Kids and Families Together

First Sunday of Advent
2022-11-27

Thanksgiving- Office Closed
2022-11-25, 2022-11-24

Who's Who on the Child Welfare Services Team
2022-11-22 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
To Register & for More Information: FKCE Registration: Who’s Who on CWS Team, November 22, 2022 (6pm-7pm) (google.com)

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Parent Support Group
2022-11-21 15:30 - 17:00, 2022-11-14 15:30 - 17:00, 2022-11-07 15:30 - 17:00, 2022-10-31 15:30 - 17:00, 2022-10-24 15:30 - 17:00, 2022-10-17 15:30 - 17:00 | Zoom
Who: Birth Parents involved with CFS
What: Support and resource group led by para professionals with lived experience being involved with CFS and successfully reunifying with their children.
When: Mondays, 3:30-5pm
Where: Held virtually via Zoom
RSVP: Please contact Janel, (805) 978-2073

Transgender Day of Remembrance
2022-11-20
“Transgender Day of Remembrance seeks to highlight the losses we face due to anti-transgender bigotry and violence. I am no stranger to the need to fight for our rights, and the right to simply exist is first and foremost. With so many seeking to erase transgender people — sometimes in the most brutal ways possible — it is vitally important that those we lose are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice.”
– Transgender Day of Remembrance founder Gwendolyn Ann Smith
Create a Safe Environment for LGBTQI+ Youth
It is important to build a safe environment for all LGBTQI+ youth.  Parents, schools, and communities can all play a role in preventing bullying and helping LGBTQI+ youth feel physically and emotionally safe.

Encourage respect for all students.
Prohibit bullying, harassment, and violence against all students.

Conduct social-emotional learning activities in school to foster peer-relationships and help students develop empathy.
Identify “safe spaces,” such as counselors’ offices or designated classrooms, where LGBTQI+ youth can receive support from administrators, teachers, or other school staff.
Encourage student-led and student-organized school clubs that promote a safe, welcoming, and accepting school environment (e.g., gay-straight alliances or gender and sexuality alliances). Schools must allow these clubs or groups if they have other “non-curricular” clubs or groups. Learn more about the right to form a GSA under the Equal Access Act.
Ensure that health curricula or educational materials include HIV, other STD/STI, and pregnancy prevention information that is relevant to LGBTQI+ youth.
Use inclusive language and avoid making assumptions. The words we use can make help people feel acknowledged and create a sense of belonging. For example, using “y’all” when referring to a group conveys gender equality rather than using “guys.” Use gender-neutral pronouns like “they” or “them” instead of “he/she” or “him/her.” You can also use words like “parent” instead of “mother” and “father.”
Use students’ chosen names and pronouns.
Train school staff on how to create safe and supportive school environments for all students, including LGBTQI+ youth.
Facilitate access to community-based providers who have experience providing health services, including medical, counseling, social, and psychological services, and HIV/STI testing for LGBTQI+ youth.

Resources/links

‘A Murder Over a Girl,’ by Ken Corbett – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Transgender Day of Remembrance 2021 | PFLAG
Transgender Day of Remembrance | GLAADText

To learn more from our JEDI page, please click here.

Blending Different Traditions & Cultures for the Holidays
2022-11-17 18:00 - 21:00
Register & for More Information: FKCE Registration: Blending Traditions & Cultures, November 17, 2022 (6pm-9pm) (google.com)

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Transgender Day of Remembrance, Ventura County
2022-11-16 18:00 - 20:00 | Oxnard Performing Arts Center, 800 Hobson Way, Oxnard, CA, 93030, United States
Transgender Day of Remembrance, Ventura County
Wednesday, November 16, 6-8pm
Join us during Transgender Awareness Week for Ventura County’s powerful event to honor the transgender folks we’ve lost this year and to celebrate the strength and resiliency of our community. This is the 8th year of this event in Ventura County. There will be food, refreshments, support services, on-site counselors, and an ofrenda memorializing our fallen community members. Find more details on The Transverse website.

