Presents Family Thrive Overview Webinar

Stella: [00:00:00] Well. Good afternoon and thank you so much for joining us today for the Family Thrive Overview, Kentucky Strengthening Families presented by Kentucky SPIN. My name is Stella Beard and I will be facilitating the presentation today and we will have Kellie Smith, who is our training coordinator who will be doing the presentation today.

So I want to get started with just telling you a little bit about Kentucky SPIN.  Kentucky SPIN, is the Kentucky Special Parent Involvement Network, and we are a 501-C3 nonprofit organization. The mission of Kentucky SPIN is to link families and individuals with disabilities to valuable resources that will able them to live productive, fulfilling lives.

Kentucky SPIN is a statewide parent training and information project, and we are funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The Kentucky SPIN parents center provides training, information and support for children [00:01:00] and youth with all types of disabilities, birth through age 26, their parents, families, and also professionals.

But what makes Kentucky SPIN unique is that the majority of our board of directors and all of our staff and consultants are persons with disabilities, parents or family members of persons with disabilities. And so when family members call Kentucky SPIN, they not only receive expertise and knowledge of a professional, but also the compassion and empathy of someone who has walked and continues to walk in their shoes.

We do not act as attorneys. But however, we empower families to effectively advocate for their children. We provide peer support to help families access needed information and resources. But mostly we lend a listening ear. So we have family members that call us on a regular basis, and all of our consultants are there to provide support and help them  effectively advocate for their children. [00:02:00] But again, we do not act as attorneys.

So, but when we get started now I’m going to turn it over to Kellie, who is our training coordinator as I mentioned. I want to give you just a few little tips though. There is a question box that you will see, on the right hand side of your screen. If you have a question throughout the presentation, please type that in the box.

I will be monitoring those for Kellie, and can let her know if there are questions that she needs to respond to.  And so we also have handouts that you can download under the handouts tab. But I will let you know, I will send a follow up email with a certificate of attendance, and also the handouts will also be sent in an email following the webinar.

I will probably not get to that until tomorrow, but you will get all of that, in an email after the presentation today. So again, thank you for joining us and, Kellie, I’ll turn it over to you.

Kellie: [00:02:55] All right, well, thank you again, everyone for joining. I want to start by kind of [00:03:00] explaining the Family Thrive overview or Family Thrive and Kentucky Strengthening Families and Youth Thrive.

So it started out with two different programs. You have Kentucky Strengthening Families or KYSF, and you had Youth Thrive. So what they did at the Department for Public Health, was they kind of just combined the two a little bit, and now you have Family Thrive that you know, teaches both. So I just want you to understand that if I say Kentucky Strengthening Families, I’m not talking about something different than Family Thrive.

I’m talking about the same thing. So, the first thing that is important to understand is that Kentucky Strengthening Families is all about a different kind of thinking. And so this is going to be a different kind of training. And [00:04:00] you know, like we said, this is just an overview. So it’s kind of like a commercial for the full Family Yhrive training, which is a minimum of three hours.

But I highly recommend the six hour training. And Family Thrive will be presented at System of Care Academy this year. And there are many, many organizations including Kentucky SPIN that will do this training free of charge for your community, your agency or organization. So again, this is going to be a different kind of training, not what we’re used to.

So I challenge you to not approach this training with the natural learning process of what is this? Or what do I need to do to implement it? What is step one, step two, and step three? Instead, just be open to new ideas and beliefs about why you do what you do. To enjoy this training, I strongly suggest that you do not [00:05:00] try to fully grasp every single concept or try to write down every new definition.

Instead, consider how Kentucky Strengthening Families makes you think differently about your own childhood, your unique family dynamic. And what certain services you provide are working so well and maybe why some aren’t working.

So the objectives in the family proper Kentucky Strengthening Families training is to recognize how ACEs and toxic stress affect early brain development. Understand the purpose in history of Kentucky Strengthening Families and Youth Thrive and experience a brief introduction to the six protective factors.

