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News Release

DATE: February 28, 2008
CONTACT: Stacey Richez
PHONE: 1-877-422-7239

For Immediate Release

National Speaker Breaks Down Barriers to Effective Parenting

Seminar March 7th

Why are there are a half-million children in foster care in this country and why is the number expected to skyrocket to over nine million in the next 20 years?

That’s the tough question experts at Specialized Alternatives for Families and Youth (SAFY) of Indiana are asking. Next Friday, SAFY will bring renowned relationship and communication expert Juli Alvarado to Fort Wayne.

Indiana residents will have the opportunity to “see the world through the lens of a foster child” in Alvarado’s day-long seminar. The event is designed to educate anyone who plays a role in the foster care or adoption process such as judges and juvenile court employees, social workers, health care providers and foster parents. The seminar is scheduled for Friday, March 7th from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at University of St. Francis, 2720 Spring St, Ft. Wayne. To register for the seminar, please call SAFY at 1-877-422-7239.

Alvarado, a foster parent herself, has been helping to break new ground in effectively treating foster families who have taken severely abused children into their homes. “It’s about loving these kids even when we don’t feel very loving. It’s about helping them heal. The only way that can happen is to provide them with committed and consistent love,” says Alvarado.

A lack of communication is often the first hurdle. “Adults don’t speak the same language as children who have been the victims of verbal and physical abuse. Depending on your role or job, we all speak different languages,” explains Alvarado. In order to speak the same language, she’ll explain a term called reactive attachment disorder. Reactive attachment disorder happens during the early years of a child’s life when he or she has suffered a set-back such as abuse. The brain fails to develop in a logical or sequential order like it should and the child’s ability to regulate emotion and behavior is dysfunctional. In other words, the brain operates differently in a child who has suffered abuse. “So often we are not successful at fostering or adopting because we don’t understand,” says Alvarado. “That’s when our world’s clash and parents and kids fight.”

Seminar participants will learn very specific strategies on how they can help a child regulate emotions and behaviors and how they can manage their own emotional highs and lows so they may better communicate with the child.

“Nothing works 100 percent of the time,” says Alvarado. “It’s hard work. Some kids just can’t trust that an adult loves them. They are afraid to care for fear they will get hurt again. If we can better understand behavior, we can more effectively parent,” she says.

Alvarado, a veteran foster parent herself, is also a therapist. Her husband is a physician’s assistant in the practice of neurology. Together they have successfully fostered two dozen children as well as their own four biological children. So they know personally the challenges of parenting.

“More and more foster children are aging out of the system and ending up hungry, homeless and jobless. It’s time to think out of the box!” she says.

For more information or to register for the seminar call 1-877-422-7239. The event is sponsored by Specialized Alternatives for Families and Youth (SAFY), a local foster care and adoption agency.

Editor’s note: Juli Alvarado is happy to grant interviews prior to the event and the day of the event. Please contact Stacey Richez at 1-877-422-7239 to coordinate any pre-publicity which is greatly appreciated.

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