Presented by: Amanda McKee & Nancy Krause 

This presentation will explore the use of reflective supervision at multiple layers of programming from administrator to home visitor. This presentation will explore a transformation at Lutheran Services in Iowa (LSI) to use reflective supervision to create professional development plans for home visiting staff to reach program goals. This transformation was needed based on increased accountability and requirements from funding sources. Building home visitors skills and knowledge is important as they address the complexities of issues facing today’s families, as well as, increased work around challenging issues of mental health, substance abuse, and domestic violence is requiring home visitors. This presentation will explore tools that LSI used to support professional development. Ideas for using program data during supervision to professionally develop home visiting staff will be shared. The presentation will focus on developing skills. This presentation will use polls to engage participants in discussion and learning.

Presented by: Lorele M. Correa González & Jemaralie Cintrón-Rivera & María Reyes-Ocasio

Como estrategia de enganche para las familias latinas nos gustaría presentar las Parrandas Navideñas y el significado que tiene para la comunidad puertorriqueña desde el momento de preparación hasta la visita a las familias participantes. Tomando en cuenta las tradiciones familiares y prácticas culturales se pretende demostrar la importancia de fomentar la conciencia de lo que son las tradiciones familiares, como influyen en los sentimientos del niño y la herencia cultural que los padres quieren que formen parte de su vida familiar. Para llevar a cabo esta actividad con las Familias Participantes se impacta a toda la familia creando un intercambio de culturas e interacción entre las familias participantes y el personal de Familias Saludables Puerto Rico. A continuación, se provee una descripción del proceso a presentar el cual puede ser utilizado como nueva estrategia de Enganche con las Familias latinas y prácticas culturales.

1.  Proceso de preparación para visita con el personal (escogido del regalo según la edad y etapa de desarrollo de niño participantes y hermanos en el hogar, justificación para la selección de familias a visitar, selección canciones e instrumentos a utilizar, establecimiento de la ruta).
2. Preparación de instrumento casero (maraca o sonajero), a modo de actividad se presentará como preparar instrumentos caseros que pudieran utilizar durante la parranda.
3. Muestra de música autóctona navideña y entrega de cancionero de música navideña para que la audiencia pueda replicarlo en sus respectivos programas.4. Descripción de los beneficios e impacto en las familias visitadas (enganche con las familias, sentido de pertenencia, solidaridad, entre otros).

Presented by: Rachael Ward & Sam McDonough

As stated in the HFA Supervisor Core Training Manual, Creating an environment that fosters staff growth and development is an essential ingredient to the success of any HFA site. This presentation will discuss the importance of a direct service worker career ladder that includes both education and experience as a means for offering staff opportunities for advancement. Building on the skills of experienced staff not only increases their value but also contributes to their competencies and allows opportunities to encourage equity and inclusion within the workforce.

Presented by: Bryn Fortune

This interactive workshop will demonstrate how home visitors can partner with the families they serve through an intentional process of goal setting during the home visit. Participants will also learn the importance of grounding their practice and process in an empowerment approach so that each interaction fosters parents’ development of self-acceptance, trust of their own ability and capacity for growth. Goal setting and planning with families acknowledges the parent’s role as and expert and as their child’s first teacher. It provides the opportunity for self-identified goals that support self-empowerment, ownership, growth and efficacy. An intentional, ongoing goal-setting process, grounded in empowerment, not only strengthens the partnership between home visitors and the families served but also creates a space that welcomes and affirms each family’s culture, experience and lived expertise. Parents are more successful in achieving goals when they are meaningful and important to them. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to explore how this partnership approach can be built into ongoing practice and practice strategies for implementation.

Presented by: Haya Amzaleg – Bahr, Iris Lavi, & Liat Riff

Heartbeats is an Israeli early childhood pilot program which is the first out-of-USA site to integrate the HFA model. Since 2018 Heartbeats is being implemented in six locations in Israel social and geographical periphery, in Jewish, Arab, Ultra-orthodox, urban, and rural communities. Lately, the first cohort of 50 families in total have graduated Heartbeats. Evaluation research looked at several effectiveness constructs derived either from the program goals or from past research, showing strong correlations with quality of childcare, child development, and parent-child relations.