So the training is broken down into three parts. The first part [00:06:00] is the six guiding premises. The first part of part one is identifying the six guiding premises of Kentucky Strengthening Families and Youth Thrive. And assessing your attitude and knowledge regarding these six guiding premises.

Part two of the training is all about the six protective factors. The six protective factors, and how they relate across the lifespan at home and at work. The six protective factors are nurturing an attachment, knowledge of parenting, child and adolescent development. Social connections, concrete supports in times of need. Cognitive, social and emotional competence and parental and adolescent resilience.

And then part three of the training is creating a starter plan for implementing Kentucky Strengthening Families and or Youth Thrive into your work or home [00:07:00] environment.

So many of you may be familiar with the river analogy. So, if you’re not familiar with it, I’m going to go ahead and just tell that quickly. Three men are walking up the stream with their fishing poles, chatting about, laughing, enjoying the scenery. One man looks over at the river and screams, “Oh my goodness. Where’d this child come from? He’s drowning.” And immediately throws this fishing pole on the bank and jumps into save the child. The second man says, “here comes another, and I see another behind her”. He throws in his pole and dives in, grabbing both kids. The third man sees the child and jumps right in to save him.

Once they’re all back on the shore safely, the first man sees another child and goes to jump in again. At the same time, the third man begins to run upstream. The first and second man scream, “where are you going? They need our help”. The third main replies. [00:08:00] “I’m heading to the source of the river to save them before they get thrown in”.

And so it goes for our work. We’re constantly trying to save children, families, young adults who are drowning in the depths of the water. It feels like there’s so many that we can’t save them all. I’m sure we’ve all felt this way in our work, but it’s time that we stopped letting them get thrown into the river in the first place.

So what is Strengthening Families? Number one, aligning practice with developmental science. That’s going to be your pre assignment. They used to have you do some work before the training, and then they started showing the resilience film prior to this training. So I’m not sure what they’re going to be using for system of care or anything else, but there will be something to prepare you for the training.

So Strengthening Families is a [00:09:00] research based approach that can help systems, programs, and workers align their practice with what we know about developmental science. Brain development research points us to early childhood, the first three years in particular, and adolescence as critical periods of development. Strengthening Families focuses on early childhood, while the parallel Youth Thrive initiative focuses on protective  factors for youth.

Strengthening Family emphasizes the importance of nurturing and responsive relationships, and it is how critical it is in those first few years. The nurturing and attachment protective factor must be developed in early childhood. However, we will learn how other protective factors and adolescents can help mitigate the stress of not having this bond as a baby or toddler.

A fast growing body of research underscores the effects of traumatic experiences on children and youth. Effects that can [00:10:00] carry into the rest of a young person’s life. We know that the presence of a buffering adult can be critical in helping children come through stressful experiences without negative effects on their development.

But we also know that typical system responses to children’s traumatic experiences can exacerbate those negative effects. Such as the removal from the home or punishment for a misbehavior when the child is reacting to experiences.

Strengthening Families helps professionals shift their practice to better, align with developmental science, to be more responsive to trauma, pay attention to developmental issues and support parents and caregivers in nurturing the children and their character.

Okay. Number two, building protective factors, not just reducing risk. Protective factors are conditions or attributes of individuals, families, [00:11:00] communities, or a larger society that mitigate or eliminate risks. Protective factors are the hope side of the hurt we learned about through ACEs and toxic stress.

Simply put, we need enough good to outweigh the bad.

Number three, a changed relationship with parents. Strengthening Families represents a shift for many systems that are designed to serve children and youth. Programs and service providers in our system sometimes the parents or youth as irrelevant to their work, or worse as obstacles in achieving the outcomes we want.

But we know that children grow up in families, not programs. And we cannot achieve good outcomes for those children without engaging their parents as partners. The same is true for you. We can not do to you. We have to engage and do with you.

