2008 Annual Conference Wrap-Up
Page Sections...
Conference Sessions
2008
NAPSEC AWARDS
Direct
Care Worker
of the Year
Related Service Provider of the Year
Educator of the Year
Executive
of the Year
NCASES Accredited Programs
A Special Thank you -
NCASES Chair
Thank You Dr. Christine Manlove!
Thank
you and Congratulations to all our award winners!
2009 NAPSEC Annual Leadership
Conference
2008 NAPSEC
Annual Leadership Conference
The NAPSEC Annual Conference was
held on January 22-24, 2008 at Hawk’s Cay Resort in Duck Key, Florida.
This year’s totals were 144 attendees and a strong showing of 26 first
time attendees!
The welcome reception held Sunday
night brought about many networking opportunities for all attendees. Due
to the windy weather, the reception had to be held inside at the resorts
restaurant and lounge. This gave everyone the option to listen to either
live music, watch the NFL playoffs or catch-up with colleagues.
On Monday, Gary Stern, the Symposium
speaker, started the conference with a presentation on Leaders in
Transition, Mentoring the Next Generation. Tuesday’s General Session was
kicked off by Dr. Russell, presenting the Neurobiology of Learning, and
Wednesday’s General Session, Dr. Rebecca Landa, spoke on The Progression
of Autism, from Infancy: Evidence of Autism from Prospective Research.
Each day was followed up by three concurrent sessions ranging from
marketing, adult service and transition, law, autism and NCLB.
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Conference Sessions
Monday,
January 21
Symposium - Dr. Gary
Stern
Mentoring - The Next
Generation of Leaders
Tuesday, January 22
General Session - Dr.
Jim Russell
The Neurobiology of
Learning
Concurrent Sessions
A1
— Dr. Gary Stern
Nonprofit Marketing In
a Web 2.0 World
B1
— Dr. Jim Russell
Neurobiology, Emotions
and Learning
C1
— Pamela Allen
Equitable Participation
in Federal
Education Programs
Under NCLB:
What Private School
Leaders Should Know
Wednesday, January 23
General Session - Dr.
Rebecca Landa
The Progression of
Autism from Infancy:
Evidence of Autism from
Prospective Research
A2
— Dr. James Earley and Nora Rushford
Walker Partnerships:
Business Diversification
Opportunities for
Private Special Education Providers
B2
— Linda Smith
How to Defend Yourself
Against an IRS
Intermediate Sanction
Audit and Concurrent IRS
Rulings and Hot Topics
C2
— Dr.
Rebecca Landa
Intervention
Considerations in Children with
Children with Autism:
Lessons form Toddlers with Autism
Thursday, January 24
Concurrent Sessions
A3 —
Susan Leviton
Hot Topics in Special
Education Law
B3 —
Bill Bauer
If You Can’t Be Google,
You Can Still Be Great!
C3
—
Dr. Jade Carter
Out, About and Not at
Home Anymore - Transition
to Adult Independence
is Not for the Faint Hearted
Conference
Handouts
If you would like a set of handouts from the 2008
conference,
email NAPSEC at
napsec@aol.com and we will mail you
a copy.
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Tuesday night's NAPSEC Foundation
Fundraising Event, “Networking
Away in
Margaritaville” was a casual and
relaxing evening. Almost $11,000 was raised for the Foundation through
the sale of raffle tickets and the silent auction! Many thanks to all of
you that participated.
The conference wrapped-up with the
President’s Gala where the NAPSEC Awards were presented.
Congratulations to Lisa Faria, St. Vincent’s Home, Direct Care Worker
of the Year, Dr. Melissa Klika The Children’s Institute, Related
Service Provider of the Year, Gale Cannon, Archbishop Damiano School
St. John of God Community Services, Educator of the Year and Dr.
Eugene McMahon, The New York Institute for Special Education.,
Executive of the Year. At the end of the Gala attendees danced the
night away to the sounds of Motown, seventies and eighties music.