Presented by: Carolyn Curtis

Our parents and staff need skills and tools to deal with the on-going stress in their lives as well as the underlying trauma of early childhood abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. We will review and practice six key research-based skills for trauma recovery, the foundation of Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience. These methods are evidence and research based neuroscientific methods that are shown to be effective in overcoming barriers created by adverse and traumatic experiences. During the workshop we will participate in activities that teach skills to cultivate healing and clear away distractions to learning and developing healthy relationships that you can use in your home visiting programs.

Presented by: Leticia Urroz & Kelssy Ambrosio

Hispanic women and families continuously face barriers in accessing health care. In working with families, we noticed issues spanning from structural injustices: lack of access due to immigration status and/or lack of health insurance, as well as health literacy and cultural beliefs which prevent families from seeking medical attention. In many Latin American countries, it is normal for women to not have prenatal care, especially coming from small rural areas. The habit of medical check-ups is something they have not been exposed to. Through relationship building, starting with the Parent Survey, families start to share concerns regarding their health. Understanding the dynamics of the barriers Hispanic women and families face can help us best support them.

Presented by: Kelly Hayes & Kristin Mena

The Healthy Families America Multi-Site Best Practice Standards (2018) require multi-site systems to conduct program evaluation, specifically a formal evaluation, following a set of general practices consistent with conducting quality evaluation. This evaluation is conducted by qualified evaluators and is integrated into the planning process to inform service delivery. As a new multi-site system, the Kansas Children’s Service League (KCSL) has begun the task of planning for and implementing their system wide evaluation plan. In this session, Kelly Hayes of KCSL and Kristin Mena of Datatude, Inc. will walk you through how they tackled this important task from start to completion with the process, challenges and successes. This 3 month process will highlight the important requirements of showing model fidelity at both site and system level and demonstrating positive outcomes for families, and children. As KCSL grows in the proportion of diverse families in its service, understanding the impacts at each step will be increasingly important to the implementation of these services. Asking good evaluation questions is important to any site, at any level, to ensure they are doing the best they can for all of their families. We will review the HFA core goals and how they may be used as a guide for all sites in evaluating their effectiveness. We will look at how the intersectionality of families’ unique and diverse characteristics can interplay with staff, their unique backgrounds and strengths to result in more or less successful engagement, retention and the best objective positive measures we have to date.

Presented by: Lili M. Sardiñas & Paloma Torres-Dávila & Mariana D. Padilla-Velázquez

Familias Saludables Puerto Rico (FSPR) supports their staff by keeping them motivated. Puerto Rico Department of Health (PR-DoH) as grantee, Third Mission Institute as local technical assistance, and Program staff describe how they work together to develop these support strategies. Through the constant communication coordinated by the PR-DoH, we have created a sense of trust and motivation within the FSPR staff. This communication has made it possible to address the concerns raised by the staff, particularly in times of emergency, in a more effective way. Since the beginning of the Program, all staff are involved in decision making. They are given space to express themselves during meetings and continuous evaluations of TA services, and we respond to their expressed needs. To keep them motivated, capacity development workshops are established in response to their needs. Also, we developed a very singular rewards system directed to FSPR direct service staff. To enhance services, we also moved them through a trauma informed path and resilient lens that later gave them tools to deal with hurricanes, earthquakes, COVID-19 pandemic, and any situation that may arise. Panel participants will have the opportunity to hear from direct staff how these strategies have impacted them in their self-worth, their work and ultimately their participant families through the parallel process. The resilience that FSPR demonstrate through changes due to natural disasters and staff turnover has been a process of constant learning and improvement.

Presented by: Keila Morales-Rodriguez & Eva Patterson

This upbeat and creative presentation will consist of Eva sharing how traditional Healthy Families home visiting outreach and family engagement looked prior to the pandemic and how it’s continuing to be offered to families in more creative ways during the pandemic period. Each enrolled family in our local program is encouraged to participate in a Family Time event, to reduce social isolation, increase positive interactions and model positive parenting. Each Family Time event includes a theme, an activity and a healthy meal. Samples of creative themes and ideas will be part of this presentation. Eva will share how family engagement continues during the pandemic, including “Front Porch Family Pictures” and “Brave Bags”. A private face book group is available to present and past families, to provide resources and activity ideas during social distancing. Weekly Zoom social interactions are available as well. Two staff in our office are bi-lingual and a third is tri-lingual. Each event is strategically planned to include all families, cultures, and languages. Eva and Keila will share about measures taken to include all families during the events, to prevent feelings of exclusion due to language barriers. Traditions and cultures are shared at events to encourage understanding, acceptance and diversity.

