Human services organizations and their workforces are facing an unprecedented crisis. Burnout, turnover, and departures from direct services roles are at historic levels, just as the mental health needs of children, youth, and families have dramatically increased. The human and financial costs of these converging dynamics are impacting access and quality of preventative and interventional services across the country and forcing organizations to end or scale back much needed programs.

Research has shown there’s a strong connection between the culture and climate of child and family serving organizations and the implementation and impact of evidence-based practices and therapies. To address this crisis of need and the workforce, it’s time to consider a new frontier for promoting the health and well-being of clinicians, supervisors, and managers, as well as the possibilities of new therapies with children and families.

Evidence on the health benefits of nature connected wellness practices is growing rapidly. There’s a worldwide movement to connect people with nature through organized practices, such as forest and ecotherapy. In Asia, Europe, and Canada health insurers and physicians are prescribing time in nature in place of or prior to medication and talk therapy. The positive results on health and well-being have been profound and wide ranging. Practices such as Forest Therapy have been shown to boost the immune system, balance the heart rate, and lower cortisol levels, while also reducing anxiety and depression. Additionally, participants have reported increased levels of executive functioning, improved social emotional communication, and an enhanced ability to focus and manage conflict.

Birchwalking is a social impact organization founded and led by clinicians and leaders in the field of trauma-informed child and family services. In their work with nonprofit organizations and their government partners, they’re bringing evidence-based nature connected practices to human services professionals to promote workforce well-being, reduce burnout, and improve clinical service delivery. Results indicate staffs’ feel empowered by learning and experiencing these practices and report an improved attitude towards their work, colleagues, organizations, and clients. In one organization, the response from staff was so positive that its leadership invested in training a staff member to become a certified Forest Bathing Guide so that nature connected experiences can be regularly offered for staff and clients.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Amy Moore
Director of In-Home Care
Ascentria Care Alliance

Christine Tappan
Founder, Lead Guide
Birchwalking

This session will begin with an overview of key elements of inclusive data-informed decision making and move quickly into an assessment of participants’ own organizational practice.

Then participants will dive into the three stages within a data cycle and discuss how to make your practice more inclusive within each stage. The presenter will cover common pitfalls, opportunities, and examples to bring those opportunities to life. Participants will gain tools and frameworks to listen and engage individuals, families, and communities. They’ll leave ready create an action plan, turning the learnings and ideas shared from this session into next steps.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Cindy Eby
Founder + CEO
ResultsLab

In this session, Children’s Institute will share how fathers, advocacy staff, and program leaders partnered to change the narrative of father involvement and well-being through state and local policy change focused on racial, social, and economic justice. Participants will gain advocacy strategies to create community-driven policy change in their own communities.

For over 20 years, Children’s Institute’s Project Fatherhood has provided parenting support to 15,000 men in caregiving roles in Los Angeles. The organization does this through an integrated network of activities that promote effective and nurturing parenting, relationship-building skills, and economic stability. Fathers are integral to families and provide a strong foundation for educational success and emotional well-being, which builds pathways to economic mobility and lifelong health. Healthy fathers can be an encouraging presence in their children’s lives and lead to increased positive childhood and family outcomes. However, the disparities and systemic inequities that fathers of color experience require meaningful and targeted investments.

In understanding that community-centered solutions are the best policies, Children’s Institute’s Government Relations & Advocacy and Project Fatherhood teams cultivated a network of elected officials to champion father well-being and amplify a new narrative about fathers. The effort declared June Fatherhood Well-Being Month through House Resolution 36 and included local advocacy that engaged over 100 fathers, community partners, and government agencies.

In this workshop, Children’s Institute will share how centering and organizing power through lived experience creates meaningful community-driven policy change. We will share our advocacy journey and facilitate participants through a strategizing exercise for their own work.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Terry Kim
Director of Government Relations & Advocacy
Children’s Institute

Keith Parker
Community Innovations Program Manager
Children’s Institute

Kelsey Gordon
Government Relations & Advocacy Associate
Children’s Institute

Jonathan Vasquez
Government Relations & Advocacy Assistant
Children’s Institute

Hope is a cognitive process that can be enhanced, modeled, and, more importantly, restored during a crisis. It also may be one of the most critical factors to psychological well-being. This session will share insight from a project funded by the Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime that extends hope science into law enforcement organizations.

