Kid's Net Conference 2020

Together with our partner, MAFF, this year’s Kid’s Net Conference features keynote speakers who will further our learning and reflection about how we care for the children in our homes, specifically how we parent children of different races and children who are transgender or questioning their gender identities. These keynote presentations will lay the foundation for follow-up, interactive discussions and additional opportunities for learning.

Keynote presentations will take place on October 16, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. To register, please fill out the form below.

We know your time is valuable. As a thank you for registering, please enjoy lunch on us! We will send you a gift card towards lunch at a location of your choice- pick one below or if you registered by mail, send us an email at kidsnet@mspcc.org to tell us your choice!

Attendees at each keynote will be entered into a raffle to receive a gift basket and those who are able to join us for both keynotes will be entered into a raffle for a gift card bundle.

We also know it is not always easy to get time to yourself! Please work with our Regional Kid’s Net staff to secure two hours of childcare that will be in addition to your monthly ten hours.

Social Workers: please click here to register!

Our Presenters:

Dr. Sally Campbell Galman – 10:00 a.m. – Let’s Talk About Supporting Gender Diversity!

This keynote will be a presentation-meets-dialogue designed to meet participants where they are, to build capacity, knowledge, and understanding of how to care for and support trans and gender-nonbinary youth. Everyone is invited to learn together, share what they know, ask questions and find answers as we build a concrete skill set together. Topics include terminology, medical and institutional concerns, and family support.

Dr. Sally Campbell-Galman is an anthropologist, writer, performance and visual artist and advocate for gender diverse children and young people. Her research interests include the anthropology of childhood, arts-based qualitative and ethnographic research methods, and gender studies. She is the Principal Investigator of the Gender Moxie Project. This project, generously funded by the Spencer Foundation, focuses on understanding transgender and other gender-diverse children’s experiences and resiliencies through an interdisciplinary and art-informed lens. The Gender Moxie Project is a research group at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, studying the experiences and resilience of gender diverse children ages 4-13 years old and their families, schools and communities. This includes but is not limited to children who identify as non binary, genderqueer, agender, gender fluid and/or transgender. This arts-based ethnographic study, which has been following children and their families since late 2015, focuses on community, family and individual strength. As an anthropologist of childhood and an advocate for transgender and other gender creative people, Dr. Campbell Galman believes that children are people now, human beings rather than human “becomings” (Qvortrup, 1994), and should be empowered to make their own decisions about gender. Indeed, the right to gender self-determination is a human right.

Along with colleague Dr. Laura Alicia Valdiviezo, she served as Editor-in-Chief of Anthropology and Education Quarterly for two editorial terms, concluding in 2019. She is also currently an editor at Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures. Dr. Campbell Galman was born and grew up in northern Japan, spent every summer of her life at the public library near her grandparents’ house in Jackson, Mississippi, and graduated from Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. She is Professor of Child and Family Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Kim & Justice Stevens – North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) – 1:30 p.m. – In My Skin: Developing a Positive Racial and Gender Identity

Mother and son co-present their individual and family journeys over the course of their lives together, exploring the intersection of race, gender, and family membership. Strategies for growing together through loss, facing both privilege and racism, and having difficult conversations about who we are at our core are woven throughout.

Justice Stevens, adopted at the age of 8 after a childhood spent in multiple foster homes, is a seasoned presenter on identity, race, and gender, and their intersection with foster care and adoption, trauma, and loss. He is a residential counselor at Growthways, Inc., providing support to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Justice holds associate degrees in business, criminal justice, and human services.

Kim is a program manager at North American Council on Adoptable Children, where she works on a number of projects that support foster, adoptive, guardianship, and kinship children and families. Her duties include legislative and family advocacy, policy analysis and recommendations, curriculum development, training and capacity building, technical assistance for support and advocacy organizations, and youth empowerment activities. She also contributes to Fostering Families Today and Adoptive Families magazines, as well as NACAC’s quarterly Adoptalk newsletter on a regular basis.

Previous professional experience includes eight years with Massachusetts Families for Kids (MFFK), where Kim moved from part-time Family Advocacy Coordinator to Co-Director. While at MFFK, she established the Speak Out Team, a nationally recognized model for kin/foster/adopted youth advocacy, training, and awareness-raising. She also launched the Lifelong Families for Adolescents initiative with the Massachusetts Department of Social Services and assisted in successful advocacy for post-adoption services in Massachusetts.

Kim serves on the board of directors for Family Builders Network and is a member of Voice for Adoption.

In her 29 years of child welfare work, Kim has provided training and consultation on child welfare, foster care, adoption, parenting, positive youth development, advocacy and leadership, trauma and recovery, and youth permanency issues both nationally and internationally.

She and her husband, Buddy, have six children, four of whom were adopted as older children from the public foster care system. They maintain informal parenting relationships with two young adults who aged out of the foster care system.

Kid’s Net Conference 2020