Presented by: Samantha Muraski, LaKeshia Evans, Sarah Prescott, Regina Cason-Collins & Iyasha Reeves

This presentation will provide an example, that can be replicated, of how one supervisor and team went beyond the annual culture training and created an environment in team meetings and supervision sessions to promote deep thinking and reflection on diversity, racial equity and cultural influences. This presentation will offer experiences from the supervisor and home visitor perspective on how the introduction of activities at team meetings, that intentionally bring about strong emotions around race and diversity, contributed to a deeper self-awareness, relationship awareness and historical awareness of the influences of culture, inequities and privilege.

Presented by: Kelli Krieg, Meghan Kinney, Missi Baranko, Donna Perrott & Emily Gran

In both Indiana and North Dakota, HFA sites have been working with incarcerated women who are, or who are becoming mothers. In this session, attendees will hear what it has looked like to bring Healthy Families into prisons and jails, what the panelists have learned along the way (the good, the bad, and the ugly), and the impact of COVID-19 on current and future work. While not every Healthy Families program has a prison in their community, this is an opportunity to see how to use the Healthy Families model in a non-traditional setting, and hopefully will inspire attendees to think about how they could do that in their own community.

Presented by: Rosanna M Batista, Margaret Gullick, Darlene Lopez, Robert T. Ammerman

With the pivot to virtual home visiting necessitated by COVID-19, service providers and families found ways to connect and continue this important work. States have begun to study the successes and challenges of virtual strategies to engage and support families. Leaders in four states (AZ, MA, OH, and NY) will share what they’ve learned about caregiver and provider experiences with virtual visits. The panel will focus on lessons learned for the future of virtual home visiting.

Presented by: Shannon Queiroga

This presentation will explore the possible origins of challenging behavior from an ecological approach, thinking about a child’s health, development and trauma history, the experience and impact of their early relationships, parental challenges, and their experience within their community. We will explore elements of relationship-based practice with families who are raising young children, including how we utilize assessment to learn about a family’s strengths, vulnerabilities and needs, and collaboratively treatment plan. Lastly, we will think together about how to support caregivers in navigating behavioral challenges by connecting meaning to behavior.

Presented by: Ellie Jimenez & Lynn Kosanovich

Learning what it means to be trauma-informed has changed the way we work with families. Shouldn’t it also change the way we learn about their stories? Join us as we consider new ways to talk about the Parent Survey conversation with parents.

Presented by: Sarah Walzer, Vanessa Ruiz, Pamela Williams & Noor Alaswad

A lively conversation with ParentChild+ home visiting staff working with diverse immigrant and refugee families – giving voice to the unique challenges these families face particularly in the current context and discussing the most effective ways to support and engage with them. We will discuss Public Charge/fear of accessing even benefits for which they and their children are eligible, family plans, the impact of COVID, and particularly highlight the importance of supporting staff many of whom share these life experiences.

Presented by: Kelly Crane, Marguerite Schervish & Rebecca Robuck

This session, Strengthening Funding and Advocacy Capacity within the Healthy Families America Network: Medicaid as a funding strategy, will be led by the HFA Policy Team. The focus will be on utilizing Medicaid as a funding stream to support and expand HFA. While specifics on the use of Medicaid to support home visiting and payment methodologies vary by state, this session will include a broad introduction to Medicaid, the services that Medicaid can cover, how benefits can be used to support home visiting services, and the different authorities used to cover home visiting services. This session will also include a deep dive into the current landscape across the HFA network highlighting the number of Medicaid funded HFA sites and Medicaid eligible families across the HFA network with a brief discussion on state-level engagement and advocacy strategies.

