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Carpenter, Regi

Regi Carpenter utilizes storytelling, reflective writing and deep listening techniques in workshops designed to teach caregivers how narrative therapy can deepen their practice and help clients build resilience, resourcefulness, self-care and better coping strategies. For over twenty years, Regi Carpenter has been utilizing the power of stories to motivate, inspire, energize and focus individuals in corporate, academic and non-profit settings. Her keynotes and workshops uplift people as they are reminded of the tremendous impact each individual has within an organization. Regi’s keynotes are noted for their insight, humor and effectiveness. Her stories have been featured on Sirius Radio, Apple Seed Radio, The Moth, and NPR. Her story Snap! is a winner of the Boston StorySlam. Snap! is the true tale of her severe mental illness as a teenager and her journey back to reality. Her memoir, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner: stories of a seared childhood” is “an unexpected gift that leaves us longing for more.” Booklist Review. Regi is also the founder of Stories with Spirit, a creative initiative dedicated to bringing songs of joy and stories of hope to children and the people who love and care for them in homes, hospices, and hospitals.

Presentation(s)

The Path of Recovery: One Story at a Time

Storytelling as a Therapeutic Tool in Childhood, Adult and Family Bereavement

 

 

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“I’m a Real Girl/Boy, Not a Broken Toy”: Inviting the Disconnected Child Back into Humanity

Speaker(s):

Liz Hunter

Presentation:

All I wanted as a child was to feel like a “real” girl. Instead, I grew up in a society that inadvertently separated me with statements of “realness.” My foster parents were often asked, “Is she your real child?” I was frequently questioned, “Where are your real parents? Why doesn’t your real mom love you?” From the abusive and neglectful place I first landed to the rejecting world of foster care, I was unable to connect with the ideas of real love and family. Everything about my internal and external reality felt lacking and, therefore, inferior. I came to understand myself as an “other”—something not “real” or less than human.

As professionals, we intimately understand how attachment problems are created at home. Yet, we may not realize that victims of abuse/neglect are receiving disconnecting messages both within and outside the walls that house them. Sometimes, this disconnect is even perpetuated by the very profession that seeks to remedy it. Human helpers need to better understand how a sense of “disconnection” interplays with many of the behavioral and emotional problems we see in children from traumatic circumstances.

Children come to care about the impact of their actions on others through having a strong and healthy connection to people. But what happens when a child feels alienated from humankind? With my story, as well as my parents’ stories, I will seek to answer that question. I will explore both the interfamilial and societal dynamics that led to generation of dysfunction within my own family—dysfunction characterized by abuse, neglect, homelessness, substance abuse, mental illness, and marked parental failure. I will show how this cycle was finally broken by others simply inviting me back into humanity and showing me that I was and always had been a “real” girl.

Objectives:

  • Describe the mental processes and environmental messages that lead a child to become/feel “disconnected”
  • Explore how “disconnection” leads to negative interpretations of self
  • Explore how disconnecting from ourselves leads us to disconnect from others.
  • Show how our growth, connection, and learning needs can sometimes be met in the darkest of spaces by the most unexpected people
  • Show how children born into the same home circumstances can have different outcomes because of connections they forge
  • Show that the only cure for human connection problems is human connection.
  • Show that our hope for reaching people is through our shared humanness
  • Show that the people who changed my life the most were the people who simply identified a need within me, connected with the need, and met it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hunter, Liz

Liz Hunter survived a childhood of abuse and neglect, followed by seven years in the Missouri foster care system. Against all odds, she went on to graduate Valedictorian of her high school and become among the 3% of former foster youth to earn a college degree. She now holds degree specializations in Psychology, Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Social Work.

Liz is a writer, child welfare trainer, and speaker. She has spent the past 5 years educating people about the effects of trauma on children and the special needs of kids in the foster care system. She is the Founder of the Facebook foster care advocacy page, Foster Noise/Adopt Peace. Liz serves on the regional advisory board of Children’s Home and Aid and the governing board of The Restore Network. She has been featured on KSDK news, Bott Radio, and published in Foster Focus Magazine. Liz is the writer of the upcoming short film “Love is Never Wasted” and is in the process of publishing a memoir of her life titled “Pieces of You”.

If you were to ask Liz her proudest accomplishment, though, she would say it is her family. She has been married to her high school sweetheart for 15 years and is the mother of 4 children, 2 of whom she adopted through foster care.

Learn more about Liz, and view her speaker demo.

Liz Hunter -Speaker Demo from Liz Hunter on Vimeo.

 

 

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Self-Care Room Presentation | Relax, Move and Play (non-credit) | Limited Seating

Please note that seating for presentations in the Self-Care Room (Parasol I) are limited to 25 seats. This presentation will last from 7pm – 8pm.

Speaker(s):

Jennie Bedsworth, LCSW

Presentation: Visit the Self-Care Station for a special evening event (space limited to first 20) for some fun and expressive movement activities based on Interplay, followed by open time in the station. This presentation does not qualify for accreditation (CEUs).