Participants will learn how hope science can be applied to support staff at community-based organizations because, like law enforcement, they respond in crisis situations, work with people experiencing adversity, and endure secondhand trauma. This presentation will provide specific methods that can immediately be implemented to increase hopeful thinking and improve essential employee outcomes, as well as share strategies that can be used across the organizations as a framework for action for employee well-being. Recognizing the importance of community connection, presenters will highlight trust building and well-being work with systems, along with Social Current’s approach to equity, diversity, and inclusion, which emphasizes psychological safety in the workforce.

This workshop will encourage participant engagement and interaction. Participants will be able to assess their own hope and examine how the loss of hope may impact workforce, client, and community outcomes. Additionally, participants will have an opportunity to build strategies for nurturing hope that foster positive and strengths-based practices that value community connection.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Katie Carlson
Director of Wellness Initiatives
Marion County Sheriff’s Office

Romero Davis
Director of Practice Excellence
Social Current

Josh Friedman
CEO
Ten Eight Innovations

Laura Pinsoneault
CEO
Evaluation Plus

This session will provide a holistic approach to help organizations undergoing COA Accreditation. It will cover strategies for motivating staff, implementing effective systems to meet COA Accreditation standards, sustaining momentum beyond accreditation completion, creating visually compelling data presentations for continuous quality improvement (CQI), and mobilizing staff through dynamic and enjoyable trainings. Participants will gain actionable insights into fostering a positive organizational culture, ensuring adherence to standards, capitalizing on accreditation success for continuous improvement, and making CQI an achievable and accessible aspect of their operations.

This informative presentation will delve into many aspects of COA Accreditation process. Participants will gain practical strategies for enhancing their workforce engagement, implementing robust systems, and sustaining momentum throughout the accreditation journey and beyond. This session will provide insightful content, interactive discussions, and practical takeaways, ensuring that participants are well-equipped to navigate the COA Accreditation process with confidence and enthusiasm.

Participants will leave the presentation with practical strategies to:

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Kana Brubaker
Director of Research and Evaluation
Children’s Bureau

Dipika Bisht
Programs Project Coordinator
Children’s Bureau

There is a powerful African proverb that says, “When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.” But what does this actually look like in practice? Sector leaders are searching for effective strategies for organizational development, funding, and community justice. More than ever, leaders in the sector are understaffed and challenged by pay, an even heavier burden for smaller community-based organizations. Do past management styles hold value in today’s environment? What changes should leaders make?

A phenomenal cast of experts, ranging from leaders of a small community-based organization to a large state-based agency, will discuss sector-wide challenges that need to be addressed. Leaders want practical methods for diversity and inclusion development within their teams. They must also acknowledge all partnerships as equal to build a community that values safety, justice, and voice. Systemic change is always the call, but there are many power dynamics leaders must recognize in collaborations that can serve as a catalyst to change. The leaders in this workshop will share examples of the successful strategies their organizations have implemented as well as challenges they’ve experienced.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Romero Davis
Senior Program Manager
Social Current

Crystal Bennett, LMSW
DEI Specialist, CEO
Thryves

Joseph Alonzo
CEO
Cocoon House

Undraye Howard
Vice President, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Engagement
Social Current

Marlena Torres
COO
Children’s Home Society of Washington

Taneshia Miller
CEO
Ladies In Power

Many social service providers want to improve outcomes for families. To do this, they seek tools that draw deeply from the science of early childhood development and use a two-generation approach to easily incorporate principles of human-centered design. This workshop will discuss an overarching framework for the kind of support caregivers really need—holistic support that builds executive functioning, is grounded in respect, and structured around tangible economic mobility and family goals. Engaging with all types of families collaboratively and responding in the moment to how they are experiencing a program so that it can be adapted appropriately will also be highlighted. The focus is on designing programs that don’t cause further stress and re-traumatization to families, but rather to help them feel more in control of their futures.