Presented by: Dina Burstein & Robert Sege

This interactive session will describe HOPE: Healthy Outcomes from Positive childhood experiences. Children’s brains develop in response to the child’s experiences growing up. Just as adverse childhood experiences can interfere with normal healthy development, positive childhood experiences support lifelong health and well-being. What kinds of positive experiences can make a difference? Why is it so important that we look for the strengths and resilience within families, and collaborate with them? How does it make an impact when we are able to create opportunities for lasting memories of joy and happiness between parents and children? Learn more from the experts in HOPE, and how we can achieve Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences with the families who choose to be a part of HFA.

Presented by: Luis Lechuga & Kim Thomas

This presentation is for program managers and supervisors who are looking for ways to streamline supervision documentation while preserving or improving the purpose and intent of documentation. The team will share how First 5 First Steps, an HFA program serving San Diego County, California, in partnership with a Reflective Practice consultant, developed a standardized formula for concise and effective documentation of supervision. First Steps leadership approached their reflective practice consultant, after hearing from Supervisors that documentation was very time-consuming and labor-intensive. The consultant helped to develop and train on a recipe for documentation. It can be used for administrative, clinical, and reflective forms of supervision. But it is particularly useful for documenting reflective supervision since it helps protect confidential and sensitive conversations.

Presented by: Marisa Becerra & Kembra Randell & Victoria Hartman

Developing culturally relevant outreach materials and strategies is vital to engage priority populations in home visiting programs. Through a systematic approach to engage community members, the Sacramento County Family Support Initiative has built a collaborative network to develop thoughtful, intentional, and responsive outreach strategies. Furthermore, the program has utilized information sessions and other outreach planning efforts to gather community stakeholders for valuable feedback on outreach activities and program materials. The Family Support Initiative has streamlined service provision and strengthened partner relationships by involving community agencies serving similar populations in outreach planning.Through a Social Marketing approach, this workshop will provide attendees with the opportunity to develop their own outreach strategies and materials. Participants will be provided with a virtual workbook that will guide the development of outreach plans for their HFA programs. Presenters will review the various steps to creating outreach materials and developing outreach strategies that can be adapted to fit the needs of each priority population served through the HFA model. Presenters will discuss how to build relationships with community partners and engage them to make referrals. Finally, the workshop will include discussions on solution-based strategies in overcoming potential challenges.

Presented by: Kerrie Green

This workshop will examine concepts of Compliance vs. Continuous Improvement and look at how the strength-based/solution focused lens has a huge impact on Continuous Improvement work. We will unpack the parallel process that includes parenting, home visiting, and program management as a continuous improvement process. We’ll also spend time talking about how to make data gathering a functional (and not overwhelming) experience that’s woven into the work we are already doing. By using a some experiential (fun) data gathering, and we will build a new skill. Participants will reflect on how this translates back to the work they are doing in their communities and leave the workshop with an area of focus for continuous improvement in their day-to-day work.

Presented by: Marc Brackett

Join Marc Brackett, Ph.D. for a deeper dive into becoming an “emotion scientist”, helping equip ourselves with concrete skills to handle the big feelings and complex emotions of others in a genuine way, and understanding the impact doing so has for the parents (and their infants and young children) that we work with and on behalf of.

Presented by: Bart Klika

Enrolling and engaging families in services is of utmost importance if we are to achieve population-level impacts in areas of child and family health and well-being. Unfortunately, only a small portion of eligible families engage in evidence-based or evidence-informed early intervention services. One explanation for this gap is that societal norms do support parents, especially new parents, to ask and receive help as part of typical child rearing. In this presentation, we will explore how stigma of early intervention services may contribute to enrollment and engagement of families. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to: 1. Discuss the role of stigma in enrollment and engagement in early intervention services. 2. Define the concept of social norms. 3. Describe how actual and perceived norms could influence enrollment and engagement in early intervention services.

Presented by: Angelique Anderson

The individual presentation provides a historical framework on traditional African American parenting and disciplinary styles. Providing this historical information will allow attendees to gain a greater understanding of how historical trauma and culturally specific experiences are often reflected through African American parenting strategies. The objective of this presentation is not to excuse such parenting styles, but provide an explanation, which can richly enhance assessments and culturally affirming interventions to address concerns of neglect and/or abuse, as well as reduce the likelihood of having parenting styles and parental motives being misjudged by home visitors and social workers.

