Conference 2012

Saturday Concurrent Workshops – 4:45 pm – 6:00 pm

Youth Track
Circus– VIVA VOX – Session III

Circus Harmony, St. Louis, MO

We teach the art of life through circus education. We work to build character and expand community for youth of all ages, cultures, abilities and backgrounds. Through teaching and performance of circus skills, we help people defy gravity, soar with confidence, and leap over social barriers, all at the same time.
~ Jessica Hentoff, founder of Circus Day Foundation~

Participants will be invited to learn and perform circus skills packed with tumbling, flying, flipping, juggling and magic thereby forming their own circus!

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GAMES! Convert Family Peer Workshops into Young Adult Peer Workshops

Martin Rafferty; Ariana Archer, Youth MOVE Oregon, Kristen Anderson, Oregon Family Support Network, Salem OR

Youth MOVE Oregon has brought more fun to many peer workshops.  Young people have reviewed and retooled many OFSN workshops into YMO peer workshops. Identifying Strengths, Building Support Networks –by young people for young people. YMO has also co-developed our Peer Delivered Service Foundations for Family and Young Adult Peer Support Providers curriculum. Many of their suggestions have been updated into family workshops, too. More breaks! More fun! More learning! You can do it, too!

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Igniting the Transformation Process through Hope and Self-Confidence: The PASS Program a culturally-responsive youth development program

Lenora Reid-Rose; Neville Morris, Coordinated Care Services; Dana Finely; Carla Johnson, Rochester NY

The Prevention, Access, Self-Empowerment and Support (PASS) initiative supports youth experiencing behavioral and emotional challenges in their daily lives, often troubled youth, to become successful, thriving young people.  Using a culturally competent curriculum and a culturally-competent staff, participants in the program are given tools to improve communication with their families, opportunities and direction to develop pro-social skills and social competencies, and advocacy, speaking and leadership skills.  PASS also aims to improve youth psychosocial, educational and community outcomes. It also works with the parents of the youths providing them with education and supports to enable them to improve their own outcomes and relationships with their children.

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Running a Family Support Organization? Got Trauma? Let’s Talk

Jammie Farish; Laura Rose Misaras, Oregon Family Support Network, Salem OR; Mary-Therese Edgerle, G.I.F.T.S. Guam’ Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health

Does your phone ever stop ringing? Get more than 100 emails a day? The only friends you have left are your co-workers? Find yourself “un-friended” on Facebook? Instead of being Linked In – you’re “Linked Out”? Budget accounting behind because YOU’re behind turning in receipts? Board challenges – not involved or supportive or micromanaging? Staff crises? Your kids hate your job? Your partner hates your job? Your parents hate your job? Compassion fatigue? We can help!

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How Do You Know if Your System is Trauma-Informed? Maine’s Journey Answering this Question

Arabella Perez; Brianne Masselli, THRIVE, Lewiston ME

Maine’s system of care addressed the needs of children birth to 21 involved in multiple systems using a trauma-informed approach, which assumes that everyone has been impacted by trauma until proven otherwise. This approach required that providers at the state and local level assess themselves against trauma-informed principles. An assessment was created in Maine that identified several best practice standards such as the availability of trauma specific evidence based programs, all staff training on trauma, partnering with family and youth on policy development and others.  Results will be shared with ideas on how to replicate this in your own community.

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Exploding the Myths: Digging into Recovery and Support Together

Theresa Varos, MS; Heather Stanley, MPS; Catherine Schueman; Anita Vines, Lookout Mountain CME, Fort Oglethorpe GA

Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Team (START) is an evidence-based program, which integrates fast access to treatment and intensive family preservation services to ensure the safety of young children with parents who have abused alcohol and/or drugs. START families are assigned to a team of Child Welfare Workers and Parent Support Partners (PSPs) The PSPs work with these families from a lived experience.

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Empowering Youth Voice with Social Media

Brittany Smith; Corey Brown, National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health, Rockville MD

Are you a change agent?! Join this session to learn how you can broadcast your message to the world and empower your peers using social media platforms such as a blog, Facebook or Twitter. If you’re trying to supercharge a movement, don’t miss this interactive session where you’ll get the tools to start using social media as a change agent.