Working from a [00:12:00] protective factors approach, workers and service providers will support parent’s ability to parent effectively and involve them as partners in achieving good outcomes for their children.

Programs also have a role to play in engaging parents in mutually supportive relationships that build those protective factors. Programs that work in this way will also engage parents as partners, leaders and decision makers at the program level.

Parents who have positive experiences shaping the programs that serve their children can then be engaged in helping design systems and policies that work for children and families.

And finally, strengthening families is an approach. It’s not a model program or curriculum. This isn’t something you can go and do, but something that is added to, or enhances your current program. Strengthening [00:13:00] Families is not a scripted structured program or model designed to be implemented in a specific setting.

It is not an evidence based program, but rather an evidence informed approach that can be adapted to many different settings and service delivery models.

It’s an approach that can be applied in any setting that serves young children and their family. Strengthening Families is implemented through small but significant changes in how professionals interact with families and youth.

It is not parallel to, but integrated into existing practice. Cross sector implementation is core to the approach. Strengthening Families brings together program level and system level partners from multiple sectors that serve children and families and youth. Providing a common language instead of outcomes to work towards.

So to quickly review, [00:14:00] this is not a replenishment program or a new initiative. It’s a movement to create a common language and common approach. This is not a program. It is a framework in which we meet families where they are and they set the agenda. This is more about connecting the things you’re already doing and have in place.

It’s about making the invisible visible and the visible more intentional.

So, this is kinda of how things look right now. Our current model of service delivery makes it hard for families to access our services because we all work in silos. So there on the left of your screen, you see, it’s kind of crazy and it’s hard when you need services to get services from everywhere that you should be getting services.

The vision of Strengthening Families is similar to what many of us know as a system of care [00:15:00] model or the ability for a family to access a whole host of services once they start, once they touch one part of a system. So as Kentucky Strengthening Families grows, so will the circle of partners.

So what are risk factors versus protective factors?

Risk factors refer to the stressful conditions, events, or circumstances, such as maternal depression, substance abuse, family violence, or even persistent poverty that increase a family’s chances of four outcomes, including child abuse and neglect.

Protective factors are conditions or attributes of individuals, families, communities, or the larger society that mitigate risk and promote healthy development and well being. Put simply, they are strengths that help buffer and support families at risk. Protective [00:16:00] factors balanced the impact of risk factors.

The more we have on one side, the more we move either toward positive resilience or negative vulnerability. In some cases we cannot lessen the risk factors, but we can always build up the protective factors.

So part one. The six premises. In part one of your training, you’ll be able to, like I said before, identify the six guiding premises of Kentucky Strengthening Families and Youth Thrive. And assess your attitude and knowledge regarding these six guiding premises.

The overarching goal of Kentucky Thrive framework is to achieve positive outcomes by mitigating risks and enhancing healthy development and well being of children and youth. These guiding premises provide the foundation for Kentucky [00:17:00] Strengthening Families and Kentucky Youth Thrive.

So Kentucky Strengthening Families is prenatal through elementary age and Youth Thrive is adolescent through transition to adulthood. But I can say 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt that these principles can be applied to everyone regardless of their age.

So what are the six guiding premises?

The first one is, there you go Stella, is people are best supported by those who understand and recognize the importance of self-awareness and self-care in their own practice.

So self-awareness is your first one.

The second one is strength-based. People that are best supported by service providers who focus on assets and use strength-based family and youth driven approaches. Being strength-based means that we recognize the things that are going [00:18:00] well and we work to build on that.

Premise number three is relationships. People are best supported by providers who understand that attachment, connections and relationships are the primary source of growth and learning. It is in relationships and through our use of relationships that we learn and grow.

Premise number four is rights, privilege, and power. People are best supported by providers who understand the role of race, racism, bias, and the ways which race, other identities, as well as privilege and power, shape families and service providers.

Premise number five is trauma informed. People are best supported by service providers who understand the need to use trauma informed practice methods. Trauma response focuses on building resiliency.