Presented by: Meg Manning & Lee MacKinnon

Attendees will gain an understanding of the various factors involved in bringing the FAN approach to a statewide Healthy Families system and will explore the key components that support effective implementation and continued integration into the Healthy Families model. The session will explore the steps that were taken prior to the statewide rollout of the approach, participation in Erikson Institute’s extensive training, and development of systems that support ongoing integration of FAN into the practice of supervisors and home visitors. The session will discuss the ways in which the state system operationalized the approach and embedded it into the existing program model and system. It will provide attendees with an understanding of strategies used to support the network in sustaining the change over time. We will examine effects of the infusion of FAN into Healthy Families Massachusetts and the perceived impact on home visitors and supervisors. The experience of staff integrating the approach into their practice will include statements from the field.

Presented by: Heather Tithof & Cynthia Zagar & Alyce Hernandez & Tricia Drenth & Tiffany Kostelec

Healthy Families America’s concept of a Multi-site State System is unique in the home visiting world. Michigan’s Multi-site State System evolved organically making use of resources as they became available. Pieces of it came together over 5 years until full affiliation took place in 2020. A facilitated discussion will take place in question and answer format with panel members representing various roles in that System including Central Administration, Funder, Advisory Council Member, and Local Program Manager. They will speak through their lens about the value of the System and the benefits of a centralized approach.

Presented by: Carlee Gosser & Nifin Poules & Rana Dawood-Noaman

The team will share how we partner with families to support mothers’ well-being within the Middle Eastern population. Using both the individual and group Mothers and Babies curriculum, Family Support Specialists facilitate mindful practices centered on relationship based techniques to support the overall development of their children. The Middle Eastern population relies heavily on the mother’s role within the context of the family and community and new refugees are often isolated due to language and not yet accustomed to the cultural challenges of living within the United States. We will show how, with the support of the Family Support Specialist, mothers are able to stay present and regulated during times of stress while building skills and resilience factors to support their children’s emotional well-being.

Presented by: Leah Niezwaag & Michelle Harvey

The art of listening and “being with” is paramount to the work of home visiting, and is especially critical when engaging in sensitive conversations around Adverse Childhood Experiences. Relationship-based intervention lays the groundwork for collaboration with families, and yet often people wonder: how do we approach sensitive conversations in a way that is trauma informed, attuned, and relationship based? Leah and Michelle invite you into the felt experience that “how we are is more important than what we do” through reflective exploration of the NEAR@Home perspective, elevating community care over self-care and parallel process at all levels. Participants are invited to look at how the process of NEAR@Home provides a pathway for “being with” and how these principles and practices can be applied to all levels of our work – whether as a home visitor, supervisor, administrator, or state lead. This presentation will focus on listening as a powerful form of doing, sitting with discomfort, and attuning to self. We will be slowing down to reflect and think together, modeling how we use this process in our work with families and each other. We will be talking about the concept of trauma, and just as sensitive conversations can feel dysregulating, participants are encouraged to attune and attend to any personal needs that may arise.

Presented by:  Christi Peeples & Tomeaka Jupiter 

What is it that makes McDonald’s fries mouthwateringly delicious or that Starbucks drink you like so much amazing at every store location, every time? (Sorry to the Burger King fans) McDonald’s and Starbucks both have their own version of their “secret sauce”, or “secret recipe” that makes sure it’s amazing every time you buy it. So…what’s HFA’s secret sauce? What is it that allows us to be consistent, so that families from North Dakota to Florida to Arizona all receive the same, high-quality, amazing support that HFA is known as being able to provide? Well… HFA’s Best Practice Standards are like our secret recipe. The Best Practice Standards are what guides HFA policies and practices around the country. But, this secret recipe, the HFA Best Practice Standards (BPS), are not always easy to pick up and understand immediately. And for direct service staff, not every piece included in the BPS may be relevant to your job. What are the important pieces? How do they impact your job? What are some tricks and tips to make the BPS feel more easily readable? How can you have a role and a voice in shaping the future of HFA and our Best Practice Standards (adding ingredients, taking some out?) Learn all this and more from HFA’s Training and TA Specialists!

