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NACAC Conference • Description of Tracks

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NACAC Conference • Description of Tracks NACAC Conference • Description of Tracks Track Short description Primary audience Types of sessions included (all attendees welcome) 1. Adoption Agency Sessions related to the management of an adoption Professionals: Agency directors, Supervision, ethics, collaboration, cultural competence, fundraising, technology, Management agency or organization administrators, managers evaluation, staffing 2. Advanced Issues in Sessions on counseling, therapy, and other mental All: Mental health professionals, post- Attachment therapy, specific therapeutic techniques or choices; intensive mental Adoption Therapy health services adoption service providers, agency staff, health programs/ services; advanced sessions on adoptive parenting or special parents needs 3. Advocacy & Public Sessions related to advocating for system change or All: Parents, professionals, child advocates Becoming an advocate; lobbying; advocacy tools; specific laws (Fostering Policy services for individual children; sessions on particular Connections, MEPA, ICWA); proposed legislation legislation 4. International Sessions related to international adoption (including All: Families or professionals involved in Medical issues; homeland tours; cultural issues (can be here or in race, Adoption medical issues, preparation, post-adoption issues, etc.) international adoption culture); Hague; ethics in international adoption 5. Kinship Care and Sessions on specific issues facing relatives raising their All: Grandparents and other relative Grandparent issues, supporting caregivers, finding kin for waiting children; Birth Family kin; sessions on adoptees’ issues, working with birth caregivers; agency staff working with sibling issues; open adoption; search and reunion; working with birth family Connections families (either from the beginning or reunifying) caregivers; adoptive parents; adoptees members; triad issues 6. Parenting Adopted Sessions that provide parents with tips, techniques, and Parents: Adoptive and other parents Special populations (single, dads, etc.); managing stress; parenting techniques Children strategies for dealing with adoption issues or styles 7. Parenting Children Sessions related to specific diagnoses or past trauma; Parents: Adoptive and other parents FASD, RAD, ADHD, sexual abuse, multiple disabilities, disruption, anger with Special Needs sessions for parenting children with significant management, residential treatment, attachment problems behaviors or challenges 8. Permanency for Older Sessions on achieving permanence for older children All: Professionals seeking families for older Model programs and practices on older youth adoptions, workshops on Children and Youth and youth, how to support youth aging out of care, and children and youth; families who have supporting youth at risk of aging out or who are aging out, services for teens in parenting for adopted teens adopted older children and youth foster care or youth, working with youth, preparing older youth for adoption 9. Post-Adoption Sessions on post-adoption programs, practices, or All: Agency staff hoping to implement Model programs including peer support, camps, mental health services; Services (includes services; sessions related to parent group development programs; parents; parent group leaders adoption assistance; disruption; parent supports groups for special populations parent support or parent group activities and parents interested in starting support (dads, moms, LGBT parents, single parents, adoptees); starting a group; groups) groups rejuvenation; program ideas; coalition building 10. Preparing for Sessions that help prospective adopters prepare for the Parents: Prospective adoptive parents Understanding the adoption process; selecting an adoption agency; preparing Adoption (for adoption process and for raising a child with special for placement; building your support system; advocating for your family during parents) needs or any adopted child the adoption process; learning more about special needs; understanding your child’s medical history 11. Race, Culture, & Sessions on transracial or transcultural adoption, racial All: Parents or agencies working with Transracial adoption; special issues facing children or facing families of color; Diversity in Adoption identity, LGBT adoption (parents and youth issues) children or families of color; LGBT families, supporting LGBT youth; working with LGBT families; overcoming barriers of families raising LGBT youth; agency staff being an LGBT family working with these populations 12. Recruitment & Pre- Sessions on helping parents or children/youth make the Professionals: Agency staff Recruiting families (including targeted recruitment for special populations); Adoption Services transition to adoption home studies and other assessments; pre-placement training; transitions to adoption; moving from foster care to adoption 13. Research in Adoption Sessions by researchers translating their findings to the All: Parents, professionals, other Translational research sessions where researchers present findings with a and Foster Care audience of parents, professionals, or people who have researchers strong emphasis on the implications of the research for parents, agencies, been in care policy makers, and others. Key topics would include effectiveness of post- adoption services or therapeutic techniques; sibling placements; LGBT adoptive and foster parenting; outcomes of kinship care or family-based care; factors in adoption disruption or dissolution 14. Supporting Children Sessions that teach parents or workers how to best All: Parents; agency staff Life books, training for children/youth; school issues; helping children with grief & Preparing Families serve adopted or traumatized children and their families and loss; helping children answer questions; preparing children for adoption; special services for children/youth and their families; self-care for parents 15. Youth Issues for Sessions about adoption and foster care and youth Youth: Youth ages 16-25 who are or were Supporting other youth/peer support; youth advocacy; telling your story for Youth Audience advocacy for permanency in foster care or were adopted advocacy; teambuilding; adoption issues for youth .
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