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2009 North Dakota Children and Family Services Conference: Fostering Connections
** The registration desk for conference participants will now be open on Monday, July 27 from 3 to 8 pm. It will re-open on Tuesday, July 28 at 7:30 am
| Conference Agenda |
| Tuesday, July 28, 2009 |
| 7:30 am |
Registration |
| 9:30 am |
Welcome: JoAnne Hoesel, Cabinet Lead, Program and Policy, North Dakota Department of Human Services |
| 10:00 am |
Children and Family Services Division Update: Tara Muhlhauser, Director of the Children and Family Services Division |
| 10:30 am |
Plenary: The Challenge of Improving Visits: Making this a Priority in Our Work - Rose Wentz |
1:30 -
3:00 pm |
A Workshops |
| A-1 |
Motivational Interviewing, Part I - Mindy Hohman
Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a communication/counseling style that was originally developed for
work with clients with substance use disorders who were ambivalent to change. The goal of MI is to access
clients' internal motivators so they will be more likely to move in a positive direction. MI has rapidly
spread to work with other types of clients who are working on behavioral changes, including domestic
violence, safe sex practices, medication adherence, and diet/exercise. In this workshop, participants
will be introduced to MI, the theoretical base behind it, as well as communication skills that include
reflective listening, responding to client resistance, and eliciting client change-talk. How MI can be
used within the child welfare setting will also be discussed and applied to examples. This workshop will
also use interactive exercises to practice some of the skills. This is a two-part workshop.
Please register for both parts of the workshop.
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| A-2 |
Drug Abuse - A Part of Child Abuse: How to Evaluate - Arne Graff
Drug abuse can often play a role in all forms of child/adolescent abuse and neglect.
The use of medications to mask injury, inappropriate use of a child's medications by the
caregiver, and inappropriate supervision (ingestion by child) and use of drugs in the presence
of the child are types of drug abuse. The discussion on evaluation, including drug testing,
will be presented.
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| A-3 |
The Social Worker's Role in Providing Quality Contacts - Rose Wentz
Whether it is a few minute phone call or an hour long face to face visit, each contact with the
child provides the worker with an opportunity to enhance a child's life. The participants will be
provided with developmentally appropriate questions that help to gather information from the child
and assess the child's adjustment into care, safety, well-being and permanency. A four-step
approach to how to conduct purposeful worker/child visits will be reviewed along with a complimentary
tool supervisors can use to support this practice.
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| A-4 |
Connecting Children to Trauma-Specific Mental Health Treatment, Part I - Heather Simonich, Raelyn Soltis, and Jeannette Wetch
Traumatic life experiences can have a significant impact on the life of a child. Join us to learn more
about the effects of childhood trauma on the developing child, the assessment of traumatic stress symptoms,
and effective mental health interventions. A unique pilot project in Cass County designed to connect children
to mental health services in an early point in a child welfare situation (e.g. CPS) will be described.
This presentation will include an overview of a mental health screening tool designed to help child
welfare workers make more trauma-informed decisions about the need for referral to trauma-specific
and general mental health services. This is a two-part workshop.
Please register for both parts of the workshop
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| A-5 |
Safety Planning 101 (for children and adolescents who have sexually acted out), Part I- Tanya Snyder
This presentation will review and use case examples to clarify the ages and stages of normal and
problematic sexual behaviors in children and adolescents. We will briefly discuss assessment tools to
use with these populations. The main part of the presentation will be focused on safety planning for
clients in the home, school and community through the use of case studies. Finally, the workshop wrap
up with a discussion of The Counseling and Psychotherapy Center's RULE treatment planning and management
model, which works to increase safety within the community.
This is a two-part workshop. Please register for both parts of the workshop
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| A-6 |
Parents Forever- North Dakota Parent Resource Center Network
Parents Forever is a research-based educational program designed to help parents in the process of
making informed, child-supportive decisions during separation and divorce. The curriculum promotes the
development of healthy children and positive parent-child relationships. The availability of the program
will be discussed and detailed information will be shared for program referrals.
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| A-7 |
Child Fatality Response - Multi-disciplinary Panel
This workshop will be presented by a multi-disciplinary group of responders in fatal child abuse cases.
The panel members will discuss what works well and what difficulties agencies and professionals involved
face in dealing with child fatalities. Suggestions on how social services and law enforcement can work
together effectively and supportively will be discussed.
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| 3:00 pm |
Afternoon Break |
| 3:30 pm |
B Workshops |
| B-1 |
Motivational Interviewing, Part II- Mindy Hohman
This is a two-part workshop. Please register for both parts of the workshop.