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Using Family Mental Health History and the New Science of Risk to Empower Family Recovery and Prevention

Victoria Costello, BA, Mental Health Association of S.F, San Francisco CA; Terrie Moffitt, Ph.D., Duke University, Durham NC

To date, peer mental health counselors have refined the art and practice of telling personal stories of coping with mental illness in the family in order to aid others newly making this adjustment. The next step, modeled in this workshop, is to give peers—and by extension new consumers— access to the latest techniques and findings from longitudinal family studies and psychiatric epidemiology so that their role can be broadened to fill several gaps in today’s mental health care system.

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The Collaboration Lab: Increasing the Capacity of Individuals and Groups to Collaborate

Liz Waetzig, Change Matrix, South Bend, IN; Marvin Austin, Youth M.O.V.E. National, Little Rock, AR

We are required to collaborate.  It is best practice for addressing complex social issues and most of our funding sources require that we work together.  And with the benefit of diverse experiences, ideas, knowledge and perspectives comes conflict.  Difficulty addressing conflict in collaborative systems creates chaos and renders us less effective.  Participants in this workshop will explore best practices in building effective collaboration, using conflict as an opportunity to reflect and grow together.

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National Military Family Association

Barbara Calhoun, National Military Family Association, Alexandria, VA

The National Military Family Association will provided: our Association’s mission; demographics related to Service, deployments, family makeup, injuries, etc.; risk factors causing mental health stress; our research on the war’s impact on children and caregivers; ways attendees can help our military and their families in their community; and the importance to focus on preventive programs to keep our military families healthy rather than to wait only provide treatment programs at the time of crisis.

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Ensuring Access for Immigrant and Limited English Proficient Families

Diana Autin, JD; Mercedes Rosa, BA, Statewide Parent Advocacy Network, Newark NJ

Growing numbers of families speak languages other than English, and the US government has expressed a renewed commitment to meeting the needs of LEP families, making language access even more important.  This workshop will provide family organizations with information on the right to language access, requirements and tools to conduct language access self-assessments and develop language access plans, and resources to family agencies to enhance and expand language access.

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Youth Track
Empowering Youth: Young Adult Leadership Series

Brittany Holt, Youth MOVE North Carolina, Greensboro NC

The Young Adult Leadership Series is a youth-driven exemplary model designed to provide youth who have experiences with trauma, mental illness, juvenile justice and foster care with the tools to take control and advocate for themselves and other youth. The workshop will present a toolkit for youth to start their own series, from pre-planning to facilitation with notes from experience to help through the process.

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On the Road to Family Driven Care

Tiffiany Leischner, Association for Children’s Mental Health (ACMH); Frank Rider, MS, National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health, Rockville MD

This presentation will go over:

• Research that shows better outcomes for children and families when families have a meaningful role in the treatment process
• History of the family involvement movement
• Review ways that we can each support families to be involved, and how families support us

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Coming To America: Examining the Immigration Experience of Immigrant Youth From the Caribbean Basin and Their Mental Health Needs within System of Care

Karen Francis;Ezra Bourne, American Institutes for Research, Washington DC; Curtis Ward, Caribbean Research and Policy Center, Olney MD

This workshop will:

• Engage participants in a discussion about the immigration experience of children and their families from the Caribbean Basin
• Explore the factors that impact mental well-being and psychological adjustment of Caribbean Basin immigrant children
• Present effective strategies for providing cultural and linguistically competent services for Caribbean Basin immigrant youth and their families

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(Entry Level)(Youth Only) Youth Leadership Academy: Be a Community Leader and Stay True to Who You Are

Jerard Johnson, Carlos Garcia, Long Branch, NJ;  Tessa Cayce, Tinton Falls, NJ;  Nadia Cayce-Gibson, James Sawyer, National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health, Rockville, MD

Have you ever wondered whether your identity, experiences, and background influence how you lead and interact with those around you? Have you ever wondered how you could work better with your peers and adults? If so, come to this interactive workshop, which will help you become a stronger you! Decide what type of leadership style best suits you and how to grow as an emerging youth leader on the basis of your own identity. Through dynamic dialogue, role play, and other activities, join other young adults and the Cultural Competence Action Team to gain a better understanding of youth leadership and concrete strategies to advance your local and the national youth movement.

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