Objectives:

  • Review expressive movement and ways it can benefit your self-care
  • Introduce Interplay techniques and provide education about expressive movement in community peer-based settings
  • Provide audience members opportunity to visit the self-care station during evening hours

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Community Support and Peer Support: Working Together for Success

Speaker(s):

Alexa Thompson, MS, LPC

Presentation: This presentation will explore the ways Peer Support and Community Support Services are alike and different. The presentation will focus on the roles that Community Support and Peer Support Specialists play and how each role is vital to providing effective mental health and substance use disorder services.

Objectives:

  • Describe how Peer Support and Community Support Services are alike and different.
  • Define the role of the Community Support Specialist and how this role is vital to providing effective mental health and substance use disorder services.
  • Define the role of the Peer Support Specialist and how this role is vital to providing effective mental health and substance use disorder services.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Self-Care Room Presentation | Mindfulness Meditation: An Easy and Effective Self-Care Skill | Limited Seating

Please note that seating for presentations in the Self-Care Room (Parasol I) are limited to 25 seats. This presentation will last from 2:00pm – 3:00pm.

Speaker(s):

Chun-Zi Peng, PhD

Presentation: Through mindfulness meditation, we will find inner peace and befriend our discomfort (physical or mental) to be healthier and happier.

Objectives:

  • Articulate the definition and myths of mindfulness meditation
  • Provide scientific evidence for how mindfulness meditation works
  • Guide audience through meditation to be inspired to learn more on meditation for self-care purposes or to integrate into their practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Self-Care Room Presentation | Aroma Freedom Technique; the Movement of Essential oils into Mental Health | Limited Seating

Please note that seating for presentations in the Self-Care Room (Parasol I) are limited to 25 seats.

Speaker(s):

Stephanie Mobley, MSW, LCSW

Presentation: In this presentation, the focus will be discussing alternative treatment methods in mental health; focused on aromatherapy and a specific technique by Dr. Benjamin Perkus, Clinical Psychologist, called the Aroma Freedom Technique.

Objectives:

  • Review the Aroma Freedom Technique.
  • Discuss how to help clients through out-of-the-box thinking and treatment styles.
  • Describe how to work with any diagnosis through Aroma Freedom Technique.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Beyond Awareness: Changing systems to reverse the overdose epidemic

Speaker(s):

Ned Presnall, MSW, LCSW and Robert Riley II, MAADC II

Presentation: For at least a decade, we have been training front-line substance abuse counselors in the science of addiction and Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT). Many counselors have come to understand that effective treatment for opioid dependence starts with medication. Yet, lack of access to maintenance pharmacotherapy remains a major contributor to our rising overdose rate. This presentation will look at the system-level barriers to treatment access and propose effective and cost-effective models of treatment that can be used to improve access to treatment on a large scale. The presenter will argue that even without additional financial resources to fight OUD we could be using the resources we already have to begin reversing the overdose epidemic.

Objectives:

  • Explain which approaches to OUD are best supported by research.
  • Review cost-effective and scalable models of OUD treatment with potential to reverse the opioid epidemic, e.g. models that can be implemented in primary care.
  • Describe the barriers to implementing these models and initial strategies to overcome them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Medication Assisted Treatment: Myths, Facts, and Successful Incorporation into Practice

Speaker(s):

A. Benjamin Srivastava, MD

Presentation: This will be a didactic presentation with audience engagement regarding practical issues with medication assisted treatment in addiction practice.

Objectives:

  • Describe the rationale for pharmacotherapy in addiction treatment
  • Explain reasons for under utilization
  • Promote evidence based practices

Slides:

Srivastava_DMHSpringTraining2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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My Career in Translational Research: From 1972-Present

Speaker(s):

Mark Gold, MD

Presentation:  This presentation will review the early work on drugs, memory, and state dependency of memory and how these relate to slips, relapse, cravings and depression. The link between locus coeruleus to opiate withdrawal and nucleus accumbens to cocaine withdrawal will be described. The dopamine hypothesis and proof of cocaine being addictive led to a change in the DSM diagnosis for addiction and made it possible for gambling and other processes to be addictive. The learner will follow the theory to the development of new treatments for opiate, cocaine, and other addictive processes. The learner will understand how smoking is injection without a needle and how smoking cigarettes or marijuana is like and unlike nicotine or THC.

Objectives:

  • Review the early work on drugs, memory and state dependency of memory and how these relate to slips, relapse, cravings and depression.
  • Discuss the link between locus coeruleus to opiate withdrawal and nucleus accumbens to cocaine withdrawal.
  • Outline the theory to the development of new treatments for opiate, cocaine and other addictive processes.
  • Describe how smoking is injection without a needle and how smoking cigarettes or marijuana is like and unlike nicotine or THC.

Slides:

Gold_Missouri handout

Gold-RYCU April 2017

Gold-RYCU May 2017