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Embrace Families’ Diversity Action Team is committed to be the change we want to see for our kids, in our community, and in the world. The bias we aim to address and change is particularly difficult as so much of it is based on unconscious beliefs, associations or attitudes. Taking time to understand how this implicit bias colors our perceptions of those around is a critical first step. This training is designed to help us understand and address implicit bias, especially in the context of how it impacts the children and families we serve.
1.5 hours
Since the onset of the pandemic especially, social media is increasingly being exploited to contact, recruit, and sell children and youth for sex. Some traffickers use online ads to target victims, or they will send friend/follow requests to young people in their region, proceed to strike up a conversation, and develop online friendships. These conversations may start off friendly and innocent, but then the traffickers will begin to use manipulation to charm their potential victims. The online friendship quickly evolves to a romantic relationship, and this is where the sextortion techniques are used to lure their victims into human trafficking. During this session, attendees will learn to recognize signs of social media recruitment, and how traffickers lure their victims on the internet. Attendees will learn about the dangers of popular social media dating sites and apps. This session will also discuss popular emojis and their hidden meaning used to communicate sexual gesture when texting or communicating on internet sites and social media apps.
1.5 hours
Awareness of the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) continues to increase and be linked with both physical illness and social issues. What is not often considered is how this may impact a child's vulnerability to commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). While low socioeconomic status and emotional neglet are widely accepted vulnerabilities for CSE, it is also important to consider how the home environment may affect a child's ability to recognize dangerous situations. While reviewing the ACEs questionnaire and the impacts of trauma and toxic stress, participants learn how to assess for vulnerabilities that may not be as obvious. Presenters share from professional experience working with vulnerable children. The session also address ways to increase protective factors and possible preventative efforts for providers to share with children.
1.0 hour
Ever struggle with a teen on your caseload or in your home that exhibits self-harming behaviors? This workshop will help uncover the secrecy and uncertainty behind self-injury and our foster care children. This workshop is designed for child welfare professionals and foster parents who work with youth in the foster care system. Participants gain insight about self-harm and examine the risk factors for youth who have endured trauma, explore the myths surrounding self-harm, and learn approaches to address self-injurious behaviors. Participants increase their awareness of resources and the knowledge of techniques to respond, rather than react, to self-harming behaviors.
1.0 hours
Join us to learn evidence-based strategies and best practices to ensure that the LGBTQ youth you work with are affirmed, safe, and healthy. LGBTQ youth comprise 15.7 to 21.5 percent of Florida high school populations, and face some of the highest rates of self-harm, harassment, substance abuse, homelessness, and victimization. These risks are heightened for youth in the dependency and juvenile justice systems. This session is led by Ian Siljestrom, Equality Florida Institute’s Safe and Healthy Schools Statewide Associate Director, who will guide participants in the exploration of family acceptance, LGBTQ youth affirming environments, and building youth resiliency and wellness.
1.5 hours
Children in the child welfare system are prescribed psychotropic medications at rates much higher than the general public. Thus, those who interact with these children need an understanding of how these medications should be used, the characteristics of different types of medications, and the potential risks and benefits of medication treatment. Psychiatrist Kristopher Kaliebe reviews classes of medications, common indications for medications, evidence of effectiveness, and rationales for combining medication. He also reviews adjuvants to treatment including nutritional supplements. Catarolyn M. Glenn, MA, Learning & Development Facilitator at the Center for Child Welfare of the University of South Florida incorporates case work examples of problems related to psychotropic medication, and success stories from her experience in working with children in the dependency system.
1.5 hours
Many families impacted by domestic violence perpetrators’ behaviors have multiple, complex, and intersecting issues. In the past, we might have referred to these as co-occurring issues. But the language of co-occurrence often doesn’t provide us with a sense of how these issues interact. For example, listing the family’s issues is not as powerful as explaining how the domestic violence perpetrator interfered with his partner’s recovery, for example. Listing that the family has experienced both domestic violence and mental health issues is not as useful as describing how the perpetrator’s violence has produced anxiety and aggression in the adult survivor. Using an intersectional framework, rather than a co-occurrence framework, we increase perpetrator accountability and improve our ability to assess the family and to partner with adult survivors. This course provides guidance in how to understand the connections, or intersections, and make them work for us in our practice.
1.5 hours
The presenter, Melinda, shares her personal story of becoming a survivor and thriver. She also provides her own story of learning how to practice self-care and shares tips to continue to provide compassionate care to others.
0.5 hours
In the child welfare system, if a parent’s mental health condition goes unnoticed and unaddressed, this can have a devastating impact on the achievement of case plan outcomes and cause permanency delays. Once a parent is diagnosed, finding the right treatment to meet their mental health needs goes beyond simply putting in a referral for services and hoping for the best. In this workshop, participants will learn how to identify when a parent’s mental health is impacting their caregiver protective capacities and what strategies to use to identify not just services, but the right services to meet the parent’s mental health needs.