2008 NAPSEC AWARDS
Director Care Worker of the
Year
Lisa
Faria
Saint Vincent’s Home
For
the past seven years, Lisa Faria has been an asset to Saint Vincent’s
Home in numerous ways. Her positive approach and compassion are evident
in the way she effectively nurtures the youth she serves, creates a
caring environment for them, and responds to the needs of their
families. Lisa has worked with children of all ages, and is able to
develop healthy, positive and solid relationships with them. In fact,
the children view Lisa as a “mother” figure and go to her for guidance
and an empathetic ear, when needed. She works with the youth to teach
them important daily living and independent skills, always ensuring that
the cottages are clean, safe and homelike. On special
occasions and holidays, Lisa goes the extra mile to ensure that the youth are well attended to. Especially
on birthdays, Lisa makes every attempt to make the child’s day special,
including giving birthday gifts and baking homemade cakes and snacks,
which the children love. Her advocacy skills and responsiveness also
help build strong rapports with the families. An exceptional and
professional leader, Lisa is an excellent role model. She consistently
provides strengths-based coaching, staff development, teaches proactive
crisis intervention skills and techniques, and actively maintains her
calm and positive perspective even in stressful situations. Lisa’s
various positions at St. Vincent’s include volunteer member in the
agency’s Safety Continuous Quality Improvement team. Here, Lisa
provides recommendations on creating and implementing a safe and
therapeutic environment for both youth and staff, as well as, decreasing
workplace injuries and accidents. Lisa is also a Crisis Prevention
Trainer, assisting the agency in providing knowledge and development to
our staff team. As a current House Manager, Lisa has demonstrated
dependability and devotion above and beyond her regular
responsibilities, she is particularly adept at planning and organizing
family focused events, where she inspires commitment and involvement
from all aspects of the child’s treatment team and family. Lisa’s
commitment to her youth and staff shows in the way she always looks for
ways to enhance the programming within the residential environments and
provide individualized and creative programming and treatment to meet
each child’s needs. Lisa also applies her creativity to reinforcement
plans such as settle and room care incentives, staff and youth superstar
recognitions, and individualized sticker charts. In essence, Lisa’s
commitment to Saint Vincent’s is exemplary of our mission goal, to “give
children in need what they need most.”
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Related Service Provider of the Year
Dr.
Melissa Klika
The Children’s
Institute
Dr. Melissa Klika is not
only an experienced clinician but throughout the last ten years with
TCI, she has demonstrated exceptional qualities in her professional and
personal demeanor. These include, outstanding dedication, selflessness,
supportiveness, respectfulness, flexibility and generosity. Whether
acting in her past capacities as Head Problem Solving Counselor, Staff
Trainer in CPI (Crisis Prevention Institute) non-violent intervention
techniques, or in her current role as clinician, where she provides
individual, paired and group counseling to students, meets parents
needs, and teaches social skills, Melissa has always exceeded
expectations and applied creative solutions to problems. In her
problem-solving role, she developed new, as well as restructured
existing, procedures for the department that both solidified support for
the students, and integrated the department’s role with the staff.
Additionally, as a clinician, Melissa has fostered a wealth of new
developments. She helped develop the Parent Support Group, and
voluntarily co-leads this group to address parental needs. Her superb
leadership skills in this group has been instrumental in making it a
growing and viable part of organizational support for parents.
Moreover, Melissa established many other youth groups, including a
Sibling Support Group, a “Play Fair” Group , a Girls Group and a “Keep
Calm Squad,” each one constructed with a focus on pertinent issues and
providing the opportunity for its youth membership to come together,
develop camaraderie and support for each other. Furthermore, Melissa
applies her creativity to develop innovative techniques to teach her
social skills classes, from the use of art, music and role-playing to
writing and directing film and screenplays for use in the classroom. A
successful author, speaker and workshop presenter. Her books include
several social stories books for middle school aged children, as well as
The Relationship Between Exposure to Family Violence and Behavior in
Children and Adolescents, which serves as a resource to
professionals. Her social skills class also appeared on an NBC
segment for Autism Awareness month. Melissa’s generosity of time and
person is evidence of her commitment to working with special needs
children, their families, and the greater cause of the special needs
community.
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Educator of the Year
Gale
Cannon
Archbishop Damiano School
St. John of God Community
Services
Gale Cannon is a shining
example of a Special Education Teacher, fully dedicated to the students,
parents and staff of Archbishop Damiano School at St. John of God
Community Services. Her devotion and respect for each student has led
her to successfully teach in a severely cognitively impaired classroom.