And then finally, premise number six is culturally responsive. People are [00:19:00] best supported by service providers who are culturally responsive and take  into account their own culture and the culture of the families and communities they serve.

So premise number one is self-care and self-awareness. Self-care is not selfish. The most powerful tool we have in our work and our home is ourselves. Self-care is not an option.

And then strength-based as with all premises, the concept is twofold. First, reflect on how you embrace this in your work in home life.

And next, consider how you can encourage this thinking in your approach with the family and youth you serve. So Namaste means the light within me honors the light within you. So again, just think about a time when you were at your best. What were the core strengths that you [00:20:00] had at that moment?

And how can we better support families through embracing a more Namaste  approach?

Relationships, people attached to people, not programs. Relationships are essential to creating programs that change lives. Active listening is essential in building this relationship. And relationships are the defining factor of success of our program. Think about how you are currently connecting with your families.

Race, privilege and power. In order to have authentic dialogue, we must be aware of our own lens related to race, privilege, and power. And that is discussed definitely more in depth in the training.

[00:21:00] Trauma informed, going from what’s wrong with you. To what happened to you and what’s your story? It’s an approach to services that acknowledge the role trauma plays in a person’s loss.

Trauma informed care refers to the recognition of the pervasiveness of trauma and a commitment to identifying and addressing it early, whenever possible. Trauma informed care also involves seeking to understand the connection between presenting symptoms and behaviors and the individual’s past trauma history.

It involves the provision of services and interventions that do not inflict further trauma on the individual or reactivate post traumatic experiences.

And culturally responsive. Instead of just recognizing, we celebrate the [00:22:00] unique identity of each individual. The culture we create must be safe and healthy and accessible to all we serve in order to create an atmosphere for healing, learning and growth. Anyone changes their practice to be, or has anyone ever changed their practice to be culturally responsive and it completely changed the outcome of a situation?

And have you ever been a recipient of a culturally responsive services?

So what’s going to be different after the Kentucky or during the Kentucky Strengthening Families or Family Thrive training from when we go in to when we leave is our attitudes and the way we look at families. When implementing Kentucky Strengthening Families, our focus shifts from a focus on a family deficit and risk factors. To a more [00:23:00] positive focus on the strengths and skills that each family has.

Our focus shifts from focusing on providing services for at risk family, to thinking about how we can build strong relationships with all families. Because all families face stress and adversity at times. Our focus shifts from thinking we need to fix family to an acknowledgement that families know their children best.

This means we respect families and work with them instead of doing something to them. Implementing Kentucky Strengthening Families means we don’t make the mistake of underestimating the critical importance of children birth to age five. Instead, we acknowledge that the majority of brain development takes place in the first five years.

And we act on this knowledge by doing all we can to support families of young children because we know it makes a difference for their [00:24:00] child.

And finally, instead of focusing on program resources and efforts on the neediest of families. We focus on using and making small but significant changes in our everyday actions and interactions with all families.

So let’s take a look here at what we mean by strength based focus. When we look at children, youth, and families through a negative deficit focused lens, we tend to see fault. We see their problems, we make negative judgments and we expect negative outcomes.

So when we change our lens, replacing the deficit focused lens with a strength based lens, we see what’s already working, solutions, [00:25:00] inherent strengths and opportunities.

And then you’ll move into the second part of the training, which is the six protective factors. So you’ll explore all six protective  factors as theye, relate across the lifespan at home, and it work.

Again, the six protective factors are nurturing and attachment, the knowledge of parenting, child and adolescent development. Social connections, concrete support in times of need. Cognitive, social, and emotional competence, and parental and adolescent resilience.

The hopeful news here is that you can have all 10 of the ACEs, but have all six protective factors and broad.

[00:26:00] When these six protective factors are present, regardless of the number of risk factors present in the home the likelihood of child maltreatment rightly reduces and in exchange the rate of school readiness, children reaching optimal development and the strength of the family unit increases.