Veterans Day
2022-11-11

Let's Talk: Teens, Drugs, Alcohol & Vaping
2022-11-10 18:00 - 20:30
Oxnard & Ventura College’s FKCE Presents: Let’s Talk: Teens, Drugs, Alcohol & Vaping.
When: Thursday, November 10th from 6pm-8:30pm
Where: Zoom
To register & for more information: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfhPZzheI-WiJJLfJRvqJV8xLYkK-0tBhGrbAaPnDnY2labww/viewform
For help, email: renee_cervantez1@vcccd.edu

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Nurturing Connections: Support and Training in Becoming a Therapeutic Parent
2022-11-09 17:00 - 18:30, 2022-10-12 17:00 - 18:30 | Zoom
Nurturing Connections: Support and Training in Becoming a Therapeutic Parent
Who Should Attend: Foster/kinship resource parents, adoptive parents, legal guardians
Description: Support and training, led by a therapist, in a safe and supportive environment where participants can share their experiences as a foster or adoptive caregiver. Participants have a chance to explore their own attachment histories and strengthen their therapeutic parenting skills. Learn about attachment, trauma, development, self-care, and more. Resource parents can earn training hours!
When & Where: Every 2nd Wednesday of the month from 5-6:30pm, Currently offered via Zoom.
English/Spanish: Group is in English with live Spanish interpretation!
Cost: Free for foster/kinship resource, adoptive, and legal guardian caregivers within the Ventura County Child Welfare System.
Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0ucu%20-gqTkiGdZLw6wahZz-CjGRhr4E-RVe
Contact: Please contact us at 805-643-1446 Ext. 180 or referrals@kidsandfamilies.org with questions.

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Fostering the Next Wave Fundraiser
2022-11-05 17:30 - 21:00 | Crowne Plaza, 450 E. Harbor Blvd., Ventura, CA, 93001, United States
November 5, 2022
5:30pm – 9pm
Crowne Plaza-Ventura
Please Click Here for Event Details
For sponsorship opportunities, please call Amy Huot at (805) 643-1446 ext. 133

Diwali/Deepavali
2022-11-04

All Souls Day
2022-11-02

National Adoption Month
2022-11-01 - 2022-11-30
National Adoption Month is an initiative of the Children’s Bureau that seeks to increase national awareness of adoption issues, bring attention to the need for adoptive families for teens in the U.S. foster care system, and emphasize the value of youth engagement. The initiative began as National Adoption Week in 1984, as proclaimed by President Reagan. President Clinton then proclaimed the first National Adoption Month in 1995. In recent years, we have focused our efforts on adoption for teens because we know that teens in foster care wait longer for permanency than younger children and are at higher risk of aging out. Teens need love, support, and a sense of belonging that families can provide. Securing lifelong connections for these teens, both legally and emotionally, is a critical component in determining their future achievement, health, and well-being.
Each year, we focus our outreach and awareness efforts on a new adoption-related theme to help support professionals working each day to find permanency for children and youth in foster care in their communities. This year’s National Adoption Month theme is “Small Steps Open Doors.” Pursuing permanency for teens can be challenging, but small steps along the way can make all the difference. Taking the time to talk with and listen to youth can help you earn their trust and help the youth become more engaged in their own permanency planning. It can also create an environment where youth can be honest and ask questions. Youth are the experts of their own lives, so let them partner with you in permanency planning and make decisions about their lives. (Child Welfare.Gov)

All Saints Day
2022-11-01

Dia De Los Muertos
2022-11-01 - 2022-11-02

National American Indian Heritage Month
2022-11-01 - 2022-11-30

Intersex Awareness Day
2022-10-26

Supporting Reactive Behavioral Strategies to Address Challenging Behaviors
2022-10-24 18:00 - 19:30
Click here to register

Asexual Awareness Week
2022-10-23 09:00 - 2022-10-29 17:00
Asexual Awareness Week – October 23-29
Ace Week is an annual campaign to educate and build awareness about asexuality. This international campaign is twelve years old this year.
What is Asexuality?
Sexual attraction is a type of attraction to another person that involves a sexual interest towards them. While this type of attraction is a normal part of life for many people, this concept can be completely foreign for people who identify as asexual. Asexuality is a sexual orientation where a person experiences little to no sexual attraction to anyone and/or does not experience desire for sexual contact.

