Symposium Details
Symposium Overview
The annual PA Child Abuse Prevention Symposium, hosted by Pa Family Support Alliance (PFSA), is a unique virtual event that connects professionals, partners, and stakeholders in the family support and child abuse prevention field focusing on best practices for strengthening families and keeping kids safe in Pennsylvania. This conference delivers content and resources that meet the current needs of families while also shining a light on new and emerging trends. Participants attending this symposium will have an opportunity to learn, engage, and network with expert speakers from across the country presenting on innovative topics that intersect with family support and child abuse prevention practices.
The PA Child Abuse Prevention Symposium will be held virtually via Zoom and all participants will have an opportunity to attend each session during the symposium. Participants will also have an opportunity to learn about PFSA’s current work in each topic area and what is to come as new programs and resources are made available.
Presenter handouts will be available for all registered participants. Additionally, all registered participants will be eligible for continuing education credits (CEUs), continuing legal education hours (CLEs), and ACT 48 credits.
ASL interpretation and closed captioning will be available to all participants.
Session Topics
- How Do We Talk About Childhood Adversity and Prevention?
- Practices and Resources for Serving Kinship Families
- Recognizing Abuse and Interviewing “Non-verbal” Children
- Technology’s Child: Putting the Research on Kids and Tech to Work for Families
Timeline
- April 17, 2023: Registration Opens
- July 31, 2023: Early Bird Registration Ends
- September 8, 2023: Registration Closes
Registration & Pricing
- Early Bird Registration $135; Regular Registration $150
- CBCAP Network receives 10% discount, which can be stacked on top of Early Bird Registration
- All registrations include CEUs, CLEs, Act 48 credits
Symposium Agenda
| 8:30am – 9:00am | Welcome / ‘Power of Prevention’ | PFSA |
| 9:00am – 10:30am | How Do We Talk About Childhood Adversity and Prevention? | Amy Templeman |
| 10:30am – 10:45am | BREAK | ALL |
| 10:45am – 12:15pm | Practices and Resources for Serving Kinship Families | Generations United |
| 12:15pm – 12:45pm | BREAK / LUNCH | ALL |
| 12:45pm – 2:15pm | Recognizing Abuse and Interviewing “Non-verbal” Children | Modell Consulting Group |
| 2:15pm – 2:30pm | BREAK | ALL |
| 2:30pm – 4:00pm | Technology’s Child: Putting the Research on Kids and Tech to Work for Families | Dr. Katie Davis |
Event Session Information
Welcome / ‘Power of Prevention’
Time: 8:30am-9:00am
Speaker: Justin Donofrio, Prevention Services Manager, Pa Family Support Alliance
Summary: During this introductory session PFSA will provide opening remarks for the annual PA Child Abuse Prevention Symposium and deliver a State of the Alliance update outlining all of the initiatives and projects from PFSA this past year. The State of Alliance update will also provide insights into the continuing and upcoming work of PFSA in collaboration with partners and stakeholders.
KEYNOTE: How Do We Talk About Childhood Adversity and Prevention?
Time: 9:00am-10:30am
Speaker: Amy Templeman, Director of Within Our Reach & Director of Practice Excellence at Social Current
Summary: There is a shift underway across child- and family-serving systems to a more preventative approach that offers upstream supports for families. In response to this shift, Social Current and Prevent Child Abuse America commissioned the FrameWorks Institute to update their 2004 guidance on framing child welfare and child adversity. This session is based on that resulting brief entitled “Reframing Childhood Adversity: Promoting Upstream Approaches.” This session will provide guidance on reframing child adversity, including abuse and neglect, as a public, preventable, and solvable issue. It will feature interactive sessions to help the audience put reframing techniques into practice in their own communications as well as a Building Better Childhoods toolkit featuring social media campaigns, template media materials, talking points, and more to help audience members incorporate framing into their own communications practices.
