Resources

DV Education: Healthy Moms, Happy Babies

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. Many home visitation and early childhood staff struggle with how best to address issues of domestic violence (DV) among their clients. According to the CDC, 1 in 4 women will experience DV in their lifetime. The impact of DV on parents’ and children’s physical and mental health and risk for substance use and persistent perinatal depression is well documented. Healthy Moms/Happy Babies is an interactive curriculum that addresses the barriers and difficulties staff experience in addressing DV. We support the field with attuned approaches to DV for survivors that were developed in concert with communities who are most affected. We address how personal and or vicarious trauma or abuse may impact our ability to do this work. Specific strategies and tools, both personal and organizational, will be presented to address the needs of front-line staff and managers so that they feel adequately situated to hear a positive disclosure of abuse.

It Takes Two to Tango

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. Recent Wyoming Supreme Court decisions have emphasized the need to involve fathers in child welfare cases from the beginning of the case. This session will explore why fathers should be involved in child welfare and how to get them involved. Legal requirements for service of fathers will also be discussed.

2021 Annual Caselaw Update

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. This presentation is an overview of new case law and legislation in Wyoming.

Trauma Informed Courtrooms

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. Courtrooms are crucibles where people are ordered to come together to endure intense, sometimes life-altering experiences. Rarely as a result of the courtroom experience do people leave feeling better. But what if we could create an atmosphere in our courtrooms to promote healing? What if people leaving courtrooms felt better than when they entered? Using the concepts of therapeutic jurisprudence and polyvagal theory, Dr. Eugster and Justice Karofsky will discuss issues of justice, trauma and resiliency. By the end of this presentation you will be armed with concrete strategies to improve the courtroom – and greater legal – experience for all involved.

Practice Standards: Ethical Practice Beyond the Rules of Professional Conduct

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. Ethics presentations for attorneys often stick to the basics– the Rules of Professional Conduct. But there are other ethical guideposts for attorneys to consider– practice standards published by federal and state agencies. This presentation will explore the ethical obligations of attorneys in child welfare cases by using practice standards to show the way.

Tools of the Trade: Using the Rules of Procedure to Craft Your Case

From the 2020 Joint Symposium. This presentation is a brief overview of the Rules of Procedure applicable to child welfare proceedings in Wyoming. The presenter is Wendy Ross, J.D., of the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office. This presentation was given at the 2020 Wyoming Joint Symposium on Children and Youth.

2020 Annual Legal Update

From the 2020 Joint Symposium. This presentation includes the annual case law update given every year at the Wyoming Joint Symposium. This presentation is the 2020 update, presented by Christina McCabe, J.D., of the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, and Joe Belcher, J.D., Chief Deputy of the Wyoming Guardian ad Litem Program.

Ethics for Child Welfare Attorneys

This presentation is an overview of ethics obligations for child welfare attorneys. The presenters are Wyoming Bar Counsel, Mark Gifford, J.D., and Lisa K. Finkey, J.D., Wyoming Supreme Court Children’s Justice Project Coordinator. This presentation was given at the 2020 Wyoming Joint Symposium on Children and Youth.

Wyoming Youth and Young Adult Council

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. Members of the Wyoming Youth and Young Adult (YaYA) Council will share their stories that inspired them to apply for membership in YaYA, their lived experiences as youth, and their hopes and dreams for the futures of children and youth in Wyoming, and how caring adults can contribute.

Youth Voice Matters

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. The Youth Engagement Team is a collaboration of current and former foster youth, the Department of Family Services, the Guardian Ad Litem Program, the Wyoming Citizen Review Panel and Wyoming Independent Living Programs that have assembled to discuss and promote engaging youth voices in order to address issues they face while in foster care. The goal of this collaboration is to establish and promote an environment of authentic youth engagement within our child welfare system in Wyoming. Youth engagement spans our entire child welfare system, from the safety and case planning on an individual case basis to advocating for youth voice in our systemic reviews and policy changes.

Interacting with Children and Youth in the Justice System Who May be Experiencing Mental, Substance Use, and Traumatic Stress Conditions.

This is a presentation from the 2020 Wyoming Joint Symposium on Children and Youth. This presentation is a brief overview of the Mental Health Training for Juvenile Justice (MHT-JJ) . This session is for professionals who work with children, youth and/or adults involved in the justice system to help them better understand the effects this involvement may have on them. The MHT-JJ increases knowledge of adolescent development, child trauma and adolescent behavioral health conditions to help staff develop an understanding of how these issues may affect youth-staff interactions. Many juveniles and young adults are experiencing behavioral health conditions or traumatic stress reactions and juvenile justice involvement can exacerbate a youth’s condition. Presenters are Kai-Ley Wilson Herb and Jamie Eaton.

Engaging Families Through Qualified Residential Treatment Program (QRTP) Treatment

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. Engaging families during a child’s stay in residential treatment is fundamental to the achievement of short and long-term goals. This presentation will explore strategies and ideas for how to engage families and kinship connections during involvement with residential care facilities, specifically Qualified Residential Treatment Programs. We will also discuss how to identify the members of the Family Team and bring them into case planning and permanency planning throughout QRTP placement.

