MikeMike202011-05-24T13:29:00Z2011-05-24T13:29:00Z3114465275415765614CVFAPA Meeting MinutesMay 10, 2011 6pmIN ATTENDANCE: Erica Stupka-Fisk, Erin Barnett, Tara Tilton, Danny Tilton, Carol Fellers, Gregor Fellers, Jason Farrell, Mike Sanborn, Shawn Simonds, April Simonds, Roxann Freak, Jack FreakMeeting began at 6pm with the children dismissed to childcare with dinner since we are short on time and have a lot of material to cover, we continued with greetings and introductions as we enjoyed a “pot luck” dinner. Stu Scott from Casey Family Services of NH was on the agenda but had a placement to attend and had to cancel. CVFAPA updates were discussed beginning with the Dine Out 4 Kids fund raising event being cancelled due to lack of participation by local restaurants and the inability and lack of time to run the event. Jason Farrell suggested we again attempt this particular fund raiser once we have built our membership with more willing members assistance with the planning and running. Maybe in recognition of National Adoption Month (November) this could be successful. CVFAPA was awarded a grant of $1000 to use for “general operations” by the City Of Claremont! Thanks very much to our Treasurer Cindy Enos who took the time out of her busy day to write and submit that grant request! Mike Sanborn has also just written a grant in the amount of $1500 for “general operations” from Claremont Savings Bank, Thanks Mike, we will cross our fingers, as this will make things better for CVFAPA to be in a position again to help with placement needs and other special requests. Also Mike Sanborn created, paid for and is willing to maintain and update out new CVFAPA website. It is no longer www.cvfapa.com it is again www.cvfapa.org so please check it out and give us feedback on that, and feel free to contact Tara if you have contributions to add! Our Acting Secretary Wendy Plunkett has stepped down due to scheduling conflicts, CVFAPA wishes her the best and thanks her for her service and hopes she will continue to seek our association for any support needs in the future. Thanks April and Shawn Simonds for taking the minutes for this meeting.Treasury report as of 5/10 we have $1617.40 in our account; we spent $.0 on childcare, $.0 on foster care supports, and $16.99 on business expenses {total spent $16.99} deposits to account were $.05 interest $1000 chamber grant, $20.55 profit from a Lia Sophia jewelry party {total deposits $1020.60)The Foster Parent Appreciation Breakfast is 5/14 from 9a-10a only 2 families have rsvp’d so far. Erica explained that it was not too late to attend, and reported that staff was ready to cook a yummy meal for the families to recognize all of our hard work. The Hypertherm volunteer fair will be 5/18 CVFAPA will have a 4ft space to raise funds selling raffle tickets and community awareness and asking for volunteers for such things as event planning, Fund raising, and Childcare for our meetings. Erica will be joining CVFAPA for a good portion of the event to recruit new homes.Tara will again host a cvfapa cookout on June 25th at 11am in Unity at her home. It will be pot luck, cvfapa can provide the beverages and paper products. The Simonds offered their large grill and a bounce house! RSVP will be required and you will receive an official invite.Tara and Peggy would like to have another Lia Sophia jewelry party in July, there are also more opportunities for us to pair with the North Charlestown United Methodist Church for fund raising, please watch for emails and details on that.The clothing closet is now being moved back to the dcyf office at 17 water street, if there are placements needs please contact Erica at 542-9544 ext. 397 and also you can always contact Tara for needs on nights and weekends for emergency needs.Erin Barnett PhD from West Central Behavioral Health along with Dartmouth joined us this evening to provide us with an overview of the impact of trauma on the lives of children in foster care. She is currently working on the Breakthrough Series Collaborative: Using Trauma-Informed Child Welfare Practice to Improve Foster Care Placement Stability. She also is currently doing the Granite State Training on this topic in the area, which in the future may become a required learning for foster/adoptive licensing. She began asking us to think of a past foster child, their background, trauma history, the signs they show of the trauma they have experienced, and asked us to keep that child in our mind throughout her presentation. She spoke of what qualifies as a traumatic event, and stated that a child experiences or sees an event that involved actual or threat of death or injury to self, or others, AND experiences intense fear, horror or helplessness, and defined what PTSD was (post traumatic stress disorder) as an event that causes stress symptoms for more than one month. Most children and adults recover in a natural way following trauma, but PTSD is a failure to recover naturally and this occurs in about 15%. And the symptoms following the event come from 3 categories, (1) re-experiencing (2) avoidance/numbing and (3) hyper arousal. She also spoke of “other effects” of trauma and PTSD ranging from a fussy young child, to regression, impaired learning, social, and self hatred and finally issues continuing to adult hood and leading to drug addiction.Then she asked us in thinking about that child we had in mind, what are his or her beliefs about self, others, and the world? She talked about carrying around an invisible suitcase (baggage) and how does this affect the Childs ability to learn, develop social and emotional skills? She asked “can you re-pack the suitcase? Erin told us about the ice berg model, asked us to think about the tip, what shows, and think about what is underneath that doesn’t show, and help child understand and express those feelings and actions.She gave us many ways to help such as connecting with birth families, reach out for support from religious organizations, and the community. Identify when the trauma was and its underlying behavior, and get to know “triggers” “coping style” help child indentify feelings and thoughts, validate and problem solve. Respond in a consistent, calm, understanding way, and continue to set safe limits. A routine, and consistency helps, giving children choices, and advocate for that child with the school, case workers therapists and so forth.She also told us how to react to children when they talk about their trauma, such as in a way that shows them that you want to hear about it, and can handle it, tell them how proud you are, validate their feelings as normal, and gently try to change any distortions about the event “such as it was not your fault”Erin also shared the current interventions available here in the area, one being WCBH trauma-focused assessment and treatment, two being trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) (6-18yr olds) and lastly (CPP) child-parent psychotherapy for 0-6yrs old and caregiver(s)We will post this information outlined in more details at www.cvfapa.org as she also shared with us a hand out from the NCTSN (national child traumatic stress network) in regards to age related reactions to a traumatic eventMeeting adjourned 8pm our next CVFAPA meeting will be September 13th at 6pm in Claremont at the union Episcopal Church, we will have a pot luck dinner.Please enjoy your summer with your family, you will be hearing from Tara periodically through mail or email with updates and fund raising proposals and we will be preparing to have official CVFAPA board elections. Don’t forget www.cvfapa.org