Re-Storying Our Communities: A Journey of Restoring Hope and Justice
Thursday, November 7, 2024
9:00 AM - 3:30 PM
Friday, November 8, 2024
Join us for a free, two-day, in-person conference exploring upstream practices in the collective and interdisciplinary re-storying of our work in child welfare systems.
We will explore and question our respective, existing narratives in a journey toward restoring justice and healing for children, families, and communities.
LOCATION: Historic Mason Hall, 309 South 2nd Street, Mankato, MN 56001
COST: FREE - lunch provided each day
DAY ONE will focus on re-storying/re-contextualizing of practice and positioning. Participants will explore some interesting perspectives and concepts for re-storying, and also have the chance to do some work within the space in the morning and afternoon.
DAY TWO will go deeper and participants will think together about networks and community at the center of healing, with more exercises and discussion throughout the day.
Hosted by the Child Welfare Program in the Department of Social Work at Minnesota State University, Mankato with support from the Blue Cross®and Blue Shield® of Minnesota Center for Rural Behavioral Health.
Meet Your Presenters:
Elizabeth Wendel, MSW, LSW is the president and co-founder of Pale Blue., a collaborative organization that seeks to disseminate learning and participatory methods at the intersection of Equality, Economics, and the Environment for the foundation of human health, flourishing, and justice. Pale Blue. honors the relational capability for justice and equity for each of us on this pale blue planet we call home.
Elizabeth is an accomplished expert and author in the frameworks of Family Finding® and Family Seeing®, dedicating her career to justice doing side by side with young people, parents and families. Her work began in Philadelphia, where she established the Family Finding program and provided services to over 10,000 young people, connecting them with over 26,000 supportive kinship and relational connections and reunifications. Her impact extends to families across the United States as well as across the North American, Australia, European, African and South American continents.
Elizabeth holds an MSW and LSW and used her undergraduate and graduate work to expand understanding of networks for relational health and social justice. Elizabeth spent time researching the effects of loneliness on the longest waiting young people in social care and continued that work in palliative care field work and research, connecting the string between relationships at the center of human health and flourishing for both the beginning and end of human life.
Elizabeth possesses a comprehensive understanding of organizational culture and how it affects the success, morale, and learning of an organization. She has created tools to tackle "model fatigue" in large-group learning and has extensive experience in organizational culture, funding strategies, capacity building, facilitation, trauma-informed practices, and long-term support for youth in care. She is also a certified trauma-informed care expert.
Elizabeth serves as a senior advisor to two of the largest healthcare companies in the United States, as well as providing advisory partnership to government and private organizations in Western Europe, Australia, and Canada. Her areas of expertise include strategic design, policy framing, practice model development, Family Finding®, Family Seeing®, and work in children and adult mental health systems. Beginning 2020, Pale Blue. and the Kempe Center at the University of Denver created the Truth Telling in Child Welfare collaborative, which is spreading across the United States, allowing young people, parents, relatives, and Tribes to share their testimony and post-traumatic wisdom about the harms of family separation and policing as a proxy for child safety in America.
Elizabeth is a published author and continues to write with focus in economic justice, health and human wellbeing. "Imaginative thoughts ignite the spark, but only gain strength with the beating of hearts together. Each day, the next, and the one after that, a consistent pursuit of action sets change in motion."
Raven Bartman is currently completing an undergraduate degree in sociology at Trent University; with aspirations to complete a graduate degree in counselling psychology afterwards. Raven has worked in a local and international youth advocacy position under H.E.E.R.O for a decade now, playing a vital role in working alongside vulnerable youth. Her passion for youth and connectedness is derived from her lived experience within Ontario’s foster care system. She has actively been involved in Canadian youth advisory councils and boards over the years. Raven aims to write about connectedness and belonging in the future and continues to work in advocacy, public speaking, teaching and writing spaces.
Registration Questions: Email workforce@mnsu.edu or call 507-389-1094
Training Questions: Email elizabeth.harstad.3@mnsu.edu
Center for Workforce Professional Education
workforce@mnsu.edu
