From meeting families and hearing their amazing stories to running with kids to hearing the speakers testify on their reason why for helping kids, the KIN Conference was an amazing experience to behold.
The conference started with DeAnna acting as an MC to introduce and welcome the families and speakers. The first speaker on the docket was Director Darrell Missey, from the Missouri Children’s Division. He spoke about “getting back to the basics with childcare,” and presented handmade yarn dolls to the families that had been caregivers the longest (18 years) and the newest caregivers in the room (six months).
Many speakers opened up and walked the ballroom engaging with the caregivers. They spoke about dealing with trauma, handling the system, and even how we identify our triggers and techniques to remain calm when someone pushes our buttons. Self-care tips were also discussed, so the ones we served could be the best caregivers possible.
In between the amazing sessions, the marketing team heard many individual stories of caregivers and how they handled the sudden change when they got the call.
One of those families was the “Bailey Bunch” pictured above. They are a set of caregivers who attended the conference with an amazing story. The eldest daughter was addicted to drugs and deemed unable to provide adequate care for her nine children.
Her mother took in the triplets and the baby, her second daughter took in three, and her sister-in-law took in the last two. They heard the old saying “It takes a village,” and they accepted it and donned shirts that said, “We are the Village.” They believed it is best to keep the family together and no matter the struggles they would figure it out. And they mainly have except for one big struggle, transportation. After finding DeAnna and swallowing the pride of not asking for help, DeAnna listened to their plight and promised CMFCAA would do everything we could to help them be able to transport all the babies safely.
Outside of the actual conference itself, our staff had the really fun job of hanging out with the children all day. We took them bowling, watched movies, and ran through the halls giggling.
There were only outbursts of praise from all the attendees, many of which used the KIN Conference as a means for a family vacation. The caregivers felt supported, informed, and surrounded by a community that was willing to help. Thank you all for your part in making this conference the success it was!
