Calendar
The human services workforce is encountering many challenges related to recruitment, retention, and staff morale. A major factor contributing to these challenges is compassion fatigue – an unintended consequence of working in helping professions. External life factors can easily exacerbate commitment to day-to-day responsibilities, resulting in missed opportunities for support, and a lack of empathy for others.
Daily stressors can also impact on individual mental and physical health overall. When these variables are coupled with challenging or high-stress work environments, it can be easy for anyone to become increasingly overwhelmed. This may be seen in work performance, decision-making, and with peer-to-peer relationships.
Effective leadership practices, supervision skills, and support strategies can help prevent burnout and reduce staff turnover. Using CWLA’s 4 A’s framework, this training will focus on:
- Increase Awareness of the many challenges and contributing factors that can create/ exacerbate compassion fatigue in the workplace
- Acknowledge the complexity of these issues and the role supervisors can play in supporting self-evaluation and professional growth
- Identify Actions supervisors and individual staff can take to create a positive work environment and promote psychological safety
- Discuss shared Accountability to empower and support staff with a proactive approach to reducing compassion fatigue and identifying measurable progress
Trainer: Marcus Stallworth, LMSW, CWLA Director, Training and Implementation.
Parents who adopt a child often do so without a complete knowledge of the child’s early developmental history, including prenatal alcohol exposure. This training session presents the findings of a qualitative research study that explored the lived experiences of adoptive parents who unknowingly adopted a child later diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). Through these parents’ narratives, the session will illuminate the emotional, relational, and systemic challenges they faced. The session will also highlight strategies for supporting children with FASD, including hands-on approaches that enhance co-regulation, strengthen external structure, and reduce cognitive and sensory overload in home, school, and clinical settings.
Trainers:
Ira J. Chasnoff, M.D., an award-winning author, researcher and lecturer, is President of NTI Upstream and a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago. He is one of the nation’s leading researchers in the field of child development and the effects of environmental factors on the developmental trajectory of children and adolescents. Dr. Chasnoff’s work encompasses community approaches to the integration of behavioral health services into primary health care, the schools, and the other multiple systems that serve children and families.
Christine Schmidt, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist who has specific interest and expertise in working with youth and families impacted by prenatal substance use and pre- and post-natal trauma. Most recently, Dr. Schmidt co-directed a three-year grant designed to help address the impact of secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma on professionals working with youth in the child welfare system. Dr. Schmidt has been a member of NTI Upstream’s training faculty for over 15 years and provides consultative psychological services to administrators, caseworkers, and other professionals.
Amy Groessl, PhD, a licensed clinical social worker, brings extensive expertise in treating children and adults with complex trauma histories, neurocognitive challenges, attachment disorders, and adoption-related issues. She is based in Chicago and provides psychotherapy, clinical supervision, and consultation through her private practice. Dr. Groessl has been with NTI Upstream’s Training Faculty since 2016. She is also a Core Faculty member at the Institute for Clinical Social Work, where she teaches courses on qualitative research, trauma, attachment theory, and neuropsychology.
Sue Green, OTR/L, has practiced as a pediatric occupational therapist since 1987, culminating in over three and a half decades of knowledge. Currently, Sue is the Pediatric OT/PT supervisor at The Chautauqua Center, Inc in Jamestown, NY, providing early intervention, preschool and pediatric outpatient services to those who need it most. Sue has been a member of NTI Upstream’s senior faculty since 2023, providing education and training to healthcare and social service professionals who share a common goal of enhancing positive outcomes for the children and families they treat.
REGISTER HERE
Team Dynamics, LLC is collaborating with the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council to offer the Taking Action Against Abuse is an interactive workshop. This workshop is designed to equip individuals with IDD, caregivers, families, and community partners with the knowledge and skills to recognize, prevent, and respond to abuse and neglect. This session will cover the definitions and signs of abuse, the importance of self-advocacy, and practical steps for reporting and intervention. Participants will engage in activities, discussions, and exercises to strengthen their ability to take protective action. By fostering awareness, confidence, and collaboration, this training empowers individuals with IDD and their support networks to create safer, more supportive environments.
