We have a lot planned for Together Called 2024 in addition to hearing from J.R. Briggs and Graham + Abby Allen throughout the weekend.
Preconference Session Friday Afternoon
Lessons in Listening and Thoughtful Repair: Relational Practices to Support Your Family
Relationships are hard. Arguably, foster and adoptive parents know this more than most. We invite you to start your Together Called weekend experience here, joining with others to reflect on our experience of relationships, explore what the term attunement means, and practice in real time how we can offer and receive it through the tool of reflective listening and thoughtful repair. Our goal is for this workshop to be experiential, practical, and a helpful bridge into the weekend..
About the facilitator:
Kelly Raudenbush and her husband Mark cofounded The Sparrow Fund with the mission of caring for foster and adopted children and their grownups by empowering relationships within and between families. What started as a small ministry where they could serve together has grown into full-time work for them both. With a Master’s degree in counseling from Missio Seminary and a certificate in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health from Georgetown University, Kelly has a particular interest in partnering with parents to help children process and understand their histories in healing ways; encouraging, equipping, and empowering parents as they navigate the effects of trauma; and helping caregivers and teachers in her own neighborhood and across the world best experience the power of relationship. But, her biggest passion resides in glorifying God within their own family, as a wife and a mother to their four children…and their two dogs.
Optional Breakout Sessions Saturday Afternoon
Managing All the Meltdowns (Theirs and Ours)
Oh no, here we go again! Another flare up, just a different day! Our children’s tough situations often become our tough situations as we try to manage their meltdowns and our own. In this workshop, we will unpack frustration in children, the whys and wherefores, and offer you tools to help you manage your own anxiety and regulation and equip you to support your children in the same. Sounds like magic? No, it’s not magic, but it is an effective method that has empowered many families in managing all the meltdowns while maintaining respect for themselves and promoting self-respect and positive identity in the children they love and care for.
About the facilitator:
Maude Le Roux, OTR/L is an occupational therapist and director of A Total Approach, a private therapy center in Glen Mills, PA since 2001. She opened her online academy in 2019. She trains extensively nationally and internationally, empowering both professionals and parents in their care of children. Maude is a great believer in the human spirit and believes that God created the human brain and, therefore, holds the key to true healing of body, spirit, and mind.
What Teen Adoptees Need: Seeing the Valuable Child Within Your Growing Adolescent
Teenagers are hard to care for. Teenagers with a history of trauma are hard to understand. Parents often ask: Is it trauma? Is this the stage of adolescence? Is it our parenting strategy? In this session, we will unpack how adoption trauma can manifest itself within a teen’s unique developmental stage. Sara will lend personal insights and offer practical ways parents can support teens to grow their sense of feeling seen, valued, and heard and connect in ever deeper ways.
About the facilitator:
Sara Odicio is a licensed social worker and an adult adoptee who was adopted from an orphanage in China when she was 13 months old. Sara has worked with adoptive families since 2018 in various capacities including post permanency case management, parent education, mentoring, support group facilitating and clinical therapy. Through these opportunities, Sara felt challenged to engage with her own adoption journey on a deeper level. Sara founded CORE of Adoption, LLC in 2021 to combine her life experience, skillset and passion in supporting teen adoptees through coaching and support groups. Aside from CORE, Sara works in a local foster care and adoption agency as an outpatient therapist with the goal of earning her clinical license in social work. Sara currently resides in Lancaster County, PA with her husband Jared and two fluffy cats, Misty and Milo. She enjoys finding hole-in-the-wall food places, taking walks, deep and edifying conversations, and serving as a worship leader at her local church.
Intimately Acquainted: Reclaiming Connection, Friendship, and Pleasure With Your Spouse
We may know what it is to be in love; to share hopes, dreams, and desires with our spouse. But, life has a way of filling up and crowding out the deeper connection that many of us envisioned in our marriages. How do we build intimacy in the midst of life’s chaos and challenges? How do we find our way back to one another when seasons have changed us? How do we make space for pleasure in a world where “doing hard things” has become our way of life? Together, let’s unpack these questions and more as we reimagine our relationships with greater pleasure, connection, and desire.
About the facilitator:
Adriane Dimmitt and her husband Mike, have been married for 14 years, and together are raising four wild and wonderful children. As former foster parents, they know firsthand the struggle of staying connected in the midst of life’s demands. As a writer and speaker, Adriane is passionate about advocating for foster care, parenting children with neurological autoimmune issues, and grieving well. And, oh yes, she’s also passionate about having a marriage that gets better with age and helping others do the same! This year, Adriane has launched a new initiative, Redeeming Childhood, to better equip families facing behavioral and mental health struggles as a result of underlying autoimmune conditions. Her work has given her the privilege of connecting with many families as they pursue wellness for their children. Most days, you will find her at her dining room table, homeschooling her kids, taking long walks in the fields nearby, or dreaming up a new project with her husband.