Thriving with FASD—A Neurobehavioral Approach to Success
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that “[a]ll children with involvement in foster care or adoption processes…should always be evaluated for a possible FASD.” FASD is surprisingly prevalent, affecting 1 child in 20 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The speakers will discuss this common, yet often overlooked disability and the neurobehavioral model that was developed specifically for FASD. This model enables success by shifting the paradigm from “bad” to “disabled,” and from “won’t” to “can’t.” Come learn strategies and tools necessary to optimize outcomes, highlight strengths, and improve quality of life at all levels.
Christine Petrenko, PhD, Mt Hope Family Center and the Kansas FASD Support Network, New York, Kathy White, Kansas FASD Support Network, & Sean Patrick Bousquet, Texas
5B — Practical Suggestions for Supporting Dysregulated Children, Teens, and Families
Attempts to parent their four transracially adopted children left the presenter and her husband feeling battered and woefully incompetent for 17 years. They reached out to countless specialists, and sadly sank even further by following their outdated advice. Then they discovered a whole new approach to parenting children from tough backgrounds and saw huge improvements. Come learn tips and techniques to help your children do better too!
Babette Northrop, MS, Ohio
5C — Healing in the Adoption Constellation: A Trauma-Informed Approach
In adoption, there are often trauma experiences across the entire adoption constellation. This workshop will cover trauma and healing for the birth/first family, adoptive family, and adoptee, with a specific focus on healing techniques and trauma- informed best practices designed to promote healthier families and relationships for all.
Erika Schmitt, MSW, LSW, The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center, Pennsylvania
5E — Mitigating Trauma Through Diligent Recruitment
In this workshop, the presenters will address how child welfare systems can mitigate children’s trauma by having placement options that let children stay in their home communities and schools, be with their siblings, and have their cultural needs met. We will share practice ideas and concrete steps workers in various roles can take to conduct data-driven recruitment and support that is grounded in the goal of finding families who can reduce the trauma that children in foster care experience.
Kimberly Bonham, LCSW, AdoptUSKids, Florida & Alicia Groh, MPP, AdoptUSKids, Minnesota
5G — Peer-to-Peer Resource Family Support Services
Who better to offer post-adoption and resource family support services than parents who have traveled the same road? The presenter will describe the Adoption and Guardianship Assistance Program for Everyone (AGAPE), which offers individual one-on-one case management, support groups, trauma-informed parenting education, and other training—all led by a staff of experienced foster, adoptive, and kinship parents. Come learn about how you can incorporate peer support into your support services.
Pat O’Brien, LMSW, LTMN, Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York (AFFCNY)
5I — Using an LGBTQ+ and Racial Equity Lens to Review and Update Child Welfare Practices
Research shows that both youth of color and those with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expression are overrepresented in out-of-home care and experience worse outcomes at every level of child welfare. This includes more reports, screen-ins, investigations, substantiations, and recommendations for removal than their counterparts. Together, we’ll use an intersectional lens to explore strategies for achieving racial and LGBTQ+ equity within child welfare agencies.
Nia Clark, MSW, Human Rights Campaign, District of Columbia
5J — Peer-Based Case Management: Interrupting the Foster Care to Prison Pipeline
For young people who are in or have been in foster care, minor interactions with police can lead to a lifetime of trouble. In this session, the presenters will share how their program of peer-based case management, when paired with legal services, can help address this and other challenges for transition-aged youth. Participants will receive a roadmap for how to offer a peer-led support program plus considerations for adding legal services to agency efforts to support youth in care and youth aging out of care.
Jessica Funk & Jessica Ross, JD, FosterAdopt Connect, Missouri
3:30 – 5:00 pm
6A — Cracking the Code on Misbehavior: Tools, Techniques, and Activities That Work
Past trauma and other experiences can negatively affect children’s behaviors. When challenging behaviors arise, those caring for children can struggle as they search for ways to respond. In this workshop, the presenter will explore strategies and parental skills training that make a difference, including techniques based on Theraplay, an attachment-based play therapy modality. Other topics covered will include attunement, the difference between shame and guilt, and use of discipline versus punishment.
Sam Bunnyfield, LIMHP, LCSW, The Theraplay Institute, Illinois
6B — Creating Felt Safety for Children Who Have Been Hurt
Why is it that children with histories of abuse and neglect so often continue to reject closeness and connection, sometimes even years after placement with loving adoptive families? How can we help children feel safe in our homes and safe in relationship with us? In this workshop, parents will learn how polyvagal theory, also known as “the science of safety,” can help answer these questions. They will also learn how to use that knowledge to build connection and relationship even with children who have been badly hurt.
Emily Collins, LCSW, You Gotta Believe, New York
6C — The Unspoken Trauma: Loss
Loss is a significant trauma that is too rarely explored with youth, foster or adoptive parents, and birth parents. For children to be able to make new attachments, they must be supported in grieving lost and broken attachments. This workshop explores how losses affect children’s development, the psychological tasks of grief work, and healing therapies. The presenters will also cover effective interventions for opening communication with children and strengthening transitions and attachment to new families.
