(1) Building Ladders
KEYNOTE SESSION

Full

(2)  Teamwork
This workshop provides caregivers and caseworkers the skills to improve communication with all stakeholders. Participants will gain skills to prevent children from playing caregivers against each other, the birth family or county worker. It will also help plan for cooperation with hot button issues such as visits and the holidays. It will also help children, caseworkers and foster parents be able to communicate effectively so that the children in their care will grow into healthy adulthood.

(3)  Psychotropic Medications and Children: Who, What, When and Why
The purpose of this course is to educate child protective workers on medication use in the treatment of mental disorders among children and adolescents.  Specific attention will be paid to answering the questions most people ask, or should ask, regarding psychotropic medication.

(4) Overcoming Trauma: The Process of Recovery
This workshop will give you an intimate look into the recovery process from the perspective of an incest survivor. Learn what worked for one survivor to transformation from childhood incest victim, to teen drug abuser and runaway, to young adult with the courage to face down the pain and heal - emerging many years later as a woman raising a healthy family and embracing a career to speak out about child abuse.

(5) Medical Advocacy
This workshop will provide a comprehensive overview of the realities of parenting a child with complex health and development needs. Participants will; explore the impact of chronic illness and disability on children and families, become familiar with common diagnoses and medical technology needs seen in the foster care population, problem solve preparing their home for a child with special needs, gain insight into acquiring skills needed to care for this population of children, address the challenges of working with a wide range of professionals,  learn strategies for promoting cognitive and emotional development, and discuss approaches to working with birth families around visitation and permanency planning as it relates to the child's ongoing care needs.

(6) Managing and Preventing Placement Disruptions
Every child deserves a stable and lasting family life and should not be deprived of it except for urgent and compelling reasons. This principle of family stability was first espoused almost one-hundred years ago at the 1909 White House Conference on Dependent Children. Far too many foster children continue to be denied this advantage. Placement instability remains a significant problem for thousand of foster children who are left behind in public foster care. Any movement of a child from home to home is troubling to families and traumatic to the child.

(7)  Teamwork
 This workshop provides caregivers and caseworkers the skills to improve communication with all stakeholders. Participants will gain skills to prevent children from playing caregivers against each other, the birth family or county worker. It will also help plan for cooperation with hot button issues such as visits and the holidays. It will also help children, caseworkers and foster parents be able to communicate effectively so that the children in their care will grow into healthy adulthood.

(8)  Psychotropic Medications and Children: Who, What, When and Why
The purpose of this course is to educate child protective workers on medication use in the treatment of mental disorders among children and adolescents.  Specific attention will be paid to answering the questions most people ask, or should ask, regarding psychotropic medication.

(9) Overcoming Trauma: The Process of Recovery
This workshop will give you an intimate look into the recovery process from the perspective of an incest survivor. Learn what worked for one survivor to transformation from childhood incest victim, to teen drug abuser and runaway, to young adult with the courage to face down the pain and heal - emerging many years later as a woman raising a healthy family and embracing a career to speak out about child abuse.

(10) Medical Advocacy
This workshop will provide a comprehensive overview of the realities of parenting a child with complex health and development needs. Participants will; explore the impact of chronic illness and disability on children and families, become familiar with common diagnoses and medical technology needs seen in the foster care population, problem solve preparing their home for a child with special needs, gain insight into acquiring skills needed to care for this population of children, address the challenges of working with a wide range of professionals,  learn strategies for promoting cognitive and emotional development, and discuss approaches to working with birth families around visitation and permanency planning as it relates to the child's ongoing care needs.

(11) Managing and Preventing Placement Disruptions
Every child deserves a stable and lasting family life and should not be deprived of it except for urgent and compelling reasons. This principle of family stability was first espoused almost one-hundred years ago at the 1909 White House Conference on Dependent Children. Far too many foster children continue to be denied this advantage. Placement instability remains a significant problem for thousand of foster children who are left behind in public foster care. Any movement of a child from home to home is troubling to families and traumatic to the child.