Practices and Resources for Serving Kinship Families
Time: 10:45am-12:15pm
Speaker: Shalah Bottoms, Technical Assistance Specialist at Generations United
Summary: There are over 2.5 million children in the U.S. being raised by grandparents, other relatives, and close family friends. Research shows that children who cannot remain with their parents thrive in kinship/grandfamilies, yet more needs to be done nationwide to ensure these families have what they need. The Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network (Network) at Generations United is the first federally funded national technical assistance center on kinship/grandfamilies working across the country to improve services and supports for these families. In this presentation, presenters will elevate recommended practices for serving kinship/grandfamilies, share useful resources, and provide an overview of the Network and how professionals can utilize its array of technical assistance to enhance their work.
Recognizing Abuse and Interviewing “Non-verbal” Children
Time: 12:45pm-2:15pm
Speaker: Staci Whitney, LMSW, Senior Director at Modell Consulting Group, LLC (MCG)
Summary: This workshop is intended for professionals who want to learn more about risks and realities for children who do not speak or who are considered “nonverbal.” This workshop will also include how to recognize abuse/neglect for children with disabilities. Through this workshop, participants will have increased understanding of verbal behavior and communication methods; increased knowledge of communication considerations when speaking with a child who does not speak; and learn reliable and legally defensible techniques that can be applied in interviews.
Technology’s Child: Putting the Research on Kids and Tech to Work for Families
Time: 2:30pm-4:00pm
Speaker: Dr. Katie Davis, Associate Professor, University of Washington (UW) & Director of the UW Digital Youth Lab.
Summary: In this session, Dr. Davis will share insights from her newest book, Technology’s Child: Digital Media’s Role in the Ages and Stages of Growing Up. Drawing on her expertise in developmental science and design research, she will describe what happens when child development and technology design interact, and how this interaction is complicated by children’s individual characteristics as well as social and cultural contexts. Critically, she’ll explain how a self-directed experience of technology—one initiated, sustained, and ended voluntarily—supports learning and development, especially when it takes place within the context of community support, and how an experience that lacks these qualities can have the opposite effect.
PA Child Abuse Symposium Speakers
Amy Templeman, a kinship and adoptive parent, is the director of Within Our Reach, and director of practice excellence at Social Current. In these roles, she works to support families and promote equity. Before joining Social Current, Amy served as executive director of the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities, leading the effort to produce a report to the president and Congress. Amy helped to establish the Office of Well Being at the District of Columbia’s child welfare agency, where she conducted strategic planning and oversaw programs to address substance use disorders, domestic violence, education, housing, and child care. She gained research experience while working first at The Urban Institute, contributing to a book and reports on the benefits of kinship care, and later at Johns Hopkins University, managing a community-based, participatory research grant through the CDC resulting in better adolescent mental health.
Shalah Bottoms, Technical Assistance Specialist for the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network. Shalah is responsible for connecting system leaders to information and resources, collaborating with subject matter experts, and supporting the wide range of technical assistance provided by the Network. Prior to joining Generations United, Shalah was the Program Director of Family Support Services at Catholic Charities of Louisville where she managed multiple direct service programs, primarily for pregnant and parenting individuals. In this role, she had the opportunity to coordinate a short-term program for grandparents and kin raising children. Shalah received her Master of Social Work degree from the University of Kentucky. In addition to her professional experience, Shalah is personally connected to this work as a proud member of a kinship family.
Staci Whitney, LMSW is the Senior Director for Modell Consulting Group, LLC (MCG). Since 2017, Ms. Whitney has been responsible for teaching and coauthoring trainings on interviewing individuals from vulnerable populations. Specifically, Ms. Whitney led two projects which included contributions from other national experts to develop advanced Forensic Interviewing protocols for interviewing individuals with disabilities (Project FIND) and older adults (SAFE). Prior to her work with MCG, Ms. Whitney was the Senior Forensic Interviewer at Bivona Child Advocacy Center in Rochester, NY and was responsible for developing Bivona’s Forensic Interviewing Program. During that time, Ms. Whitney had extensive training and experience in the field of Forensic Interviewing including interviewing individuals with disabilities who are victims or witnesses of crime. She has developed and delivered numerous trainings to Multidisciplinary Team Members internationally on recognizing and responding to suspicions and reports of abuse, neglect and maltreatment.
