C33 – Strengthening Families through Knowledge of Parenting
Michelle Simmons, BS, IMH-E (I), North Country HealthCare
Strong families start with strong parents. Keeping parents strong reduces the likelihood of child abuse and neglect. This interactive session will spark ideas, identify resources and empower professionals to keep families strong by strengthening Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development.
C34 – Building Resilient Families
Mark Klym, MPA, and Sue Smith, MEd, CPM, Department of Child Safety
This workshop will inform participants of an exciting new pilot program, Building Resilient Families, which is made available by DCS for families assessed as low-risk for child abuse and neglect. The goal is to strengthen the protective factors in these families. Community contractors conduct family needs assessments, offer support services and help families effectively engage in needed community resources. The program is provided through collaborative partnerships with a broad array of community social services agencies.
C35 – Getting to the Heart of the Matter
Therese L. Hollaway, BHT, and Betty Sample, Family Involvement Center
“Getting to the Heart of the Matter” discusses the advantages of family involvement and engagement. When agencies engage parents, they are leading with the parents’ interests in an effort to develop and sustain a genuine partnership. This workshop will explore various ways to engage families as partners.
C36 – Concrete Supports in Time of Need
Jannelle Radoccia, Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest; Brandi Samaniego, Child and Family Resources
Strong families start with strong parents. Keeping parents strong reduces the likelihood of child abuse and neglect. This interactive session will spark ideas, identify resources and empower professionals to keep families strong by strengthening Concrete Support in Times of Need.
C37 – Native Miracles: Cultural Support for Native Kids and Their Families
Elisia Manuel, Three Precious Miracles
Attendees will learn how Three Precious Miracles has been making an impact on Native American Children throughout the Valley with resources and cultural awareness. The program engages families in healthy Native American lifestyle activities and nurtures a mindset that we can all make a stronger tomorrow by getting involved with foster care. Attendees are encouraged to share their personal stories.
C38 – Effective Lobbying for Kids and Families
Beth Rosenberg, LCSW, Children’s Action Alliance; Sam Richard, Protecting Arizona’s Family Coalition
Do you want to improve children’s lives, influence the public policy process and be an effective advocate for children and families? Participants will learn how to become involved in the public policy process and effectively communicate with state legislators and community leaders to influence positive change for vulnerable children and their families. We will review recent actions at the state legislature, and the importance of your involvement as the 2016 election season unfolds.
C39 – Training Families in Crisis Intervention Technique
Hoa Mai, Partners in Recovery, and Cheryl Anderson, SSW, CPRP, MARC
Family members are commonly the first people to deal with the behavioral and safety concerns inherent in a crisis. The presentation will focus on a program that is designed to assist family members and other significant others to assess and address behavioral crises safely and effectively.
C40 – Fostering Purposeful Youth-Adult Partnerships
Meghan Arrigo and Andrea Kappas, Children’s Action Alliance
Fostering Advocates Arizona is a community initiative specializing in youth engagement, advocacy, prevention, and youth-adult partnerships. Our presentation will explore the need of permanency and stability for youths in foster care from the experts themselves: young adults who have lived foster care. We will provide insight into the “Reasonable and Prudent Parent Standard” and what it means for foster parents to make careful and sensible parental decisions while supporting normal adolescent experiences.
C41 – What Makes Neglect Chronic and What You Can Do About It
Cara Kelly, LMSW, and Karin Kline, MSW, Arizona State University Center for Child Well-Being
Nationwide, more than 70% of reports made to public child welfare agencies involve allegations of neglect, accounting for 75% of substantiations, and over 60% of foster care placements. Despite the prevalence of neglect as a basis for child welfare interventions, child welfare agencies and the public pay less attention to neglect than to physical or sexual abuse. Practitioners and policymakers are more tolerant of neglect, even in its most chronic forms, even though chronic neglect may be more detrimental to a child’s health and development. This workshop will provide child welfare practitioners with comprehensive neglect assessment guidelines, as well as practical tools for addressing neglect within family systems.
C42 – Five Years of AZ Safe Baby Court Teams Outcomes
Judy Krysik, MSW, PhD, and Lois W. Sayrs, PhD, Arizona State University Center for Child Well-Being
This presentation provides information on the impact of Cradle to Crayons in Maricopa County, and presents outcomes including safety, stability and permanency for over 4,500 infants and toddlers who were removed from their parents/caretakers from 2010-2014.
C43 – Preventing Child Sex Trafficking
Breanna Vales, Red Light Rebellion; Jennifer Rodems, CCIA, Rocky Mountain Information Network
Sex trafficking can happen to anyone, especially youths. Through this workshop, participants will gain a robust understanding of what child sex trafficking looks like in the United States. By learning traffickers’ common recruitment methods, participants will learn how to effectively protect young people. This workshop will also take an in-depth look at the root causes of what makes young people vulnerable to sex trafficking and how to address those issues. Participants will learn about practical prevention methods for minors of all ages and prevention resources readily available to them.
C44 – Forensic Interviewer and the Crisis Worker
Christina Schopen, MA, LPC, Contract Forensic Interviewer; Kelly Wills, MC/MFT, Scottsdale Police Department
This workshop will focus on the relationship between the forensic interviewer and the crisis worker during investigations handled at family advocacy centers, and will explore the use of effective communication skills to overcome potential barriers and facilitate an effective team approach to investigations. Attendees will learn about the roles of the different disciplines and how they interact and complement one another.
C45 – CarePortal
Pauline Machiche, Department of Child Safety, Pima Region; Sue Baird, CarePortal
You may have heard about CarePortal: every church doing a little. It’s a vision of local churches working with child welfare workers to care for vulnerable children in tangible ways. This vision has evolved into a scalable technology platform in which child welfare agencies and local churches engage and collaborate.
C46 – Emotional Regulation
Andi Fetzner, MA, CCTP, CFTP, Arizona Trauma Institute
This presentation will discuss common techniques used to decrease distress, and teach participants a set of skills that will help them deal with stress and expand their tolerance of stress. This session will also introduce some physiological self-regulation techniques.
C47 – Triple P AZ: Lessons from Local Implementations
Cricket Mitchell, PhD, Prevent Child Abuse Arizona
Triple P – the Positive Parenting Program – is the one of the most widely researched and effective models of providing parenting education and parent support in the world. As we enter the second year of dedicated funding to support Triple P practitioner training and implementation here in Arizona, we can begin to draw upon the successes, challenges, and lessons learned. Experiences will be shared from multiple perspectives, including local providers, statewide coordination, and national implementation support. Emphasis on the diverse community involvement and extensive collaborations will illustrate the commitment to improving the lives of children and families in our state and illuminate the need to expand our ability to provide these valuable services to Arizona parents.
C48 – A Conversation with Rev. Darrell Armstrong and James Seymour
In this session, participants will have the opportunity to dialogue with two of our conference keynote speakers, Rev. Darrell Armstrong of Shiloh Baptist Church in New Jersey and James Seymour of Catholic Community Services of Oregon.