Presented by: Diane Gaspard, Danita Roberts, and Terry Silberman

Issues involving race impact our communities daily, yet there is often silence on the issue of race. Why is it important for Program Managers, Supervisors, and Staff to talk about race? How can we become more confident in discussing issues involving race? The Racial Wealth Gap Learning Simulation (developed by Bread for the World and NETWORK) is a tool to help understand some of the root causes of the racial wealth gap and initiate conversations on racial inequities. Understanding the racial wealth, income and hunger gap can help guide discussions about race as a step towards a commitment to working towards racial equity. This session will describe the Racial Wealth Gap Learning Simulation, share things to consider before implementing the Learning Simulation, and explore possible next steps for programs after completing the activity. We will also present strategies to conduct virtual simulations. Resources to implement the simulation and additional resources for agencies interested in racial justice work will also be shared.

Presented by: Michael Ramos

Research indicates an involved, responsible father significantly benefits a child’s social, emotional, academic and financial well-being, including children with special needs. Yet some family support practitioners focus solely on mother and baby, even when father can be engaged in services. This workshop explores attitudes and behaviors that prevent best practice with fathers. Participants will understand why more dads are not involved, discuss benefits of engaging fathers and learn strategies to connect men with their families.

Presented by: Linda Gilkerson & Kate Whitaker

This workshop will focus on feelings and their role in attuning with self and others. During these challenging times of social distancing, feelings may take on a larger presence in our lives and the lives of the families we interact with. Participants will learn how to be with feelings without fixing or needing to do something.

Presented by: Damita Byrd

Explore a thinking-based system to help teams build trust faster, streamline communications, make better decisions and get the benefit of diverse perspectives. Learn how to apply the latest research on thinking and team effectiveness to achieve specific business objectives, whether the team is virtual or co-located, intact or cross functional.

Presented by: Darius Tandon

Maternal depression is common among women enrolled in home visiting programs, with the COVID-19 pandemic increasing stressors that are associated with maternal depression. While increased attention has been placed in recent years on identifying women who exhibit depressive symptoms, challenges remain in connecting women with needed mental health services and supports. This presentation will briefly provide guidance on best practices for screening for depression, including recommendations on appropriate screening tools and timelines for conducting depression screening. The majority of the presentation will then provide strategies for addressing depression among families enrolled in home visiting. One of the specific strategies that will be discussed is the Mothers and Babies intervention, which can be implemented in a group or individual format.

Presented by: Jen Baxter

At HFA, we often speak about CQI: Continuous Quality Improvement. In many ways, this is what HFA Accreditation is all about. But outside of the accreditation cycle, there are many ways to continue to engage in quality improvement activities and to work on strengthening our services to families over time. Many sites in our network are responsible for completing in PDSA cycles (PDSA stands for Plan-Do-Study-Act, and is a helpful framework for us to use when we want to focus on quality improvement efforts). If PDSA cycles, or CQI is something that has always sounded good to you, but you weren’t quite sure where to start, or maybe you have started before, but are getting stuck, this session is for you. HFA’s Training and TA Specialists will share the tools they find most helpful in identifying areas for further strengthening at sites, and talk about how create meaningful action steps and follow up. You’ll walk away being excited to get started on your next CQI project.

Presented by: Missy Smith

An introduction to the idea of privilege, in its many forms. We will discuss the definition of privilege and identify examples of various types of privilege. We will discuss the importance of identifying one’s own privilege and the resulting worldview/lens that we bring to each interaction. We will also explore ways to both use our privileges to amplify often silenced voices and to de-center ourselves to create safe spaces for all of the families we seek to serve.