So the six protective factors for Youth Thrive are cognitive, social, and emotional competence or knowing how to communicate your thoughts and feelings effectively. Concrete support in times of need, to be able to find resources and support in your community that helps you. The knowledge of adolescent development, understanding the science of your development.

Social connections, meaning having real connections with others, and then use resilience, bounce [00:27:00] back, when life gives you challenges.

So in the nurturing and attachment portion of the training, you will learn and discuss how stress and ACEs affect healthy brain development.

And then the knowledge of child and adolescent development, meaning families learn how their children grow and develop and youth understand the science of their development.

The knowledge of child development and adolescent development. For families that means to understanding child development and parenting strategies that have been positive development. For youth that means understanding one’s behavior and stage of maturity, both physically and mentally.

Social connections. [00:28:00] Family have friends they can count on. And youth have real connections with others.

Social connections for families is having positive relationships that provide emotional, informational, and spiritual support. They feel secure and confident that they have others who they can share the joy, pain, and uncertainties that come with the parenting  roles. For yoth, that means having healthy, sustained relationships with people, the community, and a force greater than oneself that promote a sense of trust, belonging and feeling that he or she matters.

So relationships. According to Gandhi, relationships are based on four principles. Respect, understanding, [00:29:00] acceptance, and appreciation.

This protective factor is all about the importance of relationships, social connections at all stages of development. It also brings into awareness how every interaction we have with families, youth, coworkers, and with ourselves affects the quality of our work and the effectiveness of our program.

Concrete supports in times of need, meaning families get assistance to meet their basic needs and youth find resources, and support to help them.

So what does it look like? That means families get their basic needs met, access to resources that address the family’s basic needs, and minimize stress caused by these challenges that they’re facing.

For youth, that means finding community and resources that [00:30:00] help them. Finding or understanding the importance of asking for help and advocating for oneself.

Receiving quality services designed to preserve youth’s dignity, providing opportunities for skill development and promoting healthy development. Examples would be strengths-based and trauma informed practices.

So what are concrete supports? Those are the things that we can count on when we’re in need of extra help or resources. And they can make it easier to get through a hard time or address a specific issue. Some examples of, maybe a food bank or a clothing ministry or you know, snap benefits or Medicaid. In the training, we’ll discuss what concrete supports are, as well as the barriers that make it hard for families and young [00:31:00] people to ask for help.

So cognitive, social and emotional competence. Families teach children how to have healthy relationships. And for youth, that means knowing how to communicate their thoughts and feelings effectively.

For families, that means family and child interactions help children develop the ability to recognize, communicate, and regulate their emotions. For youth it’s acquiring skills and attitudes that are essential to forming an independent identity and having a productive, responsible and satisfying adulthood. Things like self-regulation, executive functioning, and character strength.

Social emotional development is [00:32:00] a fundamental part of a child’s overall health and well being. Social emotional development is sometimes called early childhood mental health or infant mental health. It spans from how children interact with others, to how they manage or cope with adversity and stress.

Social emotional development within the first few years of life set the proceeded that prepares children to be self-confident, trusting, empathetic, intellectually inquisitive, competent in using language to communicate, and capable of relating well to others.

Healthy, social and emotional development refers to a child’s emerging, refers to a child’s emerging ability to experience, manage and express the full range of positive and negative emotions, develop close, satisfying relationships with other children and adults and actively explore their environment and learning.

[00:33:00] Social emotional  intelligence, is learning how to communicate and express your feelings effectively. It sets the foundation for exploring who you are. We’ll discuss why we react the way we do, and the importance of social emotional skills in all ages.

And finally, parental and youth resilience. Families bounce back, or youth bounce back when life gives them challenges. So what does this look like? For families, that means managing stress and getting through it when faced with challenges at varsity and trauma. For youth, that means managing stress and functioning well when faced with stressors, challenges, or adversity. The outcome is personal growth and positive change.