Her class was a multi-sensory experience, exposing students to sights,
sounds, smells and textures in their everyday lessons, so students
learned regular topics but on a sensory level. Her lessons include art
and cooking, which her students proudly sold to our staff. As the
community-based instructor, she introduced new and exciting places for
our students to experience, which allowed the students the opportunity
to transfer their classroom skills into the community. Furthermore, Gale
serves as moderator for our Art Club, and has assisted several of our
student club members to enter and win art contests. Through art, our
students experience and experiment with color, shape and texture. In
fact, many of their skillful creations hang on the walls of our school.
In addition, Gale recently shared a Monarch Butterfly Workshop that she
had experienced, with all the students and staff by raising Monarch
Butterflies with the students in their classrooms in the spring, and
then, releasing them last Fall. Gale brought the beauty of the
butterfly’s life to our students, assisting them in learning to respect
living things. Through the Monarch Butterfly Workshop, Gale was also
able to write a book with our students about nature. The book has been
published through the Shutterfly program and features photographs she
took of our students interacting with and discovering nature. Over the
years, Gale has served on various committees to develop our curriculum
to better meet the needs of our students. Currently, she is assisting
our Annual Report Committee by assembling a display showing her work
with our students in writing and photographing the Shutterfly book,
Voices…From the Land. An active grandmother of seven, Gale is also a
committed member of The New Jersey Audubon Society, The Gloucester
County Nature Group, and various other organizations dedicated to
the preservation of nature. An avid quilter, Gale is a member of
the Love Apple Quilters and two smaller groups of quilting friends – The
Cross-Town Quilters and The After-School Quilters. The last group
consists of members of our school staff whom Gale teaches the art and
love of quilting. This group recently completed three quilts for
staff members who are recovering from cancer. Gale is a very special
educator, person and important member of our school staff.
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Executive
of the Year
Dr.
Eugene McMahon
The New York Institute for
Special Education
For over thirty years Dr.
Eugene McMahon has served in various capacities at the New York
Institute for Special Education. Gene’s past roles include Orientation
and Mobility Specialist, Coordinator of O& M Services, Principal,
Assistant Executive Director and Executive Director. Gene recently
retired and is working with The Institute as a consultant, providing
valuable leadership for future program development. In all of these
capacities, he has worked tirelessly to improve the education and
increase the in dependence of students with disabilities.
Highlights of his achievements while Executive Director include leading
The Institute through tough financial times when the state provided only
flat funding and subsequently, helping to improve our funding base for
both the 4201 and Readiness programs. Gene was also instrumental in
improving the campus facilities and making safer and improved learning
and working conditions for students and staff. His vision and knowledge
gave us technology, bringing us to the current state of the art in both
management and instruction. Gene tended to The Institute’s needs while
providing vision for the future, to help shape The New York Institute of
Special Education into a world class special education provider. His
philosophy of continuous improvement is ingrained in the culture of The
Institute and now all employees look for ways to improve on the already
high quality services our students receive. Moreover, Gene has
demonstrated innovation in meeting needs of special education students,
particularly, visually impaired and blind students. For instance, in
association with the National Association of State Directors of Special
Education, he designed, implemented and published research on student
outcomes for the approximate thirty-five schools nationwide who are
members of The Council of Schools for the Blind (COSB) and who serve
visually impaired and blind students. This data aids schools in program
comparisons and adjustments. Throughout his career, Gene has been a
strong advocate for students with disabilities, touching the lives of
educators and thousands of students enrolled at The Institute and across
the nation, who benefited from his leadership and talents. Gene has
worked with numerous organizations, helping to improve training
programs for professionals, affect state and national legislation,
increase funding and access to appropriate instructional materials for
visually impaired and blind. In sum, Gene is a role model for compassion
and integrity on both a personal and professional level.
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NCASES
National Commission for the Accreditation of Special Education Services
Four
NAPSEC programs
awarded NCASES accreditation.
The Children's Guild at Chillum
Chillum, MD
The Day School at the Children's
Institute
Pittsburgh, PA
New York Institute for Special
Education
Bronx, NY
The Eden Institute
Princeton, NJ
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A Special Thank you...
A special thank you to Rosemary Burton of the Klingberg
Family Centers in New Britain, CT, outgoing NCASES Chair, for all she
has done for NCASES during her term.
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Thank You Dr. Christine Manlove!
NAPSEC Conference Planning Chair 2006-2008
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Thank you and Congratulations to all our award winners!