Debbie Riley, LCMFT, CEO, & Laura Ornelas, MSW, LCSW, Center for Adoption Support and Education, Maryland
6G — How to Enhance Support Services in Your Community: Lessons from Across the US
Using takeaways from a national survey of states and territories, this workshop will cover key aspects of successful post- adoption and guardianship support programs and highlight specific programs that are providing high-quality and accessible services. In addition to offering strategies for how to use this information, the presenters will facilitate a discussion on how participants can improve post-adoption and guardianship support in their communities.
Britt Cloudsdale, MSW, North American Council on Adoptable Children, North Carolina & Alicia Groh, MPP, AdoptUSKids, Minnesota
6H — Speaking Up and Be Heard! Legislative Advocacy for Children, Youth, and Families
More and more successful advocacy is based on hearing from the collective voices of youth, parents, and professionals in child welfare. Join this interactive, hands-on session to learn effective strategies and tips for successful advocacy—both in your community and at state and federal levels. Presenters will also share the latest federal policy updates and advocacy messages being discussed at the national level.
Joe Kroll, Voice for Adoption, Minnesota, Patrick Lester, Voice for Adoption, & Lori Ross, FosterAdopt Connect, Missouri
6I — Color-Evasive Ideology and Practice in Adoption
It’s common to hear professionals, prospective parents, or extended family exclaim, “I don’t see color!” when discussing transracial adoption. This workshop will unpack the influence of color-evasive ideology in policy, institutions, and parenting approaches. How does color-evasive ideology shape policies such as the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA), prospective parent education, and transracial adoptee racial identity development? The presenters will explore examples of color-blind ideology and practice so participants can identify it, dismantle it, and provide healthier transracial parenting. Attendees will also learn about MEPA’s enduring impact on the adoption industry and the lives of transracial adoptees.
Victoria Dimartile, MA, Indiana University, JaeRan Kim, PhD, MSW, University of Washington Tacoma, Social Work and Criminal Justice program, & Kit Myers, PhD, University of California, Merced
6K — Seeing and Meeting the Needs of Foster and Adoptive Siblings
Adoptive siblings or children who were already a part of a family before foster care or adoption can struggle with many unspoken challenges. One of the biggest challenges is feeling invisible—feeling like no one recognizes that they are affected by what is happening in their families. In this session, participants will learn to see the needs of siblings and gain practical, research-based strategies to best meet those needs.
Jana Hunsley, PhD, Project 1025 LLC, Texas
Friday, July 21, 2023
8:30 – 10:00 am
canceled: 7A — Neurofeedback: How This Disruptive Innovation Can Help Heal Trauma
**added!: 7A — Navigating School Systems**
Families Rising’s education specialist will offer resources and guidance on how to help adoptive, foster, and kinship children have a successful school experience. Whether it’s finding classroom support, asking for accommodations, or participating in educational programming meetings, knowing how to advocate for a child’s needs is critical for a positive outcome at school. Understanding the special education process and having the knowledge about what supports are available can empower parents and professionals as they advocate for children.
Melissa Greene, M.Sp.Ed., North American Council on Adoptable Children, Minnesota
7B — The Big 3: Lying, Stealing, and Raging
Some common behaviors in children who have experienced trauma (including FASD) are lying, stealing, and raging. We will discuss the neuro-behavioral aspects of why these behaviors are common and talk about concrete relational-based strategies that can help get a handle on these frustrating behaviors.
Barb Clark, North American Council on Adoptable Children, Florida
7E — Breaking Jurisdictional Barriers for Children Who Need Families
Finding families for children sometimes requires public agencies to look outside their own local states for adoptive families. In such cases, agencies may be overwhelmed by interjurisdictional requirements (ICPC process), and adoptive parents may feel unprepared to parent children with compound trauma coming from a different region. This session will educate adoption professionals about how to execute national searches, as well as recruit and train prospective adoptive families for specialized adoptions. The Barker Adoption Foundation has placed more than 185 children from foster care across the US, and is one of a few agencies successfully doing this type of private adoption for older children.
Saara McEachnie, LCSW‑C, LICSW, The Barker Adoption Foundation, Maryland
7G — Creating An Award-Winning Public/Private Partnership: The Missouri Family Resource Center Model
This session, for agency leaders and parent group leaders, will present a public/private collaboration model that has created a statewide network of support for children involved with child welfare and the families caring for those children. Working together, Missouri’s Children’s Division and three parent-led support organizations have developed supports and services that meet the needs of kids and families and encourage recruitment and retention, stability in care, timely permanency, and more. Come learn how your community can replicate this model and expand supports for your children and families.
DeAnna Alonso, MSW, Central Missouri Foster Care & Adoption Association, Lori Ross, FosterAdopt Connect, Missouri & Melanie Scheetz, Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition, Missouri
7H — Preparing and Supporting Staff to Discuss Race and Racial Identity with Transracial Parents
The session will outline key concepts in racial identity and development and acknowledge the role that caregivers have in meeting children’s racial needs across their life span. It will also identify ways child welfare professionals can begin to engage caregivers in conversations about how they can meet their children’s racial needs. The presenter will share real life examples from adoptees as well as practical skills for engaging caregivers.
