Training Services
Training Services
Mark has been trained to facilitate several workshops that provide participants with knowledge and skills regarding the needs of children and families and how to best address those needs. Various programs are appropriate for staff, volunteers, board members and community members. You will find more detailed information about these training opportunities below. Mark will also work with your organization to develop customized training to meet your specific needs.
Workshops and Training Series
Search Institute’s Everyone’s an Asset Builder
For more than 30 years Search Institute has studied Developmental Assets® in the lives of millions of young people in the U.S. and around the world. Grounded in extensive research in youth development, resiliency, and prevention, Developmental Assets are the 40 strengths and supports that young people need to succeed. When young people have more assets, they are more likely to thrive now and in the future and less likely to engage in high-risk behaviors. This workshop helps participants recognize how they can be Asset Builders for young people. It is appropriate for parents, staff and volunteers of youth serving organizations and schools, and anyone who is in contact with young people.
Search Institute’s Sharing the Asset Message
This workshop is a follow up to Everyone's an Asset Builder and helps participants build strategies for sharing the asset message with others who have contact with young people and can become Asset Builders for them.
Prevent Child Abuse Georgia’s Mandated Reporter Training
In Georgia, anyone who works with children and youth, whether as a paid worker or volunteer, is a Mandated Reporter of child abuse or neglect. Child serving professionals and volunteers may suspect child abuse or have a child disclose abuse to them through their work with children. However, barriers such as fear of reporting, the inability to recognize all forms of child abuse, and vague organizational policies may prevent professionals from making a report of child abuse or neglect. This training helps participants understand their role as mandated reporters. It provides discussion-based scenarios and is designed to help mandated reporters or any adult understand: • Types of abuse and related indicators • How to handle a disclosure of abuse • Rights and responsibilities of a Mandated Reporter • Basic procedures for reporting suspected child abuse. Unlike other workshops on this topic, it also helps reporters understand how they can go beyond reporting suspicions of abuse or neglect to becoming supporters of families in need.
Prevent Child Abuse Georgia’s Lean on Me: Creating a Culture of Support
While it is important for Mandated Reporters to understand their role in recognizing and reporting abuse, expanding their scope to that of Mandated Supporter empowers them to be proactive in their response against child abuse and neglect. The concept of Mandated Supporters replaces family surveillance with a variety of supportive responses to bolster and nurture family well-being. This presentation will help participants better understand strategies to connect families to resources and support to reduce ‘family overwhelm’ and prevent child abuse and neglect.
Strengthening Families Georgia’s Protective Factors Trainings
In 2001, the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) began studying the role that early childcare and education programs nationwide could play in strengthening families and preventing abuse and neglect. For the first time, they linked research about preventing child abuse and neglect with similar knowledge about quality early care and education. They developed a new model and approach to preventing child abuse and neglect, called Strengthening Families. ™ Instead of focusing on family and community risk factors, the Strengthening Families ™ model focuses on strengths and Protective Factors. It identifies five Protective Factors that when present … and strong … in families help prevent child abuse and neglect as well as supporting children’s optimal healthy growth and development. This workshop series consists of six sessions that provide an overview of the Strengthening Families model followed by a closer look at the Five Protective Factors:
- Parental Resilience
- Social Connections
- Knowledge of Child Development
- Concrete Support in Times of Need
- Social and Emotional Competence of Children
This training is for staff and volunteers who work in child and family serving organizations. Organizations can choose to offer all six workshops or focus on specific workshops of interest to their participants.
Resilient Georgia’s “Trauma 101” – A Case for a Trauma-Informed Approach
The purpose of this workshop, its associated activities and discussions is to increase awareness and understanding of adverse childhood experiences (ACES), the trauma resulting from those experiences, and its effects on children, brain development, behavior, families and our communities. Participants are encouraged to become trauma informed and/or trauma competent. It is appropriate for anyone who works with children and young people.
Connections Matter
Connections Matter is designed to engage community members in building caring connections to improve resiliency. The Connections Matter Georgia initiative is a collaboration with Prevent Child Abuse Georgia and the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy. Connections Matter is an interactive, discussion-based curriculum that leads to better understanding of trauma, brain development, resilience, and health. Participants will explore how ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) adversely affect brain development and health outcomes, learn how caring connections serve as a primary buffer in the negative effects of trauma, and develop strategies for strengthening both personal and community resilience. The training provides concrete knowledge about ACEs, engages participants in action planning and next steps for how they can make a difference, provides resources on trauma-informed care and implementation and addresses strategies for increasing and improving one's own connections and tools for strengthening both personal and community resilience.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND? • Parents • Community Members • Childcare/Family Support Professionals • Non-Profit Professionals • Medical/Human Services Providers • Faith Organizations • Educators
The training lasts four hours and can be presented in one 4-hour session, two 2-hour sessions or four 1-hour sessions. Approved for 4 hours of CEU credit: LPCs, LMFTs, LCSW, Law Enforcement, SCEIs and Bright from the Start (Must attend all 4- hours of training to receive credit).
Becoming a More Resilient Parent
Resilience is often thought of as the ability to bounce back from a tough time. This training looks at resilience as bouncing forward. Parents frequently model resilience for their children. Their actions – no matter how small – can have a big impact on their children and ultimately, on our communities. This training discusses our responses to stress, the impacts stress can have, ways we can promote positive childhood experiences and create resilience through connection. This 2-hour workshop developed by the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy covers much of the same material that is covered in Connections Matter but is specifically tailored for parents.
Customized Training
Mark’s background as both a child and family services professional and an educator equips him to work with organizations to develop customized training programs to meet their specific needs.