Dr. Katie Davis is Associate Professor at the University of Washington (UW) Information School and a founding member and Co-Director of the UW Digital Youth Lab. Katie investigates the impact of digital technologies on young people’s learning, development, and well-being, and co-designs positive technology experiences for youth and their families. Her work bridges the fields of human development, human-computer interaction, and the learning sciences. In her latest book, Technology’s Child: Digital Media’s Role in the Ages and Stages of Growing Up, Katie draws on her career in research and teaching as well as her experiences as a parent and educator to bring clarity to what we know about technology’s role in child development.
Virtual Event Attendee Resources
Continuing Education Units / Continuing Legal Education Credits
Social workers, marriage and family therapists, and professional counselors can earn up to 6 hours of Continuing Education Units (CEU) at no additional cost. To receive your CEU credits, please fill out this CEU request form:
Attorneys can earn up to 6 hours of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Credits at no additional cost. To receive your CLE credits, please fill out this CLE request form:
Pa educational professionals (K-12) can receive up to 6 hours of continuing education under ACT 48 at no additional cost. To receive your credit hours, please fill out this ACT 48 request form:
Speaker Handouts
Registered participants can access the handouts webpage to view and/or download handouts for each presentation session by clicking the link below.
Troubleshooting Assistance
If you experience issues accessing any information on this page, or connecting to the scheduled event sessions, please email training@pafsa.org, and include your name and contact information, so a staff member can quickly respond with assistance.
Technology’s Child
Digital Media’s Role in the Ages
and Stages of Growing Up
What happens to the little ones, the tweens, and the teenagers, when technology, ubiquitous in the world they inhabit, becomes a critical part of their lives? This timely book is a much-needed lifeline for anyone involved in caring for young people. It brings clarity to what we know about technology’s role in child development. Better yet, it provides guidance on how to use what we already know to help children of all ages make the most of their digital experiences.
From toddlers who are exploring their immediate environment to twenty-somethings who are exploring their place in society, technology inevitably and profoundly affects their development. Drawing on her expertise in developmental science and design research, Dr. Katie Davis describes what happens when child development and technology design interact, and how this interaction is complicated by children’s individual characteristics as well as social and cultural contexts.
Critically, she explains how a self-directed experience of technology—one initiated, sustained, and ended voluntarily—supports healthy child development, especially when it takes place within the context of community support, and how an experience that lacks these qualities can have the opposite effect.
Children’s experiences with technology—their “screen time” and digital social relationships—have become an inescapable aspect of growing up. For the first time, this book identifies the distinctions between different ages and stages of this engagement, and offers invaluable guidance for parents and teachers navigating the digital landscape, and for technology designers charting the way.
Book copies provided by:
Our American Family – Documentary Screening
Background: Our country is ravaged by addiction, yet out of shame, many families suffer in silence. This allows the disease to thrive and afflict generation after generation. The disease of addiction is the largest, most expensive preventable public health problem in our country today and one of the more stigmatized health issues. The disease of addiction, sometimes referred to as substance use disorder, involves brain changes that are out of an individual’s control. These brain changes can result from genetics, home environments, medications, mental health, and trauma. It is a progressive disease, but early intervention will lead to a more successful outcome.
Overview: Addiction is an all-encompassing force not only in the lives of the afflicted, but also those around them. Captured at a pivotal “nothing to lose” moment over the course of a year, OUR AMERICAN FAMILY is a radically honest portrait of five family members grappling with the legacy of generational addiction as they fight to heal resentments and pull each other out of the deepest depths.
Screening Information: All registered attendees of this year’s PA Child Abuse Prevention Symposium will be pre-registered for the virtual screening session of our Our American Family, scheduled for September 19, 2023 (1pm – 3pm Eastern). The screening session will be followed by a live talkback session with two family members from the film.