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Rick Robinson
Annual Golf Classic
Thirty–one golfers braved the high
winds and colder temperatures to play in the
Rick Robinson Annual
Golf Classic.
Although the weather conditions were not ideal, everyone enjoyed had a
great time regardless!!
Ken Weigand, Robin and Greg Church
Rob Bentley, John Lundstrom,
Rick & Robin MacRae,
Tom Celli, Steve Morse
Joe & Mary Whalen W
Scott Wallenfelsz, Bill Chambers,
Chris Eacho, Bob McMahon
Gerry Thiers, Tom & Kathy McCool
Eugene McMahon,
Bruce Ettinger, Richard Madison
Terumi Kometani, Toshihiro Ogimura
We are look forward to seeing you at
the
2009 NAPSEC Annual Leadership
Conference
South Seas
Island Resort.
Captiva Island,
Florida
South Seas Island Resort
www.southseas.com
Resort Information
South Seas
Island Resort represents a
new concept in relaxing island hideaways. Following a splendid
multi-million dollar revitalization, this tropical haven offers the
ideal setting for an unforgettable South Florida resort vacation.
$140 million rebirth, featuring 465 beautifully completed guest
rooms
§ Newly
opened lagoon pool and cabana complex,
featuring a new expansive sun deck, two signature pools (one
zero-entry), a Jacuzzi/spa , lavish fountains and landscaping, and
private cabana units
§ The
Pointe, featuring a
Tommy Bahama-look and a Caribbean grill menu,
The Pointe offers something for the entire family to enjoy at the north
end of the Resort
§
Scoops &
Slices, ice cream,
candy and pizza now open next to The Pointe
§ Newly
redesigned Captiva Golf Club,
including $4 million in upgrades and offering nine holes of oceanfront
golf.
§ Beach
re-nourishment, of $14
million, making the beaches more expansive and impressive than ever
§ Yacht
Harbour, affording boaters
2,100 feet of dockage for boats up to 130 feet in length
Hotel
Rooms/Rates
For
reservations click on the link below!
https://reservations.ihotelier.com/crs/g_reservation.cfm?groupID=69848&hotelID=13121
To receive the discounted group rate,
you must identify yourself as an attendee of the NAPSEC
Conference when
making your reservation. All reservations must be received before or on
December 15, 2008.
Harborside Guestroom
199 Single/Double + $12 per room resort fee,
11% Occupancy tax,
6% Sales Tax
Harborside Waterview
$214 Single/Double + $12 per room resort fee,
Guestroom
11% Occupancy tax, 6% Sales Tax
2 Bedroom Tennis
Villa $299 Single/Double + $12 per room resort fee,
11% Occupancy tax,
6% Sales Tax
2 Bedroom Marina
Villa $320.00 Single/Double + $12 per room resort fee,
11% Occupancy tax,
6% Sales Tax
2 Bedroom Beach
Villa $400.00 Single/Double + $12 per room resort fee,
11% Occupancy tax,
6% Sales Tax
*Additional rates
for 3rd and 4th person, $20 each
Group rates for Extra days
Honored
3 days prior to arrival date and 3 days after the departure date
based on
availability only, no guarantees!
Resort Fee includes:
§
Hi-speed wireless
internet in the guestrooms & villas
§
Use of resort pool
complex and tennis courts
§
Towels, beach chairs
and umbrellas at Sunset Beach and
South Beach
§
Access to hotel Fitness
center
§
Self-parking and
trolley transportation
§
Free local phone calls
§
Daily newspaper
§
CATV with free movie
channels
Address 5400
Plantation Road,
Captiva Island, Florida 33924
Phone 877.205.1293
Transportation
Airports
Ft. Myers-Southwest
Florida International Airport (RSW)
36
miles from RSW to South Seas Island Resort
-
Tampa Bay - 165 miles
from airport to South Seas
-
Miami
- 170 miles from airport to South Seas
-
Orlando
- 235 miles from airport to South Seas
Taxi
From Ft. Myers
Southwest Florida International Airport
approximately $75 one-way.
See website
www.flylcpa.com for more options.
Rent-a-Car
Hertz
239.768.3100
NAPSEC Discount Code (AWD): #T284199
AVIS
239.768.2121
NAPSEC Discount Code: (CDP):
#1444826
Directions
On Resort's web site under “Directions”
www.southseas.com
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