Trauma and Children: Understanding and Managing Big Behaviors          Children often communicate fear, stress, and unmet needs through their behavior. This workshop helps participants understand how trauma can affect a child’s brain, emotions, relationships, and ability to regulate behavior. Participants will learn to look beyond challenging behaviors, identify possible triggers, respond with empathy and consistency, and use practical trauma-informed strategies that promote safety, connection, and healthy emotional regulation.

Trauma and Teens: Foundations of Relationships and Commitment          Trauma can significantly influence how teenagers view themselves, relate to adults, manage emotions, and respond to expectations. This workshop explores the importance of relationships, trust, and consistency when supporting adolescents who have experienced trauma. Participants will gain strategies for understanding behavior through a trauma-informed lens, setting clear and appropriate boundaries, responding calmly to conflict, and creating the safe, dependable relationships teenagers need to heal and thrive.

Viewing Parents Through a Trauma-Informed Lens                                                          This session explores substance use and parenting through a trauma-informed lens, with particular attention to the effects of unresolved and intergenerational trauma. Participants will examine how drugs and alcohol may initially be used to cope with emotional pain but can progress into a chronic disorder that changes brain chemistry, impairs decision-making, and reinforces avoidance of underlying trauma. The overall goal is to move beyond asking why someone would choose substance use over their children and toward understanding what responses are helpful rather than harmful.                                   .

Shared Parenting: Working Together for the Children                                                        In the Illinois child welfare system, shared parenting is a collaborative approach between foster parents and birth parents. It promotes the active involvement of birth parents in their child’s life, medical care, and education while the child is in temporary care. The presenter will explain the DCFS shared parenting procedure and moderate a panel of participants with lived experience. Attendees will examine the benefits, challenges, and goals of shared parenting.

Court and DCFS Processes Explained                                                                                    This session provides a practical overview of Illinois juvenile abuse and neglect proceedings and the relationship between the juvenile court and DCFS processes. Participants will examine the roles of the judge, attorneys, DCFS, CASA/GAL, caseworkers, foster parents, birth parents, and other stakeholders throughout the life of a case. Designed for parents, caregivers, child welfare professionals, service providers, and court stakeholders, the session explains legal terminology, court procedures, rights and responsibilities, and the progression of a case from petition and shelter care through permanency and case closure.

Wraparound Services: Child and Family Team Meetings That Work                      Effective Child and Family Team Meetings bring families, service providers, caregivers, and other supports together to develop a coordinated plan centered on the family’s strengths, needs, and goals. This workshop explores strategies for creating meetings that are collaborative, purposeful, and family-driven. Participants will learn how to encourage meaningful participation, establish clear roles and shared goals, navigate disagreements, build on family strengths, and develop practical action steps that promote accountability and lasting progress.