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| B-2 |
Nutritional Neglect- Arne Graff
Neglect accounts for 60% of all child maltreatment and almost 40% of fatalities in maltreated children. Nutritional neglect can result in growth retardation, poor brain development, failure to thrive and death. Early evaluation, documentation and intervention are keys to survival and healthy development of these children. A review of nutritional neglect for multidiscipline team members will be the focus of this presentation.
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| B-3 |
Planned, Purposeful and Progressive Visits- Rose Wentz
Children's visits with their birth family are a key part of the case planning process. How the parents improve their parenting skills is essential for determining the final permanency plan. Visits are one of the ways we can assess if the parent can consistently use his/her improved skills with their child. To conduct effective visits, the case planning team must know the purposes of visits and develop a visit plan that supports the case objectives. This workshop will present two tools. 1) The Impact of Separation Chart - A chart that provides concrete strategies to prevent visit problems and to help parents and caregivers prepare the child for visits. 2) Visit Planning Tool - A tool that provides best practice recommendations on the frequency, length, location, level of supervision and types of activities that should occur on visits based on the child's developmental age.
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| B-4 |
Connecting Children to Trauma-Specific Mental Health Treatment, Part II- Heather Simonich, Raelyn Soltis, and Jeannette Wetch
This is a two-part workshop. Please register for both parts of the workshop.
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| B-5 |
Safety Planning 101 (for children and adolescents who have sexually acted out), Part II- Tanya Snyder
This is a two-part workshop. Please register for both parts of the workshop.
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| B-6 |
Bright Beginnings- Debra Theurer and Stacy Kilwein
The Bright Beginnings,/i> curriculum is a parent education program which focuses on parenting young children from the prenatal period through eight years of age. It is focused on understanding and enhancing young children's growth and development. Some of the topics include: prenatal parenting, brain development, emotional intelligence, social development and the importance of play. Information on the availability of this curriculum and referral points will be discussed.
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| B-7 |
2009 Legislative Update: What's New for Children and Families
Changes in the North Dakota Century Code, which affect issues for children and families, will be presented. An opportunity to ask questions will be provided.
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5:00 -
7:00 pm |
Reception in Courtyard |
7:00 -
9:00 pm |
Evening Session - Open to the Community
Raising Resilient Children in a Risky World - Marti Erickson
These are challenging times for parents of children of all ages. Destructive media messages, greed and commercialism, pervasive violence, peer pressure and erosion of family and community are forces that often work against our children and us. But what key factors account for good outcomes among children and youth even in the face of today's risks? And what can we do, as parents and concerned citizens, to promote resilience in young people in our families and communities? Drawing on over 30 years of research on risk and resilience, Dr. Marti Erickson will describe critical "protective factors" and discuss ways we can help our children, whatever their ages, develop values, attitudes and behaviors that will enable them to become healthy, responsible, caring adults.
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| Wednesday, July 29, 2009 |
| 8:30 am |
Plenary: "Relationships Past and Present: A Developmental Lens for Just
Decision-Making in Children's Lives"
- Marti Erickson
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| 10:00 am |
Morning Break |
| 10:30 am |
Plenary: "Engaging Non-custodial Fathers or Absent Parents in the Child Welfare System" - Ron Clark |
| 12:00 pm |
UND Social Work Alumni Luncheon
Please join us at noon, on Wednesday, July 29, for a UND alumni luncheon. Hear from the UND College of Education and Human Development, and the Chair of the Department of Social Work, Thomasine Heitkamp, about what is new on campus and in our programs. This is also a great chance to see colleagues who graduated from UND and to visit with other alumni. The cost of lunch is $5. Payment will be at the door, but please indicate on the registration that you intend to attend the event. Sponsored by the UND College of Education and Human Development.
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1:30 -
3:00 pm |
C Workshops |
| C-1 |
Looking Back, Moving Forward: Helping Parents Break Intergenerational Cycles of Abuse and Neglect- Marti Erickson
For infants and young children, health and well-being are influenced in powerful ways by how parents understand and respond to a child's needs. Parents, in turn, are influenced by how they were cared for in their own childhood, for better or worse. Attachment research demonstrates that it is not so much how a person was treated that determines later parenting behavior, but how the person has come to think about those past relationships. That finding offers both hope and poses a challenge to those of us who strive to help parents rise above a troubled history, especially if we are not trained to be "therapists." Drawing on more than 30 years of longitudinal research and 23 years of implementing and evaluating attachment-based interventions with high-risk families, Dr. Marti Erickson offers a theoretical framework and proven strategies to help identify strengths and needs in families and gently challenge and expand parents' understanding of their own relationship history and how it helps or hinders them in building strong, healthy relationships with their children. Repeated in D-1.
