University Advancement

Public Relations and Strategic Communications

NEWS RELEASE

Conference to Offer Insight on Raising a Child with Disabilities

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Aug. 29, 2007) — The future for a child with a disability can seem daunting as parents and teachers struggle to make the right choices to ensure that the child can lead a rich and fulfilling life.

The Family Focus Resource and Empowerment Center at Cal State Northridge hopes to provide parents and educators with some of the tools necessary to navigate a lifetime of choices for a child with a disability at its fourth annual Family and Educator Conference on Saturday, Sept. 29.

The conference, "A Day of Hope, Resilience and Support," is scheduled to take place from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Community Integration Services Center, 10100 Balboa Blvd. in Granada Hills.

"Transition issues affect the entire lifespan of individuals with disabilities, and we hope that parents and educators will come away understanding the importance that resiliency plays in their lives, and how to promote it in their children and students," said Ivor Weiner, director of the Family Focus Resource and Empowerment Center and a special education professor at CSUN.

The conference’s general session will feature keynote speaker Froma Walsh, co-director and co-founder of the Chicago Center for Family Health and is the Mose and Sylvia Firestone Professor in the School of Social Service Administration and Department of Psychiatry in the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago. She is a licensed clinical psychologist, past editor of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy and past president of the American Family Therapy Academy. Walsh speaks frequently about the resilience of the family.

Writer Jennifer McIlwee Myers, who has Asperger’s syndrome, will give the lunchtime presentation, which will include stories about what it was like growing up "aspie." She has contributed to four books, "The Unwritten Rules of Relationships," by Temple Grandin; "Ten Things Your Student with Austism Wishes You Knew," by Ellen Notbohm; and "Asperger’s and Girls" and "The Complete Guide to Asperger’s" by Tony Attwood.

The day also will include a two-hour panel discussion featuring 16 experts in the fields of disabilities, transition, early childhood, special education law and advocacy, communication disorders and medicine. They will answer questions on issues that arise during childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

Registration for the conference is $85 and includes lunch. To register or for more information, call the center at (818) 677-6854 or visit its Web site at www.csunfamilyfocus.com.

The Family Focus Resource and Empowerment Center, housed in Cal State Northridge’s Michael D. Eisner College of Education, provides comprehensive information about laws, educational programs and support groups to parents of children with disabilities living in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys. The center also serves as a community resource, providing parent-to-parent support, parent/professional education, information dissemination, referrals, public awareness, family and professional collaboration, training and other services.