February Advanced Training

Thanks to all those who attended the Advanced Training last Thursday night. I think it was a great training and had a lot of really helpful information. I hope those that attended agreed. If you didn't attend: fear not. All of the info will be included in this post. PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THROUGH THIS STUFF. I promise it will help you to become a better peer parent! Here is an outline of the evening, along with the materials:

1) I presented on a few tips and tricks based on the most common mistakes that I see in documentation and payments. Look through this document and see if you are making any of these mistakes:
Mistakes You Might Be Making Handout

2) We had an excellent (and vibrant) presentation from our DCFS trainer, Martin Roundy, on tools you can use to better understand your clients and get to know them better. These tools include Ecomaps, Timelines and Family Systems Maps. He also showed this tv ad that demonstrates how quickly we are to judge others. It is pretty funny, so take a look:


Here is the a link to his presentation:

Tools to Use with Families to Build Trust Presentation

I hope we can start to use these tools to better engage with our clients and better understand them. An additional tool that we didn't have time to go over is genograms. These are a more simplified version of Family Systems Maps (they just show relations versus dynamics). These can be very helpful when you just want to better understand how everyone in the family fits together. Here is link to learn about genograms:

Genogram Components

3) Debbie Robinson gave a great presentation on the skill Finances. She played a really fun game with all of us that would be fun to incorporate into your lessons. She divided us into teams and gave each team an envelope. She then asked us to bring her items (shopping card, credit card, receipt, generic item, etc) and then the first team to bring it got $10 in play money, second team got $5 and the third got $1. She then followed each item with a mini-lesson. For ex- For generic item, she talked about how much you could save by switching to generic over name brand. You can come up with your own items and little lessons, or talk with Debbie to get the exact items she used. But, it could be really fun to do with your families and get everyone involved and teach them some important lessons. Debbie also provided us with the following shopping tips to save money:

Shopping Tips Handout

Thanks to Martin and Debbie for presenting! It was great stuff! Let me know if you have any questions on any of the topics listed above!