Planning A Conference

Our association has been working diligently the past two months to plan an annual conference. Most of us have never been involved in this kind of planning prior to this. It has been quite an educational experience. The planning committee has done a wonderful job of looking at a conference theme, dates, major speakers, conference sites, food choices. We wanted to do something that involves the entire child welfare system, so we invited the Kansas Family Advisory Network to partner with us. We are also working with The Kansas Department of Judicial Administration, SRS, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Children's Alliance, and the child placement agencies. I hope I haven't left anyone out. We feel that working together is a must, and we have been very pleased with the openness and cooperation of the other agencies. We want to bring together birth families, foster, adoptive, and kinship families, new child welfare workers, and all the agencies, to talk about our system in Kansas. We want to provide education to our families, and we want to know what works, what doesn't seem to be working like we thought, what can we all do better or differently in the provision of services to children and families. Our conference is planned for July 11 in our state capitol of Topeka. We will have more about it on our website and in our newsletters. We encourage all families to let us know how things are going, not just at the conference, but throughout the year. If there are problems or concerns, we want to know so we can help find solutions. That only makes the system work more smoothly for everyone.

We will also be touring across the state during February as part of the KDHE BEST Team to present the child placement agency licensing regulation revisions. These have not been updated since the 1980s. The Team has been working on the revisions for many months, and we are now ready to have the public forums to get more input from agencies and families. If any families are interested in attending, they can check with the child placement agencies in their area to find out when those meetings are scheduled.

Thanks for checking our website, kfapa.org. Saundra Hiller, President