Resiliency allows us to face [00:34:00] challenges, make productive decisions, take responsibility for our actions, and positively influence their development and well being.

Resiliency is more likely to occur when we provide services, support, and health resources that make it more likely for every child to do well in ways that are meaningful to his or her family and community. In this sense resilience is the result of both successful navigation to resources and negotiation for resources to be provided in meaningful ways.

So by the end of Family Thrive, you will [00:35:00] be changing your lens. You will have changed your lens, in the way you view things. So you’re going to be able to see what’s already working in your program or what’s already working in a family or an individual. You’re going to see solutions. You’re going to see their inherit strengths and different opportunities.

That is the end of this overview. Stella, do we have any questions?

Stella: [00:35:31] Kellie, can you take just a second and explain what ACEs is?

Kellie: [00:35:38] Okay. ACE’s are Adverse Childhood Experiences, and when you go through this training, you are going to learn more, you’re going to get a more in depth training of what ACEs are, but it’s a result of a study. There are 10 ACEs. They range from, you know, divorce, [00:36:00] you know, an absent parent to substance abuse and mental illness.

And these ACEs once, you know, once you know your score, it’s linked to either, you know, developmental delays or even things like diabetes and cancer. It’s about how your body relates to trauma and stress.

Stella: [00:36:30] Great. Thank you. I know some folks might’ve been wondering what exactly that is.

So on this slide it does say, you know, if you want to schedule a Strengthening Families training, please reach out to us. Kellie is there any other information you want to share with families on the full six hour training.

Can it be done in three hours or six hours? How long does it…

Kellie: [00:36:53] It can be done..

I’m sorry.

The training needs to be at least [00:37:00] three hours. It can be done, it can be done shorter , but to really do  this training, justice, six hours is phenomenal. Now that, you know, it could be broken down maybe into three sessions. If you don’t have the ability to have an all day, you know, six hour training.

 So that is something that could be done, at Kentucky SPIN. We’ll work with you to, to make sure that we meet your needs. But I can’t stress enough how important it is to really get in there and be able to learn about each of the protective factors, all of the guiding premises, learn all the different scenarios, and then be able to really just create a plan and kind of strategize, you know, how are you going to, now that you’re looking at things differently, how are you going to put that into practice in your place of work or even in your home?

When I did a training or [00:38:00] a webinar a few weeks ago, I talked about how when I took the Kentucky Strengthening Families training it changed my life. It absolutely did. It changed how I view everything. It has changed my relationship with my children, it has changed my relationship with my husband, with my coworkers, with my community.

 And then when you look at the Kentucky Strengthening Families training, we have other trainings that compliment that training and that go with it,  such as Connect the Dots, which is about addressing behaviors, through  teaching children social and emotional skills.

And then we can train and host parent CAFEs, which is a great way to reach families and really implement these protective factors. Which we also talk about more in the training. So really to get everything that it has to [00:39:00] offer, I highly recommend the six hours. Whether that be six hours at one time, two, three hours. Three, two hours.

 Whatever the case may be. I do highly, highly recommend the six hours.

Stella: [00:39:16] That’s a great explanation. Thank you, Kellie. A couple of more questions. The first one is, is the training for a whole staff or for one team member to attend?

Kellie: [00:39:27] It is totally up to you guys. I have, you know, I’ve went to different trainings and I’ve hosted trainings where you’ve got one person who says, okay, so I’m here to get this information and I’m going to take it back to my workplace.

And then I’ve been to trainings where they have multiple people coming. So they develop a team within their team to really implement these strategies. So it really is totally up to you. I love, you know, having a buddy [00:40:00] at things like this because you can bounce ideas off of each other. Or if one person maybe forgets one aspects that the other person remembers, but it, because this is not a program, it’s not something that you purchase, this is, this is literally looking at things differently. And training you how to look at things differently. So  it totally is your discretion whether you bring more than one person or just one person. But I believe for it to be really effective, the whole team needs to be on board.  So that, that’s my spiel on that.