The Wyoming Practice Model and Case Plans

This presentation is a brief overview of the Wyoming Practice Model and case planning. Presenters are Sara Serelson of the Wyoming Department of Family Services and Lisa K. Finkey of the Wyoming Supreme Court Children’s Justice Project.

Protective Factors

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. This session will provide an overview of the Protective Factors. Outcomes for children affected by trauma can be improved by helping them and their families build protective factors. In other words, protective factors help to mitigate risks; they can help families to weather life’s stress and trauma with less damage. Through building protective factors we can help families develop assets and skills for handling life’s challenges more effectively.

A Conversation on Wyoming Home Matters

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. WY Home Matters is an initiative to promote a prevention-oriented child welfare system unique to our Wyoming communities that empowers families and communities to build strong families for a strong Wyoming. The initiative has two complementary goals. 1) To develop, draft, and implement Wyoming’s first Title IV-E Prevention Plan under the Family First Prevention Services Act. This goal focuses on tertiary prevention – preventing unnecessary removals. 2) To facilitate a larger conversation around prevention with our providers, communities, and families. This goal focuses on developing a continuum of prevention – not just preventing unnecessary removals, but also preventing trauma from occurring in the first place. In this session, we will briefly review statewide DFS data and then engage in a panel discussion with representation from all spheres – the community, partners, and the child welfare agency – about the current state of the child welfare system and what we need to move towards a prevention-oriented child and family well-being system.

WY Home Matters: An Introduction to Wyoming’s Family First Prevention Process

The child welfare system nationally is undergoing a historic shift towards a prevention mindset. This shift is driven by research showing that children do best when they can live safely at home and is supported by the federal 2018 Family First Prevention Services Act. In this session we will review the requirements and funding opportunities within the Family First Act, Wyoming’s model for implementation, and how providers, schools, law enforcement, courts, and communities can get involved in prevention, with the goal of supporting families and building resilient communities in our state.

Using Neuroscience and Social Services to Break the Cycle of Addiction

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. Despite the fact that incidence of substance use disorders has been increasing in an escalating cycle of trauma and despair passed from parents to children, recent findings point to specific opportunities for effective prevention and intervention. Join Dr. Griesel and Paul DiLorenzo in this second half of their presentation on working with parents with substance abuse concerns.

Working with LGBTQ+ Youth

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. This session will provide a brief overview of the key concepts related to legal and ethical obligations in working with LGBTQ+ children and youth. Participants will learn about how to respectfully approach and work with at risk LGBTQ+ children and youthand the differences between different identities and expressions. Topics such as mandatory reporting, harassment and bullying, suicide, and risk for dropping out will be covered.

Increasing Access and Decreasing Barriers for Mental Health Services Through Telehealth

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. The presenters will talk about their statewide telehealth collaborative and how it has increased access and decreased barriers for mental health services for child victims in a rural area of North Dakota.
In addition, they will also discuss what is required to obtain a successful telehealth program and what requirements are necessary to sustain it.

The What, How, and Why of Addiction

From the 2021 Joint Symposium. Dr. Judy Grisel and Paul DiLorenzo will discuss working with parents with substance abuse concerns, specifically addressing when the use of addictive drugs become a problem, when it does, why can’t people just “stop”, and what does biomedical consensus have to say about the abstinence model of recovery.

Panel Presentation on Parental Substance Abuse

This is the recording of the October 14, 2020 panel presentation hosted by Casey Family Programs and the Wyoming Children’s Justice Project.

Working with Substance Abusing Parents Part I: Substance Abuse and Child Maltreatment

This is the first in a three part series on Working with Substance Abusing Parents hosted by the Wyoming Children’s Justice Project and Casey Family Programs. The trainers for these meetings are Dr. Judy Griesel and Paul DiLorenzo. Dr. Grisel is author of the New York Times Bestseller Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction, and is a professor of psychology at Bucknell University. Paul is the Interim Executive Director of the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance and has a four-decade history of experience in child welfare and youth development settings.

Working with Substance Abusing Parents Part II: Development, Drugs & Despair, Primed for Addiction

This is the second in a three part series on Working with Substance Abusing Parents hosted by the Wyoming Children’s Justice Project and Casey Family Programs. The trainers for these meetings are Dr. Judy Griesel and Paul DiLorenzo. Dr. Grisel is author of the New York Times Bestseller Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction, and is a professor of psychology at Bucknell University. Paul is the Interim Executive Director of the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance and has a four-decade history of experience in child welfare and youth development settings.

Working with Substance Abusing Parents Part III: Understanding the Intersection of Parental Substance Abuse and Child Maltreatment

This is the third in a three part series on Working with Substance Abusing Parents hosted by the Wyoming Children’s Justice Project and Casey Family Programs. The trainers for these meetings are Dr. Judy Griesel and Paul DiLorenzo. Dr. Grisel is author of the New York Times Bestseller Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction, and is a professor of psychology at Bucknell University. Paul is the Interim Executive Director of the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance and has a four-decade history of experience in child welfare and youth development settings.