Presented by: Lorele M. Correa González & Jemaralie Cintrón-Rivera & María Reyes-Ocasio

Como estrategia para apoyo a las Familias participantes y al personal de servicio, queremos aportar nuestros conocimientos en el Manejo de Emergencias y Sustentabilidad adquiridos a través de nuestras experiencias. Dicha información será presentada para la implementación y preparación de planes de contingencia para los Programas. Como norma en el programa, anualmente educamos a las familias sobre cómo prepararse antes de la temporada de huracanes en Puerto Rico. Esto ayuda a minimizar riesgos, aunque exista la incertidumbre de la categoría o efecto que pueda surgir, como lo fue el Huracán María, que provoco una destrucción masiva. Sin embargo, el Terremoto 6.4 en Puerto Rico fue un evento nunca experimentado por esta generación, lo cual creó necesidades diferentes y mucha inseguridad por las actividades sísmicas y secuencia de réplicas que se reportaron en Puerto Rico. Estos eventos naturales requirieron diversas estrategias para el Manejo de las Emergencias y Sustentabilidad. En el caso de la Pandemia COVID-19, el proceso de Distanciamiento Social requirió cambios significativos de manera inmediata, presentando otras necesidades y planes de servicios diferentes para la continuidad de servicios y seguridad de las Familias Participantes y el personal del Programa. El Programa Familias Saludables ha logrado impactar a las familias participantes de manera positiva casi de inmediato luego de cada suceso y según las circunstancias lo permitían. A continuación, se provee una descripción del proceso a seguir según lo trabajado para cada suceso:

1. Estudio de necesidades (recursos de apoyo, pérdidas materiales y familiares, estado emocional, otros servicios de primera necesidad)
2. Estrategias para impactar familias
3. Preparación del personal para llegar a las casas
4. Búsqueda de recursos y entrega a las familias participantes
5. Supervisiones Reflexivas (apoyo individualizado según las necesidades de cada miembro del personal)
6. Adaptación a módulos y visitas al hogar
7. Adiestramientos al personal

Presented by: Cristina Massey & Danita Roberts

With the addition of language to the standards around team leads comes an opportunity to examine how to utilize staff and redistribute your focus as a program manager/supervisor. This workshop will ask you to consider the needs and strengths of your team while looking at how to promote staff to more of a leadership position. Through exploring roles with additional responsibilities, creating meaningful job descriptions, shifting responsibilities on the team, and going through the interview process, managers can refocus and look closely at the strengths of the staff creating ownership of the work within the team. We will discuss our journey through this process that started with one intention and changed several times along the way. This resulted in us coming together as a management team and overcoming obstacles that could not have been foreseen while building relationships in a new and different way. The process of delegating responsibilities, redefining the structure of supervisions, and adding new and different perspectives on the management team has allowed our team to grow in various ways.

Presented by: Holly Bell

How to Document the Story is about how to make documentation come alive. The workshop was designed to help direct service staff and supervisors gain a stronger understanding of the value and responsibility of accurate documentation. In HFA, there are a lot of different pieces to documentation, tracking, outcomes, and discussions. First, one has to understand the meaning of how all of the documentation parts come together to pain the whole picture of a family. When we can truly grasp that concept, we have given value to the family’s story. We have a moral and ethical obligation to be accurate and truthful. We all have different lenses, attitudes, and perspectives that impact how we document. We may or may not be aware of how we can easily change someone’s story by a word or two or even by our own preconceived ideas or prejudices. Every life matters and we play a vital role in putting each family’s story to print and making it whole. The Gestalt aspect of documenting all the parts will be taught in this workshop along with how perspectives can alter the story. Gestalt theory means that the sum of the parts is equal to or greater than the whole will offer a more conceptual way for direct service staff and supervisors to think when documenting. The workshop will also address documentation habits regarding timeliness, how to manage documenting multiple visits simultaneously and still maintain the integrity of each family.

Presented by: Corey Best 

During the workshop, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the dimensions of racism and the role power and privilege plays on our collective decision-making. Our presenters will introduce you to a concrete, promising approach that promotes greater accountability for those partnering directly with families. Additionally, you will be guided through the six phases of cultivating an anti-racist/racially equitable organization.

Presented by: Tracie Lansing & Christa Austin

The promotion of nurturing parent-child relationships remains a primary goal of Healthy Families America. This presentation will explore how to meet this goal while visiting with families by phone and video. Journey with us through the use of virtual CHEERS to: identify the ways that parents are aware of and interacting with their children and plot a course to promote and address specific interactions to strengthen parent-child relationships.