Taking Action Against Abuse is an interactive training designed to equip individuals with IDD, Caregivers, families, and community partners with the knowledge and skills to recognize, prevent, and respond to abuse and neglect. This session will cover the definitions and signs of abuse , the importance of self-advocacy, and exercises to strengthen their ability to take protective action. By fostering awareness, confidence, and collaborations, this training empowers individuals with IDD and their support networks to create safer, more supportive environments.
Join us to be part of the solution – because awareness leads to action, and action leads to change.
Speakers
Sharon Delvisco, DSW, has over 30 years of experience supporting, educating, and providing technical assistance to people with disabilities to live and work in the community, their families, their service providers. She has received the Mentorship Award, the Humanitarian Award, and the Education Award from the American Association of Intellectual Disabilities Louisiana Chapter. She also received the Professional Advocate Award from the Advocacy Center in Louisiana. She has served on FPHSA Regional Advisory Committee and State OCDD Advisory Committee. Sharon is the parent of a young man that has IDD. She has lived experience as a person with long-term, persistent, chronic mental illness. Sharon is also a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Dr. Rebecca Mandal-Blasio is the Clinical Director in Louisiana for Autism Spectrum Therapies and is a BCBA-D. She leads a team of BCBA Supervisors and Behavior Interventionists serving families in and around the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and the Florida Parishes areas. A Louisiana native, Dr. Mandal-Blasio received her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi and completed her pre-doctoral internship at the Kennedy Krieger Institute of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as part of the Neurobehavioral Outpatient Unit and Pervasive Developmental Disorders Clinic. She also completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill’s Center for Development and Learning where she studied mental health issues in people with developmental disabilities across the lifespan.
This workshop is an in-person training event. It is not virtual.
There is no cost to attend.
The Rules of Professional Conduct make it clear: when representing a client with diminished capacity, you are ethically obligated—so far as reasonably possible—to maintain a standard attorney-client relationship. But what exactly constitutes diminished capacity? What professional and ethical responsibilities come into play when your client’s decision-making ability is impaired?
This engaging seminar will explore the answers to these critical questions. Join our experienced presenter for a discussion designed to engage attorneys seeking to navigate these complex scenarios with confidence, the program offers practical guidance and a deeper understanding of the rules that govern your role. Strengthen your ethical foundation while enhancing your capacity to advocate with professionalism and integrity.
OBJECTIVES
- Recognize concerns and challenges to ethical and professional representation when representing clients with diminished capacity.
- Identify ways to ethically and professionally address concerns and challenges to representing clients with diminished capacity.
SPEAKER
Rodney Hastings, J.D., CWLS, State of Louisiana Mental Health Advocacy Service – Child Advocacy Program
An attorney with the Mental Health Advocacy Service, Child Advocacy Program, representing foster children in Child-in-Need-of-Care court proceedings in East Baton Rouge Parish. Rodney has been active in child welfare matters since 2011, representing foster children with MHAS/CAP and Southeast Louisiana Legal Services in multiple jurisdictions, as well as serving as a regional attorney supervisor for the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services. Rodney received his undergraduate degree from Southeastern Louisiana University and his J.D. from Loyola University College of Law – New Orleans. Rodney has been certified as a Child Welfare Law Specialist by the National Association of Counsel for Children since 2015. Prior to entering the child welfare practice, Rodney spent 12 years working in various positions with the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board, including serving as a deputy disciplinary counsel with the Office of the Disciplinary Counsel and as counsel for the Board’s appellate review panels. Rodney has served as a trainer for the Pelican Center for Children and Families, and as a presenter/speaker at seminars throughout Louisiana on the topics of child welfare, ethics, professionalism, and computer forensics.