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| C-2 |
Addressing the Unmet Needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Youth in Out-Of-Home Care- Bruce Reeves
This workshop is intended to provide training on building capacity, awareness and skills of social workers and other child welfare practitioners to better serve and respond to the needs of this population of youths. It will contain information on issues affecting LGBTQ youth in out-of-home care, their family members, other caregivers and service providers.
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| C-3 |
Intervention Strategies with Pregnant Women Who Are Abusing Substances - Larry Burd
This presentation will discuss risk factors for substance abuse during pregnancy, strategies for estimating risk of an adverse pregnancy outcome and risk reduction strategies. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders will be used as a model for this discussion. Repeated in D-3.
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| C-4 |
Culturally Sensitive Interviewing Practices- Katharine Cahn
Clues to child safety, parental engagement, and family strengths are deeply embedded in a cultural context. In one sense, every child welfare interview could be described as a 'cross-cultural' encounter because every family, every town, and every part of the state has a unique local culture, language, power structure, and set of strengths. However, the greater the gap between a client's cultural background and that of the child welfare worker, the greater the chance for cultural misunderstanding. The presenter will share lessons learned from practitioners in several states about culturally sensitive interviewing practices. Repeated in D-4.
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| C-5 |
Engaging Non-custodial Fathers or Absent Parents in the Child Welfare System- Ron Clark
The purpose of this workshop is to increase the capacity of child welfare staff to effectively engage fathers into the service delivery process. In specific, this workshop will offer best-practice information from successful father-involvement initiatives from across the country and also afford the participants an opportunity to hear directly from fathers about their experiences. Repeated in D-5.
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| C-6 |
An Inside Look at North Dakota's Drug Court Programs- Justice Mary Muehlen Maring and Judge Bruce B. Haskell
Participants will get an inside look at North Dakota's problem-solving courts. Justice Mary Muehlen Maring will present an overview of the juvenile drug courts, and Judge Bruce B. Haskell will present an overview of the adult drug courts. A panel comprised of team members from both adult and juvenile drug courts will discuss the challenges to running a drug court program, and the successes of the program including how drug court is changing the lives of families in North Dakota. A graduate and the parent of a graduate will speak about their experience with the drug court program. This session will describe who qualifies for this program, the roles of the team members, and the benefits of this program to the individual, parent, spouse, and community.
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| C-7 |
Historical Trauma- Deb Painte
Have you ever wondered why Native American children are over-represented in foster care? Why a disproportionate number of Indian children are being sent to institutions due to behavioral problems? Have you ever wondered why Indian people struggle with issues such as alcohol, gambling, abuse and violence? Or why Native American rates of suicide, depression and other health problems are so high? This training session examines the concept of historical trauma and its effects on present-day Indian communities. Repeated in D-7.
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| 3:00 pm |
Afternoon Break |
| 3:30 - 5:00 pm |
D Workshops |
| D-1 |
Looking Back, Moving Forward: Helping Parents Break Intergenerational Cycles of Abuse and Neglect- Marti Erickson
Repeat of C-1.
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| D-2 |
Identifying and Using Parent and Relative Search Tools- Panel Discussion
The panel will identify cross-agency search tools available with indications of strengths and challenges associated with these tools.
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| D-3 |
Intervention Strategies with Pregnant Women Who Are Abusing Substances- Larry Burd
Repeat of C-3.
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| D-4 |
Culturally Sensitive Interviewing Practices- Katharine Cahn
Repeat of C-4.
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| D-5 |
Engaging Non-custodial Fathers or Absent Parents in the Child Welfare System- Ron Clark
Repeat of C-5.
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| D-6 |
The New Parenting (formerly known as "custody") Legislation - Sherry Mills Moore and Bethany Abrams
SB 2042, referred to as the "Parenting Plan" bill, will go into effect in August of 2009. This legislation represents an overhaul of both process and substance of custody and visitation. Highlights of the legislation are new nomenclature, additional and "refined" best interest factors, the use of parenting plans, and the addition of parenting coordinators to the cast of characters available for parenting disputes. Presenters will discuss how this will change what you are going to see with families who raise children in separate homes and how it will impact child welfare agencies and social workers. The workshop will also address what agencies and social workers need to know in working with families who have shared parenting plans.
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| D-7 |
Historical Trauma- Deb Painte
Repeat of C-7.
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| Thursday, July 30, 2009 |
| 8:30 am |
Plenary: "Fostering Connections, New Federal Legislation" - Marilyn Kennerson |
| 10:00 am |
Brunch
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| 10:30 am |
Closing Plenary: "Leadership and Organizational Factors Related to the Adoption of Innovation in Public Child Welfare" - Katharine Cahn |
| 12:00 pm |
Conference Ends
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