Stella: [00:40:48] I totally, totally agree with you. I know, myself personally, when I attended the training, it was life changing for me too Kellie. It did make me look at things not only for my family, but for me [00:41:00] personally and why I respond to things the way that I do. Especially when I found out what my ACE ‘s number was.

A quick, another question. This is a good one.  We’ve got a few questions, but one of them that I’m looking at right now. It says, would you consider a child having a disability an ACE, given the negative view society has on disability?

Kellie: [00:41:22] It is not in like the ACEs questions.  So there’s an ACE’s quiz that you can, you can Google and take and find out what your ACE score is. It is not one of the ACEs, but I definitely, as a parent of a child with special needs, believe that it should be, but for the sake of the study, it wasn’t included in that. But I definitely can see, because there’s trauma involved in that. That’s a serious, serious thing that has happened to us as parents.

 And there’s a whole lot [00:42:00] as of triggers with that.  One of the stories I have that I didn’t even, I didn’t even remember, I didn’t even think about it. But my son has a brain injury and, we found out about his brain injury when he was just a little tiny thing. he was about six weeks old or six or eight weeks old.

And, we were in the hospital and it was very rare to happen, but while they were doing an MRI on him, the head neurologist, the pediatric neurologist at UK,  Dr Baumamn, who I’m sure many of you know, he held my son. Through the whole thing. He just held him on his chest and just slept on him the whole time.

And I had, you know, I was very young. I was 18 years old and I had completely forgotten about that. And then when [00:43:00] my son was 19, 18 or 19 we had to go back up for an MRI. And we ended up going back in that same room. And I had never even thought about it, but when I walked into that room, all of that came back and I just started crying uncontrollably.

The poor lady who was doing his MRI probably thought I was a lunatic because I didn’t offer to explain to her. I mean, it really wasn’t any of her business what I was going through over there, you know, in my chair. But it was. An uncontrollable emotion. And I didn’t even know that that trauma existed. So, and that, you know, it wasn’t, I wasn’t the one injured, you know, so to speak physically. But I was injured emotionally through what happened with my child.

So, although  it’s not an ACE, according to the quiz, the tests [00:44:00] that they designed. In my own personal opinion, I’m not a mental health professional,. I’m just a parent with a kid with a disability. I absolutely believe it should be.

Stella: [00:44:12] That was a great answer. Kellie, thank you so much.

I think that’s all of our questions right now. I’ve answered some of them. Some of them were, they would like to have the training. I have sent your email address to them. And so I think it was wonderful. We really appreciate you being so real with us on this.

And I think that’s what’s so important about this topic is that it is real life situations that do affect us as we, you know, go into adulthood. So thank you all so much for being on the webinar today. We really appreciate it. I will let you know again, I will be sending an email to everyone who participated today with a certificate of completion for this overview of Kentucky Strengthening Families. And also the [00:45:00] handouts from today, from the presentation today.

And also a link to our upcoming webinars that we have scheduled. We have a few more scheduled for quite some time. And, also  as you finish, as you log off today, you will be prompted to complete an evaluation and we would really appreciate your feedback as that really helps us, when we’re scheduling future webinars.

And so right now we have went to a pretty much online training platform, with everything going on with COVID-19. I will tell you next Tuesday we have another webinar at 11:00 AM and I will send a link out to everyone to register for that, if you’re interested, that we’ll go over some of the current COVID-19 educational updates and guidance that we have received from Kentucky Department of Education.

And that I think will help a lot of folks. So again, thank you so much to everyone for being on the webinar today, and thank you, Kellie. We will have this presentation also [00:46:00] on our YouTube channel. You can check that out. I will send a link to that also when I send out the handouts and information from today.

So thank you all again for participating and I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

I will stay on for a little while. I will keep the webinar active in case you do need to go in and download the handouts, but also know they will be emailed to you.

Thanks a lot everyone and have a wonderful day and thanks again Kellie.

Thank you.