The Children’s Home Society of America (CHSA) member organizations have partnered with Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child (HCDC) and EMPath to inform the development of two tools that can be easily and affordably applied across a range of human services settings to help improve child and family outcomes. Science X Design (SxD) from Harvard is a process that supports organizations and teams in identifying a problem informed by three dimensions: Science, the family voice, and the wisdom of program staff. SxD has recently been adapted as a digital open access tool. EMPath’s Mobility Mentoring provides much-needed tools for staff to engage with parents and caregivers as well as to measure the impact of the program. It features the Bridge to Self-Sufficiency which has been proven to support families while they achieve goals that improve financial stability, like securing employment, housing, building up savings, and completing professional training.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Susan Crowley
Senior Program Manager
Harvard Center for the Developing Child

Nicki Ruiz de Luzuriaga
Vice President of Institutional Advancement
EMPath

Gabriel McGaughey
Director of Child Well-Being
Children’s Wisconsin Community Services

Marlo Nash
Managing Director
Children’s Home Society of America

In this workshop, Starr Commonwealth will discuss the integration of trauma-informed, sensory-based occupational therapy into behavioral health therapy via the “co-treatment approach.” This specialized approach enhances the developmentally appropriate, play-based tactics that help young children who have experienced trauma heal. This session will include discussion and demonstrations of activities conducted to assist participants in understanding the foundations of this specialized approach as well as how the developmentally informed strategies appear in practice.

Check out this article, authored by presenters Jenny Sloan and Sara Gariepy, referencing these practices in the Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Jenny Sloan, LMSW CTRT CTP-C
Clinical Supervisor
Starr Commonwealth

Sara Sulkowski
Behavioral Health Clinician
Starr Commonwealth

Sara Gariepy
Occupational Therapist
Starr Commonwealth

Woods Services’ System of Care is comprised of six organizations that share a common mission: Providing life-cycle care to people with intellectual disabilities, autism, medical and behavioral health challenges, and those involved in the child welfare system. Across the system of care, a diverse workforce of 6,000 people are employed. Their robust employee engagement strategy serves as one of the transformational cornerstones Woods has experienced over the last six years. Qualified employees who stay over time are critical to carrying out their shared mission, leading directly to improved consumer outcomes. Woods System of Care recognizes by doing better for employees, everyone wins.

In this dynamic workshop, an executive leader from Woods and one of its affiliates will highlight case studies to illustrate best practices along the continuum of recruitment, retention, training, professional development, and support of employees who are tasked with delivering services to multiple populations across 200 programs. These best practices are aligned with COA Accreditation standards, going beyond role clarity by matching job requirements to training. They promote innovative thinking and creativity, offer professional development, and provide trauma-informed support to staff. Woods and its affiliates have implemented diverse strategies, such as designing accessible career ladders for advancement, providing free onsite health care, as well as heavily subsidized degree programs with a dedicated staff person working to help employees navigate enhanced benefits and coach them through barriers to earning their degree. In addition to innovative trauma-informed approaches, such as offering vicarious trauma workshops and a “Sanctuary” meditation room, Woods System of Care provides career mobility across organizations where they are located in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Join this workshop to hear examples and strategies relevant for all types of health and human services providers.

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Karen Coleman
President and CEO
Tabor Children’s Services

Erin Drummond
Assistant Vice President of Employee Training and Development
Woods Services

Karen Wilkins, MHRM, SHRM-CP, PHR
Chief Human Resources Officer
Tabor Services

Kinship navigation programs across the country are innovating rapidly to meet the needs of families and prevent entry into foster care—but how are these programs strategically and equitably meeting the learning needs of their frontline staff and kinship caregivers? Join Ohio’s Kinship and Adoptive Navigation (OhioKAN) regional director and statewide trainer to learn how their program tackled the redesign of their onboarding training for new hires as well as the implementation of neuroscience-informed trauma training for kinship caregivers. In this workshop, you’ll learn about Ohio’s statewide approach to gathering feedback on staff onboarding experiences, how to leverage a variety of learning tools to promote learner engagement, how to strategize the implementation of a new learning management system (LMS), and a practical application of equity principles in developing curricula for frontline staff and kinship caregivers. If you or your organization are committed to equity and looking to facilitate a culture of continuous learning for both your staff and the communities they serve, this workshop is for you!

Learning Objectives

Presenters

Yvonne Fox
Associate Policy Analyst
Chapin Hall at University of Chicago

Maria Laib
Regional Director
Kinnect

Joe Sack
Project Manager
OhioKAN

Teresa Scrimenti
Statewide Trainer
Kinnect