1.0 hours
Sustaining a career in helping requires making our work more than tolerable—enjoyable! The Components for Enhancing Clinician Experience and Reducing Trauma (CE-CERT) model synthesizes evidence-informed components into five skills to help the helper remain emotionally regulated. Implementing these skills supports the enhancement of the real-time experience of the helper as they provide services to traumatically stressed populations, and promotes immediate recovery after a difficult experience.
1.0 hours
Batterers use tactics to impact a child’s belief system. These tactics include, but are not limited to, using violence as a justified method to impose one’s will or resolve conflict, blaming others like the non-offending parent for the violence in the home, and instilling the belief that anger causes violence. This training familiarizes the child welfare system, judicial system, and community service providers on how the tactics of a batterer impacts the health and safety of children and their families experiencing intimate partner violence in their homes. This training addresses how batterers’ tactics harm children, how unintentional and intentional colluding with batterers impact the child and non-offending parents’ safety, and what best practices are for supporting children and the non-offending parents while holding batterers accountable for the violence in the home.
0.5 hours
Our exposure to a group shapes the perceptions we have, and if we aren’t careful, they will result in unintentional discrimination or the omission of groups from consideration. Implicit bias is unconscious and pervasive. We all have it. But as service providers, how many of us reflect on our thoughts and attitudes towards our clients? Having an implicit bias does not make you a bad person. This conversation isn’t to out “isms” and “ists.” It’s to begin the conversation about how we can move beyond being trauma informed to healing centered. Biases can limit our abilities to see strengths, discourage growth, and result in marginalizing groups with low expectations. As a result, they need to be identified and addressed with intentionality. This training’s primary objective is to motivate providers to see alternative perspective to help their families thrive in ways they never imagined.
1.5 hours
National best practice has called for dependency judges to reach beyond the law and to become more knowledgeable about psychosocial and child development principles, and how an increased understanding of those principles supports better decision-making for children and families. As the demands for judicial awareness increase, judicial perspective and expectations will surely follow. Keep up with the judges, and join with us as we highlight evidence-based psychosocial and child development principles, which are critical in making decisions to best support children and families. Explore how decisions are interrelated and often impact multiple people and factors in the lives of children and families. Learn how to more effectively use evidence-based principles to guide day-to-day decision-making processes in a manner that supports and does not harm children, and receive practical tips on how to better meet judicial expectations and enhance overall outcomes for children and families.
1.5 hours
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has found that one out of four children attending school have been exposed to a traumatic event. A child impacted by trauma may experience physical ailments, intrusive thoughts and fears, and decreased attention and concentration. This session will discuss the definition of trauma, how trauma affects children, the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study, trauma interventions, and how to create a safe environment for children. An essential protective factor for childhood trauma is the presence of a positive, caring adult who can help shield children against adverse experiences. Specific hands-on tools, strategies, and resources will be discussed to help staff engage children, increase children’s resiliency, and support emotional self-regulation.
1.0 hours
This training provides an overview of best practices to keep your child riding safely in your vehicle. This training covers how to select an appropriate child restraint seat, explains the differences between rear and forward-facing, discusses considerations for where the seat can be placed in your vehicle, how to install car seats, and proper harnessing of children in the car seat. Misuse of child safety seats is demonstrated and corrected, and common questions about child passenger safety are addressed.
1.5 hour
This is a two-part training video. The first session explains The Be SMART framework, which is designed to help parents and adults normalize conversations about gun safety and take responsible actions that can prevent child gun deaths and injuries. The second session examines the impacts and signs of trauma on foster youth, specific trauma associated with gun violence, and how to respond.
1.0 hour
BeSMART es un programa desarrollado por Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America para unir a padres y a todos los adultos preocupados por los niños, las armas y la seguridad.
1.0 hour
We learn how to regulate our feelings and emotions as very young infants. Through our interactions, we learn how to filter information and how to respond to information. When children do not receive the nurture and care they need to develop optimally, their ability to self-regulate is disrupted. This can manifest in many ways, including tantrums, elopement, disrobing, melt downs and many other behaviors of concern. This presentation will provide attendees with an overview of how children learn to regulate their behaviors in infancy and how this develops as they grow. Additionally, the presentation will include strategies caregivers can use when children do not develop self-regulation strategies to help them learn this skill, regardless of their age.
1.5 hours
California's Just in Time Training is a web based service program designed to connect foster parents, kinship or other caregivers with training, peer experts and other resources. Questions are answered and practical solutions to care for children are discussed - all from the comfort of your home or office.