New Year? We’re in the Air!
It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say we’ve hit the ground running in 2024 here at the Resource Center for Family Focused Practice; in fact, there might not have been any contact with the ground at all. We were absolutely flying to end 2023 and continue to soar as a team straight into 2024.
Speaking of being airborne, time really is flying. Can you believe we’re only five months out from the next Partnerships for Well-Being Institute? We hope you will join is June 12-14 in beautiful Garden Grove, California (next to Disneyland) to experience our exciting lineup of fresh presenters, topics and activities designed to energize and inspire practitioners serving the Children’s System of Care (including child welfare, behavioral health, early childhood, education, probation, providers [community partners], regional centers, resource families and tribal communities). To gain more insight about the Institute experience, please check out Glenda Estrada’s article in this issue, Wraparound Coordinator Turned Wraparound Advocate at the Partnerships for Well-Being Institute.
Enrollment for the 2 and ½ conference-style Institute is now open and will be discounted if you register before March 22. You can find all the details at our event website: https://humanservices.ucdavis.edu/events/partnerships-well-being-institute.
On a more personal note, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting this very long month of January. The start of 2024 brought a profound loss for me. My father passed on New Year’s Eve, and through that lens I started 2024 wondering at the complexity of our lives.
When I first began working in a professional capacity after I graduated from college (a very long time ago), there was a focus on keeping personal lives separate from our professional lives. It has felt like a much-needed deep breath of fresh air to see the research and push to embrace the notion that we are complex human beings who can be both professional and messy with personal lives at the same time. This both/and thinking has become more and more common place in Human Services, and I can’t think of a community who has been more accepting of this than that of Wraparound. This is evident in how the Wraparound community honors and prioritizes lived expertise and natural supports. Two articles in this newsletter highlight the magic that happens when our needs for both physical and psychological safety are met: Family Partner – 10 Years Later! by Jean Philson; and Prevention Through Empowering Communities by Sydney Bice. Both articles provide inspiring stories of overcoming, growing, and then giving right back to the community through becoming Wraparound professionals.
It seems to me that Wraparound embraces humanity—which is a gift that is remembered. Please read the article, We Never Gave Up! Ten Years After Wraparound, which documents a family’s look-back at their time in Wraparound and provides a beautiful example of how this family continues to flourish after graduating by providing each other safe spaces, support and unconditional love.
I am very proud of the work the Resource Center for Family Focused Practices is doing, the eclectic team and instructor pool we have continued to build (wow did we grow!) and the intentional and mindful approaches toward diversity, equity and inclusion provided in our curriculum.
As we all continue to grow, soar and strive to be the very best versions of ourselves, it is important to acknowledge that safety needs, and what they may look like, is as diverse as each person you encounter. I hope you enjoy this edition of the Wraparound Connections Newsletter and hope to see you in June at the Partnerships for Well-Being Institute!
We hope you enjoy this issue of the Wraparound Connections newsletter!