Training Institutes 2012 - National Technical Assistance Center for ...

INSTITUTES
Institute will include exercises for participants to explore their roles, barriers to being family driven, problem-solving
to overcome barriers, and to develop a strategic plan that is unique to their individual role in their agency or system.
Participants will also be provided with a tangible reminder to “stay on the road to family-driven care.” The faculty
team for the session will offer the perspectives of a family organization administrator, system of care leader, and
family members.
MODERATOR/PRESENTER: Millie Sweeney, M.S., Assistant Director for Programs, Tennessee Voices for Children,
Nashville, TN
Monica Causey, L.A.P.S.W., Lead Family Contact, Early Connections Network, Tennessee Voices for Children, Nashville, TN
Shani Cutler, Lead Family Contact, Tennessee Voices for Children, Knoxville, TN
Kathy Rogers, M.S.W., Statewide Family Support Network Coordinator, Tennessee Voices for Children, Nashville, TN
INSTITUTE #10 1:30 PM THURSDAY • 8:30 AM SATURDAY • SANIBEL 1-2-3
Resiliency for ALL Youth and Families: Leveling the Playing Field
OBJECTIVES—Participants will learn:
1. To identify key supports and values that youth with significant emotional challenges and their families feel that they
need to be resilient
2. To integrate practical strategies that promote youth and family resiliency into their daily lives and/or practice
3. To assist youth and families in identifying and developing assets and protective factors that enhance their resiliency
4. To foster culturally mindful and resiliency-promoting partnerships with all youth and families
5. To identify specific policy implications and recommendations to take back to their states, communities,
tribes, or territories
This Institute will focus on resiliency-oriented and culturally mindful approaches and practice strategies that promote
mental wellness and resiliency in youth with mental health challenges and their families. Family will share their
perspective that resiliency is an expectation for all youth and young adults, across all cultures and communities, and for
all health abilities and challenges. The Institute will highlight resiliency-oriented and culturally competent perspectives
for partnering with youth and families; practical strategies identified by youth and families that nurture, support, and
facilitate their resiliency; a practice framework for integrating resiliency concepts into a strength-based approach to
mental wellness; and multimedia strategies for promoting and disseminating a resiliency initiative.
The strategies to be articulated are based on the work of the Ohio Department of Mental Health that sponsored a
taskforce of youth with serious emotional challenges and their families (Resiliency Leadership Ohio) to operationalize
resiliency as an overarching framework for youth and family mental wellness, and as a foundational philosophy for
mental health practice. Resiliency was defined as “an inner capacity that, when nurtured, facilitated, and supported by
others, empowers children, youth, and families to successfully meet life’s challenges with a sense of self-determination,
mastery, and hope.” A resiliency consensus statement, summarizing the 12 constructs that youth and families identified
as supporting their resiliency, forms the basis for the development of the resiliency practice strategies and model of care
to be offered in this session.
Specific topics to be covered focus on operationalizing what “building resiliency” means in a system of care and fall in
four main topic areas:
• Youth and family-based insights on resiliency and supporting research
• Resiliency and cultural competency
• Building family resiliency: a parent’s guide
• Translating resiliency into practice: practical strategies and tools
Youth and family stories of resiliency will be utilized to illustrate all didactic material presented. In addition,
participants will explore in groups how services and supports in their communities could be enhanced to best promote
resiliency and to identify potential barriers and solutions to implementing their ideas in their communities. Multimedia
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