Agenda
TENTATIVE AGENDA SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
| 8:30 AM–5:15 PM | Site Visits (See below for details) |
| 2:00 PM–5:00 PM | General Registration |
| 5:30 PM–6:30 PM | Dessert & Debrief for Site Visit Attendees |
Thursday, January 16, 2020
| 8:00 AM–4:30 PM | General Registration |
| 8:00 AM–9:00 AM | Breakfast |
| 9:00 AM–10:30 AM | Welcome and Keynote Address |
| 10:45 AM–12:15 PM | Breakout Session 1 |
| 12:30 PM–2:30 PM | Lunch and Keynote Address |
| 2:45 PM–4:15 PM | Breakout Session 2 |
| 4:30 PM–6:30 PM | Cocktail Reception |
Friday, January 17, 2020
| 8:00 AM–2:00 PM | General Registration |
| 8:00 AM–9:00 AM | Breakfast and Keynote Address |
| 9:15 AM–10:45 AM | Breakout Session 3 |
| 11:00 AM–12:30 PM | Breakout Session 4 |
| 12:45 PM–2:00 PM | Lunch and Keynote Address |
| 2:15 PM–3:00 PM | Breakout Session 5 |
| 3:00 PM | Conference Ends |
We’re still finalizing details for next year’s breakout sessions. Submit a proposal here. Subscribe for updates as we finalize the agenda.
Site Visits
HomeFront
8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
HomeFront’s Family Campus in Ewing, NJ is a 42,000-square-foot decommissioned Naval base that underwent a $6 million makeover to now provide 38 families with on-site access to child care, job training, and other services designed to break the cycle of homelessness. The Campus opened in September of 2015, offering much more than temporary housing. It is a leading-edge, one-stop social-service campus that emphasizes practical training while restoring the spirit. The Campus includes a quality child care center, life-skills academy including a teaching kitchen to provide hands-on instruction in cooking and nutrition for families, job training from computers and customer-service to the hospitality industry, healing through the arts for both adults and children, and an overall literacy-rich environment designed to encourage young readers and for parents to become more literate and employable and to earn their high school equivalency diplomas. The tour will include a discussion of HomeFront’s community-based emphasis both on creating a community within the central hub of the campus for resident families as well as how HomeFront benefits from the greater community in terms of volunteers, in-kind, and monetary donations. This is a full day site visit with a significant amount of time on a bus. Lunch will be provided. https://www.homefrontnj.org
Saratoga Family Residence
9:00 AM – 2:00 PM
The Saratoga Family Residence is the largest of Homes for the Homeless’ Community Residential Resource Centers (CRRCs), providing 255 New York City families with children with more than just a place to sleep. The CRRC model combines the services of a traditional family shelter with a full range of programs designed to meet the diverse needs of both the homeless families residing in the shelter and residents from surrounding neighborhoods. At the Saratoga, parents drop toddlers off at child care on their way to work, after-school teachers greet kids as they come home from school, and families bond together at special community events. Children participate in a full range of after-school enrichment, from team sports to creative writing. Parents meet with employment and housing specialists who help them prepare for job interviews, learn valuable life skills, and find apartments of their own. Participants will explore the residence, and participate in a discussion on program opportunities and challenges with senior staff. https://www.hfhnyc.org
DMF Youth – Morning Cohort
9:30 AM – 11:45 AM
DMF Youth Founder Lindi Duesenberg will lead an interactive dance-fitness and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) site visit providing participants with creative ideas about how to weave SEL competencies into their work. SEL helps underserved and homeless youth navigate and rise above difficult academic and social challenges rarely addressed during the traditional school day. This highly impactful approach teaches youth the value of perseverance, creativity, conflict resolution, and empathy. Youth learn how to embrace and cultivate their strengths and accept the differences in those around them. Creative engagement—whether it be dance, art, acting, or other media—helps engage the whole child, enhancing the SEL competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. Wear comfortable clothes and join in as Duesenberg models several mini dance-fitness and SEL lessons. http://dmfyouth.org
Urban Resource Institute
9:45 AM – 2:30 PM
Urban Resource Institute (URI) is the largest provider of domestic violence shelters and services in New York State, with the ability to house close to 1,200 individuals at any given time. URI’s client-centered, trauma-informed approach looks at the devastating statistics of victims of intimate partner violence, and the barriers that prevent them from leaving in order to better provide programs and resources that empower victims to escape. Nearly half of domestic violence victims with pets reported remaining in an abusive or unsafe situation due to fear for the welfare of their pets. Not only are pets an integral part of a family, but studies show there are significant therapeutic and medical benefits that pets have on the recovery and healing process. In 2013, URI launched PALS (People and Animals Living Safely), the first program in NYC and one of the very few in the nation to allow co-living for domestic violence survivors and their pets together in the same apartment. Since 2013, PALS has expanded rapidly serving over 140 families and 200 pets. They have welcomed dogs, cats, fish, lizards, guinea pigs, birds, and more. Participants will visit PALS Place, a 30-unit emergency domestic violence shelter, and the first of its size in the country to be 100% pet-friendly, built from the ground up with the well-being of people and pets in mind. The site visit will include a tour of the shelter, an explanation on the intentional design elements for pets, the chance to meet a case worker who provides support on-site for residents, and a Q&A. Participants will travel to this site visit as a group by subway and must be prepared to walk short distances and take stairs. https://urinyc.org/
Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center (MSAHC)
10:00 AM – 12:45 PM
Adolescence is a time of transition that can be filled with questions and challenges. At Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center (MSAHC), at-risk children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 10 through 22) access an expert team to help them deal with issues that may arise during this period of change. The multidisciplinary staff includes pediatricians who specialize in Adolescent Medicine, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, health educators, and support staff specially trained to work with teens. Services include primary health care, sexual and reproductive health care, dental care, optometric care, counseling, support, health education, and mental health and family therapy. In a typical year, MSAHC serves more than 12,000 patients, who log more than 60,000 visits. In addition to youth from the neighboring communities, others from throughout the five boroughs travel for up to five hours, round trip, to benefit from the MSAHC’s welcoming environment, trust-inspiring staff, integrated and confidential care that is delivered at no cost to the patients. MSAHC also offers Health Squad, a mobile application, to connect with teens, allowing them to ask questions, get advice, and make appointments at the center in addition to receiving appointment reminders (https://teenhealthcare.org/). The S.P.E.E.K. program offers participants an opportunity to become peer educators with the goal of empowering other young people to make healthy and informed life choices. Teen Fit motivates young people to improve their fitness with fun workouts and classes. https://teenhealthcare.org/