Presented by: Mary Hess & Jamie VanCompernolle & Jenni Summers

The panel presentation will highlight the benefits, successes, and challenges of incorporating parent engagement activities into Healthy Families programs. Ideas will be shared on how to promote parent involvement and empower parents to become leaders within the home visiting program, sharing their ideas and mentoring other parents. Panelists will share lessons learned from a two-year pilot project incorporating parent engagement into the Healthy Families Kansas City program. Components of the Kansas City program included parent workshops, parent support groups, and a parent advisory council. Panelists will discuss the process for developing and implementing each component to fit the needs of parents in the program. Evaluation data will be shared on the impacts of the programming on family protective factors. A program member of the parent advisory council will be invited to participate on the panel.

Presented by: Lynette De Dios & Jess Jobe & Karen Williams & Chris Nation

The Four Musketeers, technical assistance and training specialists from the Ounce of Prevention share their experiences facilitating cross-model home visitor reflective groups, including lessons learned, tears shed, and how the COVID-19 inspired groups are becoming a permanent offering of the Ounce, to address an unmet need for a shared space for home visitors in Illinois.

Presented by: Dana Starks, Mercy Gonzalez, Julie Cubbison, Molly Hoying & Melissa Hunter

The presentation will focus on providing evidence-based home visiting services in the context of several agency settings, including a large, urban level-one pediatric hospital (Nationwide Children’s Hospital {NCH}), a family violence prevention and advocacy organization (The Center for Family Safety and Healing {TCFSH}), and a state-wide network of home visiting programs (Ohio Help Me Grow Home Visiting). In the presentation, we hope to share knowledge and ideas about how we’ve made these partnerships work and thrive, including: Integration of EB-HV documentation into both the prenatal and pediatric medical records of mom and baby, Collaboration and consultation with multiple service lines within TCFSH and NCH (including counseling and advocacy services for survivors of domestic and family violence, legal services including medical-legal partnership (landlord/tenant issues, custody issues, protection orders, etc), child assessment center services and supports, and child protective services (CPS) issues (co-located CPS teams onsite as part of the agency structure).

Presented by: Allyson Cruz & Miriah de Matos

This presentation is for program leadership staff who are looking into identifying a new curriculum for their new or established HFA program. The Healthy Families America model offers affiliates flexibility and choice in selecting an evidenced based child development curriculum. This can present the task of finding a standalone model that complements HFA and more specifically aligns with the HFA Advantage. This panel presentation will offer a framework for reviewing and determining if a curriculum is appropriate for your unique program and the families being served. By applying the HFA Advantage, the curriculum review process considers how a curriculum can enhance services for diverse communities through trauma informed, cultural humble and relationship-based approaches. The presentation will consider the parallel process and how the relationship with the curriculum developers fits into HFA’s integrated parallel process. The presentation will briefly introduce the curriculum, Baby Talk, which was selected by First Steps based the curriculum review process.

Presented by: Allison Contento & Erika Leveillee & others

From New York to Arizona, COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact in each of our lives and communities. In HFA, our work with families shifted quickly. New York and Arizona both have Multi-Site Systems, and Central Administration offices – people at the state level who help to support all of the HFA sites within the state. Join the leaders from those Central Administrations to hear about how they helped to lead and support the shift in their own states, what they learned along the way, and what their reflections are now. This is a great opportunity for all leaders within HFA to think about how to best support our teams through the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, and preparing for future challenges that may come.

Presented by: Ellie Jimenez

Apoyar y facilitar el cambio positivo es un desafío, especialmente cuando el proceso de cambio que ya es tan complicado está contaminado con el trauma en la primera infancia. Este taller explora la complejidad del proceso de cambio y analiza los factores que influyen el proceso de cambio, específicamente, el trauma, la cultura y el maquillaje individual. Los participantes tendrán la oportunidad de examinar este proceso utilizando la teoría de las etapas del cambio ’s de Prochaska y Diclemente y aprenderán estrategias clave para motivar y facilitar el cambio.

Objetivos:

• Los participantes obtendrán una comprensión de la complejidad del proceso de cambio.
• El participante obtendrá la oportunidad de practicar como identificar las etapas del cambio.
• Los participantes aprenderán estrategias clave para facilitar el cambio.