Like any other sexual orientation, asexuality isn’t a choice. Unlike abstinence and celibacy, which are both choices to avoid sex, asexuality is an innate part of who someone is.
There are some people who may not fit the strictest definition of the word asexual but nonetheless feel their experience aligns with asexuality in some way. Gray-asexual (or graysexual) is a term that describes this experience. Gray-asexuality incorporates a wide range of experiences, including:

experiencing sexual attraction rarely,
only experiencing sexual attraction under specific circumstances, or
fluctuating between periods of experiencing sexual attraction and periods of not experiencing sexual attraction.

The term asexual umbrella (or asexual spectrum) includes all the identities related to asexuality, including asexual, gray-asexual, and demisexual. The word “ACE “ is shortcut word for the identities that fit within the asexual umbrella, and it can also be used to refer to a person who identifies with the asexual umbrella. For example, an ace person might identify as asexual, gray-asexual, or demisexual.

Resources

Celebrate National Coming Out Day with HRC! – Human Rights Campaign
National Coming Out Day – Wikipedia
The asexual umbrella – Learn – Aces & Aros (acesandaros.org)
Ace Week 2022: October 23-29 (asexualawarenessweek.org)

Exposure to Trauma: Preschool- Age 6
2022-10-20 10:30 - 12:00
Kids & Families Together in collaboration with Ventura County Children & Family Services, presents a new training- Exposure to Trauma: Preschool- Age 6
If you have been shocked, deeply saddened, and/or in search of a courageous, collaborative space to dialogue about the vicious acts of violence happening in our country and its effect on children, families, and communities, join us! Senta Greene will facilitate the experience and is a certified child life specialist with deep expertise in psychosocial care and the emotional safety of children, youth, and families impacted by healthcare and significant life experiences.
Training Outcomes
▪ Explore age-based trauma and how to help
▪ Learn about common reactions/behaviors for children ages 3 to six-years old after experiencing or exposure to a traumatic event
▪ Gain perspective, resources and strategies to help children communicate, cope, and connect.
When: Thursday, October 20, 2022 from 10:30am – 12:00pm
Where: Zoom
This training counts toward required training hours, and live Spanish interpretation will be available via Zoom.
Click here to register

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Black Poetry Day
2022-10-17

Vaping the New Gateway: This Is Not Your Parents' Tobacco
2022-10-12 10:30 - 12:00
Kids & Families Together in collaboration with Ventura County Children & Family Services, presents a new training- Vaping the New Gateway: This is Not Your Parent’s Tobacco
The age a person first begins using drugs and alcohol is critical to reduce the risk of developing a
substance use disorder. 90% of adults living with addiction started misusing substances before
the age of 18. Alcohol, tobacco and marijuana have traditionally been the 3 most popular drugs
for youth since the 1970’s. In 2006 the e-cigarette was introduced in the U.S. and 16 years later it
is more popular for teens than alcohol. Unlike their grandparents and parents’ addiction and
severe medical issues occur much faster.
When: Thursday, October 12, 2022 from 10:30am-12:00pm
Where: Zoom
Please click here to register.
Training Outcomes:
Develop a greater understanding of how to guide the teen
brain.
▪ Inspire increased communication between caregivers and
kids.
▪ Reduce youth mental health crisis.
▪ Strengthen awareness of personal mental health
▪ Increased awareness of youth risks and protective factors
▪ Prepare to set expectations and Focus on the behavior not
the person
▪ Know your teens activities and Recognize warning signs

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