Writopia Lab
10:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Writopia Lab is a national nonprofit based in NYC that fosters joy, literacy, and critical thinking in children and teens from all backgrounds through creative writing. They serve over 4,000 youth per year, including over 1,000 children and teens who live in homeless shelters, residential treatment facilities, or attend schools with high numbers or percentages of children from low-income families. Last year, Writopia participants showed remarkable social-emotional gains, improving in areas of Positive Identity, Self-Management, Academic Self-Efficacy, Social Skills, and Social Capital. Every day, Writopia instructors witness the transformative power of being heard. Working with families and children experiencing homelessness, we all in some way help our youth formulate and take control of their own narratives. Writing workshops are just as necessary for adults. In this small group writing workshop, site visit attendees will receive a much-needed space to reflect on and tell their own personal stories. https://www.writopialab.org/
CUNY CAT – Morning Cohort: Building Trust with Families and Young Children
10:30 AM – 12:15 PM
Building Trust with Families and Young Children The City University of New York Creative Arts Team (CUNY CAT) early learning and professional development team will lead a hands-on interactive workshop using scenes and drama strategies to present questions and facilitate strategies that support engagement and trust-building with families and children who are among the most vulnerable of persons without a safe and dependable place to call home. CUNY CAT uses theater and interactive drama as a catalyst to address academic and social issues, including programs that promote literacy, college and career readiness, social and emotional learning, violence prevention, conflict resolution, and arts learning. Workshop participants are invited to reflect on their own relationship with “trust” and how that impacts how they, as leaders/facilitators, enter the space they work in and, in turn, engage their specific population. During the session, facilitators will model several engagements that support trust building. Participants will have time to reflect both on those strategies as well as the facilitation style, and consider how they might adapt and/or reapply them to meet their diverse needs. This workshop is designed for developing strategies to engage families and their young children (through elementary school-age). https://CreativeArtsTeam.org
Allie’s Place Family Residence
11:00 AM – 3:45 PM
The Allie’s Place Family Residence will be the newest of Homes for the Homeless’ Community Residential Resource Centers (CRRCs). The CRRC model combines the services of a traditional family shelter with a full range of programs designed to meet the diverse needs of both the homeless families residing in the shelter and residents from surrounding neighborhoods. Allie’s Place will promote community integration through its centerpiece Culinary Education and Employment Center designed to teach the foundational skills and provide the experience necessary to obtain employment in a variety of culinary settings, including commercial and institutional kitchens, restaurants, cafes, and cafeterias, depending on their field of specialty (culinary arts, baking and pastry arts, or barista). This program will have shelter residents and non-resident community members learning side by side, their children playing together in an on-site child care program, and the wider community engaged with our mutual efforts to enhance the local environment for all neighbors. Participants will explore the newly-built residence including the state-of-the-art culinary education center and participate in a discussion on program opportunities and challenges with senior staff. This was previously listed as Soundview Family Residence. https://www.hfhnyc.org
DMF Youth – Afternoon Cohort
1:00 PM – 3:15 PM
DMF Youth Founder Lindi Duesenberg will lead an interactive dance-fitness and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) site visit providing participants with creative ideas about how to weave SEL competencies into their work. SEL helps underserved and homeless youth navigate and rise above difficult academic and social challenges rarely addressed during the traditional school day. This highly impactful approach teaches youth the value of perseverance, creativity, conflict resolution, and empathy. Youth learn how to embrace and cultivate their strengths and accept the differences in those around them. Creative engagement—whether it be dance, art, acting, or other media—helps engage the whole child, enhancing the SEL competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. Wear comfortable clothes and join in as Duesenberg models several mini dance-fitness and SEL lessons. http://dmfyouth.org
CUNY CAT – Afternoon Cohort: Building Trust with Teenage Populations
1:30 PM – 3:15 PM
Building Trust with Teenage Populations The City University of New York Creative Arts Team (CUNY CAT) Social and Emotional Learning and professional development team will lead a hands-on interactive workshop using scenes and drama strategies to present questions and facilitate strategies that support engagement and trust-building with middle school-age and high school-age populations who have experienced or at risk of experiencing homelessness. CUNY CAT uses theater and interactive drama as a catalyst to address academic and social issues, including programs that promote literacy, college and career readiness, social and emotional learning, violence prevention, conflict resolution, and arts learning. Given the prevalence of homelessness among school-age students, service providers, educators and policy makers have an urgent need to build mutual trust with those they serve to support them to meet life and educational challenges. Workshop participants are invited to reflect on their own relationship with “trust” and how that impacts how they, as leaders/facilitators, enter the space they work in and, in turn, engage their specific population. During the session, facilitators will model several engagements that support trust building. Participants will have time to reflect both on those strategies as well as the facilitation style, and consider how they might adapt and/or reapply them to meet their diverse needs. https://CreativeArtsTeam.org
