Pre-Conference & Additional Workshops
Thursday March 4 - 9a-3p
It Starts with Us: Attachment and the Heart of TBRI®
Every caregiver brings a lifetime of relationship experiences into every interaction with a child. Those experiences shape how we interpret behavior, respond to stress, offer comfort, set boundaries, and build trust. In other words, they become the lens through which we use every TBRI® tool and parenting and relational tools in general.
Join Dr. Daren Jones and Amanda Purvis for this immersive, full-day pre-conference workshop exploring the powerful intersection of adult attachment and Trust-Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®). Rather than focusing primarily on understanding a child's attachment patterns, this workshop invites caregivers to examine the attachment lens they bring into relationships and how that lens influences connection, regulation, correction, and healing.
Through teaching, reflection, and practical application, participants will discover how greater self-awareness leads to greater effectiveness, flexibility, and confidence in caregiving. Together, we'll explore how understanding ourselves can transform the way we use TBRI®, strengthen our relationships, and create environments where both children and caregivers can thrive.
Whether you're a parent, foster or adoptive caregiver, kinship caregiver, or professional supporting families, you'll leave with practical insight into your own relational patterns and a renewed understanding that healing begins with the relationship you create.
Trainers:
Dr. Darren Jones & Amanda Purvis
Thursday, March 4 - 3:30-6p
Presence Matters: Creating Connection from the Inside Out
A Restorative Experience for Body, Mind & Spirit: We were never created to navigate life alone. God designed us for relationship—with Him and with one another—and He created our bodies with an incredible capacity to experience safety, rest, movement, and connection.
Yet as parents and caregivers, we can become so focused on meeting the needs of those around us that we lose awareness of what is happening within us.
Created for Connection is a two-hour experiential workshop designed to help you slow down, listen to your body, and discover what helps you move from stress and tension toward greater peace, presence, and connection.
Participants will begin by identifying their current nervous system state and noticing the physical and emotional cues their bodies are giving them. They will then rotate through two 60-minute experiences—RESTORE and RELEASE—before completing a final nervous system check-in to notice what has shifted.
Together, these experiences create space to receive, move, breathe, reflect, and reconnect—body, mind, and spirit.
Hint: If you have enjoyed the Resilience Lab then you will enjoy this expanded experience.
Space is limited.
Trainers:
Deana Lesher, OT/R & Deb Gerlach
Sponsored by DCCCA
Thursday, March 4 - Noon-3p (includes lunch)
RENOVATIS: Renewed. Restored.Revived.
An afternoon of renewal for pastors & ministry leaders.
A three-hour encouragement and soul-care retreat for pastors, church staff, and ministry leaders who support—or desire to support—foster and adoptive families. Through worship, Scripture, prayer, inspiring stories, and practical professional development, participants will have space to pause, encounter God, and be renewed in their own season of ministry.
A guest speaker will provide adaptable tools for strengthening teams, navigating challenges, and solving problems in a variety of ministry settings. Our hope is that every leader leaves personally encouraged, practically equipped, and more hopeful than when they arrived—with renewed vision for serving their church, community, and foster and adoptive families.
Sponsored by Joy Meadows
