D1 - Transitioning From Foster to Adoptive Parenting - This three hour training has been designed for foster parents and kinship parents who are moving towards adoption of children in their care, as well as the professionals who support them. The focus will be on providing information to help parents anticipate role and emotional changes that occur on the journey to adoption. These changes affect both the family and the child or children. Handouts and a tool box of relevant approaches and questionnaires, and important information on adoption assistance will be provided. (Also approved for social worker CEUs.)
About the Trainer: Denise Leffingwell, MSW, LCSW is currently the Senior Director of the Education Center at The Adoption Exchange in Denver, Colorado. Denise coordinates, manages and provides training across Colorado, also to the seven member states of the Adoption Exchange and across the country. Denise’s previous experiences include supervising Community and Home Based Services through a mental health center, providing direct services and clinical support to pre and post-adoptive families through a mental health center in collaboration with the local Department of Human Services (which included co-facilitating all of the counties pre-adoption trainings for three years), was an ongoing caseworker and has been a therapist specializing in foster care, kinship and adoptive families. Denise has worked in the social work arena for over 13 years.
D2 - Get it Right! A Guidebook to Help Youth and Parents Find Their Way Through the Foster Care and Juvenile Justice System - The foster care and juvenile justice systems are confusing and sometimes hard to navigate. No one is born knowing the system and the best way for anyone to be successful within the system and to accomplish their goals is to really know how it works! This training began with Achieving Maximum Potential (AMP) youth expressing their need to know more about the systems that governed their lives while they were in placement. Get It Right! is a guidebook that defines people’s roles within the system, explains court proceedings, committing a crime and being passed on to law enforcement, housing options for youth and finally the basic rights of youth in care. Information from this training will empower parents and their youth to take an active informed role in their child’s case and unify them as a team. Resources on: permanency issues, transition planning, Aftercare Services and sealing Juvenile Court records are also included.
About the Trainers: Terri Bailey is the Assistant Coordinator for AMP (Achieving Maximum Potential) program and also the facilitator for both Ames and Des Moines AMP Councils. Terri is a foster/adoptive parent of 25 years, a trainer for several classes offered to foster/adoptive parents through IFAPA and Iowa PSMAPP pre-service foster/adoptive parent training.
Annie Von Gillern, MSW, LISW is a clinical social worker at the Middleton Center for Children’s Rights at the Drake Legal Clinic. She worked in domestic violence services as a shelter and hospital advocate before coming to Drake in 2006. She now supervises social work practicum students and works with law students on open child welfare and delinquency cases in Polk County. Annie is active with the Des Moines AMP chapter and Mentor Iowa. While working she also is a part-time law student and is planning to graduate from Drake Law School in May 2013. Annie and her husband have a new baby boy who was born this past summer.
D3 - Creating Social Success for Asperger Youth - Practical Approaches
(This is an all day course, participants can attend all day or only the AM or PM session.)
This session will expand on the foundation session of Asperger Syndrome Disorder (ASD). The focus will be more detailed information about the disorder as well as practical approaches to work with youth in this population. (Also approved for social worker CEUs.)
About the Trainer: Monica Ryan-Rausch, MSW, LMSW, QCSW has been serving children, youth and their families for over 25 years. Monica currently works at Four Oaks in the Cedar Rapids location. Monica has been with Four Oaks for 18 years. She has been a youth care worker, shift supervisor, therapist, case manager and a program coordinator with a residential treatment setting. Monica currently oversees the Autism Spectrum Services at Four Oaks and oversees an afterschool program for Middle School and High School youth who have Asperger’s and PDD-NOS. Monica completed her education at Clarke University of Iowa, and she is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Autism Spectrum Disorders at Penn State.
D4 - Bipolar or TDD - Trying to Understand the Difference - This workshop will discuss the diagnostic criteria for both Bipolar Depressive Disorder in youth and Temper Dysregulation Disorder with Dysphoria. Research has shown that a significant number of youth who have been diagnosed with bipolar actually suffer from TDD. It’s a diagnosis that needs to be understood as well as discussed in terms of interventions for children in foster care as well as birth homes. Prepare for some lively discussion around a very provocative subject. (Also approved for social worker CEUs.) CLASS FULL
About the Trainer: Bruce Buchanan, A.C.S.W., B.C.D., Clinical Social Worker, is the past chair of the Iowa Board of Social Work Examiners, and is in private practice in Des Moines at Wadle & Associates. He is a clinical consultant for eight human services agencies in Central Iowa, a family therapy consultant for the Greater Des Moines Child Abuse & Neglect Council, and a Diplomat in Clinical Social Work. Bruce is a Past-President of the Association of Social Work Boards. He is also the former Clinical Chair of the Exam Committee of the Association of Social Work Boards. He continues to be a form reviewer for the ASWB exam. He is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics. Bruce is a nationally sought after trainer and lecturer in the areas of child and adolescent therapies, reactive attachment disorder youth, social work ethics and residential treatment programming. Bruce was the recipient of the Iowa Chapter of NASW Social Worker of The Year for 2001. He was the recipient of the “Star of Excellence Children’s Service Provider” award given by Magellan Behavioral Care of Iowa for 2008.
D5 - The IMPACT – Sharing Our Parents - We, the biological kids, live in a foster home, and it is our home as well. We share our space, our belongings, our time and most of all, our parents. We watch the drama with each and every child placed in our home and yes we are impacted! This training is OUR story and is guaranteed to challenge how you think, feel and react to the lives you are touching, and those you will touch!
About the Trainer: Ruth Buckels, LMSW is the Project Manager for the Youth & Shelter Services’ AMP Program. She has been a foster-adoptive parent since 1988 and transitioned over 60 teens into permanency. Ruth has worked on behalf of Iowa’s Youth since 1985. With a background in policy-making, therapy, inhome and recruitment/licensing/retention, there is no part of foster care or adoption she has not experienced. She currently offers support services to various homes though Iowa KidsNet and she is an adjunct professor at DMACC in addition to parenting biological, foster and adopted children.
D6 - CPR & First Aid (Part 2 of 2) CLASS FULL
(This is an all day course, participants must attend the full day in order to receive credit.)