Devyn Taylor, MSW, LCSW, Alameda County, California
7I — Unconditional Love and Support for LGBTQIA+ Young People
This session will explore how to implement accepting and affirming strategies to create relational and legal permanence for LGBTQIA+ youth, especially youth of color. Come learn how to engage LGBTQIA+ young people, prepare them for transitions, and build and stay connected to unconditional community. This is an interactive workshop, so bring your questions and real-life challenges for discussion.
Bryan Hill, LMSW, & Quana Green, MSW, The New York City Administration for Children’s Services
7J — Adoption and Other Options for Teens
This workshop provides a model for teen permanence that includes dealing with teen ambivalence toward a permanent family, locating families, and making and supporting the strongest placements. In addition to other recruitment activities, the presenter will focus on reassessing birth parents, relatives, and past connections, even when a TPR has taken place. This is an interactive workshop so bring your most challenging cases for discussion.
Barry Chaffkin, LCSW, Fostering Change for Children, New York
10:15 – 11:45 am
8A — Trauma Treatment Is Trauma Prevention
Children who have experienced traumatically stressful events are not only at risk of emotional and behavioral impacts, but are also more vulnerable to re-victimization and further trauma. Caregiver support is the most crucial factor in symptom prevention and recovery, but children often need additional trauma-focused interventions. This workshop introduces Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, an evidence-based intervention for children and their caregivers that addresses child and adolescent trauma. Come learn about the intervention and how you can access related resources in your community.
Roy Van Tassell, MS, Centene, Oklahoma & Kimberly Purinton, PhD, Centene, Florida
8B — Seven Core Issues: Parenting Children and Teens who Have Experienced Trauma
We cannot heal what we cannot acknowledge! To parent a child who has experienced trauma, loss, and attachment impairments due to foster care and adoption, parents must first examine and understand their own core issues, attachment experiences, and history of loss and trauma. In this workshop, parents will gain insight, self-awareness, and tools while agencies and professionals can explore how to better prepare and support individuals who are considering or already parenting by foster care, kinship, or adoption. Your child’s healing is intimately connected to your own healing. Join Allison for a journey into parental identity and discover tools to strengthen your attachment relationship with your child or teen.
Allison Davis Maxon, LMFT, National Center on Adoption and Permanency, California
8C — Emerging: The Lived Experience of Adult Adoptees
The lived experience of adoption continues throughout adulthood. Adult adoptees often struggle to make sense of who they are in context of their biological and adoptive families and as they make choices about how they want to live their lives. Their lived experience of adoption affects all their relationships personally and professionally. This presentation explores how the adult adoptee makes sense of the seven core issues of adoption in their ongoing search for self.
Joanne Crandall, PhD, A Child’s Song, British Columbia
8G — Peer-Based Trauma-Informed Parenting Supports for Foster, Kinship, and Pre-Adoptive Families
This workshop will provide insight into how a foster parent support program, Encompass, is leveraging the content of the free Resource Parent Curriculum to provide peer-based one-on-one coaching and support groups, as well as extended community supports to foster families. Come learn about the supports offered by the program’s peer trauma coaches and how you can build these supports in your community.
Diane Lanni, UMass Memorial Medical Center, Massachusetts, and Sarah Ahola, MSW, LCSW, & Jill Cummings, Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
8H — Strategies for Engaging Children and Youth in Care: Advice from the Experts
As part of the Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency, our team dug deep into what works best to engage children and youth in their case plan and permanency planning. Come learn what we found through interviews with those who had been in care, professionals who are committed to effective engagement, and a literature review. The presenters will offer strategies and suggestions related to communication skills, building trusting relationships, taking a strengths-based approach, developing true partnerships with youth, and much more.
Nathan Ross, MSW, LMSW, North American Council on Adoptable Children, Missouri & Jamole Callahan, North American Council on Adoptable Children, Indiana
8I — Policy Analysis with a Race Equity Lens
This workshop will outline guidelines to follow when developing policy and protocol for child welfare work, to make sure that the information is analyzed with an antiracist and inclusive lens. Issues to consider include language, whom to include in the planning process, and ways to build our own capacity for inclusion. The presenter will share a race equity review tool she created that participants can use when reviewing policies, procedures, and legislation to help create an antiracist organization designed to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
Kenisha Coon, MS, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
8K — Honoring and Keeping Sibling Connections Before and After Adoption
Most children in foster care are placed apart from one or more of their siblings. In this workshop, the presenters will discuss how ignoring sibling ties is psychologically harmful and counterproductive to the goal of providing children with stable foster and adoptive families. They will also provide innovative real-life solutions that keep siblings connected. Ultimately, they will show how a change in child welfare policy, practice, and law will benefit both children and their foster and adoptive families.
David White, MBA, LMSW, Fostering Great Ideas: reimagine Foster Care, South Carolina