2019 Georgia Home Visiting Institute

Accelerate Your Success with Families

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Cobb Galleria Centre

Atlanta, Georgia

The 2019 Georgia Home Visiting Institute provides an opportunity for participants from across the state to network, learn, practice and develop skills to advance their ability to serve families through home visiting. 

Registration is free. Refreshments including breakfast and lunch will be provided. While participants can earn professional development hours, CEUs are not offered. 

Participants may select up to three 90-minute workshops from the list below to attend throughout the day. See the workshop descriptions or click here to download a copy.

Father Engagement in the Home Based Setting: Strategies that Work

David A. Jones, LMSW

Servicing families in the home based setting requires focus, patience and a set of skills that are difficult to describe.  Practitioners must be client-centered, culturally responsive, communicators, with keen observational skills.  Partnering with families also requires solid judgement, and the capacity to make difficult decisions in the moment.  To engage fathers’ home visitors must shed biases, trust the process and recognize that fathers are caregivers as well as providers for their children.  This session will discuss strategies used to engage and serve fathers in the home based setting. 

The Impact of Maternal Substance Abuse on Child Development

Karen Kuehn Howell, Ph.D., Emory University School of Medicine, Center for Maternal Substance Abuse and Child Development

We will discuss the impact that maternal substance abuse (MSA) has on the physical and social/emotional functioning of a young child. We will review the long-term effects of prenatal exposure to alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs such as opiates, and illicit drugs such as marijuana, on a child’s development.  We will discuss conditions of MSA, including disease, prematurity, sub-optimal caretaking, poverty, exposure to violence, neglect and maternal mental illness.  Interventions and resources for children impacted by MSA will be discussed. 

Emotional Intelligence: Integrating the Five Elements While Working with Families

Dana R. Beckham and Shekinah M. Thompson, Home Visitors, Healthy Families of Coastal Georgia

Entering a new family’s life with the intent to support can be tricky and cause stress for home visitors. This workshop will surround the importance of emotional intelligence; the five key elements home visitors will need in order to handle interpersonal relationships and how to incorporate this strategy with the families they serve. The goal for this workshop is for home visitors to become more aware of their emotions, feelings and behaviors and how they can have a direct effect on their performance.

In Her Shoes: Developing Empathy for Parents in Abusive Relationships

Sarah Baig, MSW, Home Visitation Program Specialist, Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey

One in three women and men experience abuse by an intimate partner in their lifetime. The high prevalence of this issue increases the likelihood that home visitors will come in contact with parents in abusive relationships. This workshop utilizes a live simulation activity to increase participants’ empathy for victims/survivors. Participants will develop a knowledge base of intimate partner violence and develop skills for working with parents in abusive relationships.

Cultural Humility with LGBTQ Populations

Linda Ellis, Executive Director, The Health Initiative

This workshop addresses the application of cultural humility in serving those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ). Upon conclusion of the training, you will be able to: (1) understand terminology and employ respectful language for discussing sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression; (2) summarize the harmful outcomes experienced by individuals who are marginalized due to their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression; and (3) demonstrate best practices when providing home visiting services for those who are LGBTQ. 

Strengthening Early Childhood Partnerships: The Home Visitor’s Role in Early Intervention and Supporting Children with Disabilities and their Families

Akilah Heggs Lee, PhD, Part C Coordinator, Georgia Department of Public Health 

Home visitors are valuable members of the early intervention system for children birth to three with disabilities and developmental delays. They can be involved in the Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) Team and support child and family goals. Home visiting is also integral in facilitating a smooth transition for children with disabilities as they exit the early intervention program. This interactive session will include a discussion on the specific activities that home visitors can engage in with families while they are receiving early intervention services and how to assist them in planning for transition.

Let’s Talk About Autism: Early Identification and Family Conversations

Sarah Wiegand, MEd, Department of Communication Sciences and Special Education, University of Georgia; Akilah Heggs Lee, PhD, Part C Coordinator, Georgia Department of Public Health 

This presentation will center around the early identification of autism spectrum disorder and give home visitors tools to engage in conversations surrounding autism with families.s.  Early red flags and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ (DSM-5) criteria for autism will be reviewed, leading to a discussion focused on the “how” of speaking about autism. 

Partnering with Caregivers to Understand and Address Challenging Child Behavior

Allison O’Hara, EdS, Behavior Specialist, Center for Leadership in Disability at Georgia State University; Akilah Heggs Lee, PhD, Part C Coordinator, Georgia Department of Public Health 

This workshop will be an interactive, activity-based session where home visitors will work through case examples using the powers of observation and data to better understand why challenging behavior is happening. Attendees will also learn practical, effective prevention and reinforcement-based strategies to minimize challenging behaviors. We will also discuss ways to engage caregivers to work collaboratively with home visitors throughout this assessment and intervention process.

 Body, Mind and Spirit: Staying Whole While Helping

Jean Sullivan, MDiv, Center for Public Partnerships & Research, University of Kansas 

What is your body telling you about how you are managing the stress of your work? Are you able to sleep? Are you ever forgetful or have trouble focusing? Maybe you snap at people in anger or feel pessimistic when you never used to be that way. Perhaps the ways you’ve found to cope are not healthy and will be detrimental to your long-term well-being. We’ll explore and experience a variety of ways we can engage in self-care. At the conclusion of this workshop participants will be able to: (1) identify the ways that they are responding to the stress in their lives through their bodies, minds and spirits; (2) determine which physical, mental and spiritual practices will be most helpful to them, given the responses they’ve identified; and (3) design and implement a personalized plan for self-care.

Providing Culturally Responsive Home Visiting Services

Emily Graybill, PhD, NCSP, Center for Leadership in Disability in the School of Public Health, Georgia State University

This presentation will describe specific considerations for home visitors to make to ensure they are providing culturally responsive home visiting services. Ensuring cultural responsivity requires in-depth self-reflection and understanding of one’s own cultural identity, behaviors, privilege, and implicit biases. In addition to those topics, this presentation will cover the power dynamics that can exist between family members and professionals and ways to shift that power in home visiting relationships.

Holding the Baby in Mind: Promoting Attachment and Brain Development in Home Visiting

Trasie A. Topple, LCSW, PhD, Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Specialist, School of Social Work, University of Georgia

This workshop, presented in an interactive style, will explore how early childhood experiences impact children as they develop and grow. We will look at how the brain develops, organizes, and adapts in the first years of life in the context of a child’s caregiving environment.  Next, we will explore how early childhood experiences, particularly attachment relationships, impact the stress response system as well as future capacities for emotion and behavior regulation.  Lastly, we will discuss the impact of adverse childhood experiences, trauma, and toxic stress for young children.