Check here to see our growing list of workshop speakers!

Workshops are a vital part of the Filled Gathering. Learn from experts in the fields of trauma, attachment, and child welfare; hear the stories of people with lived experience; and receive gospel encouragement from gifted teachers. With 30 workshops to choose from, you are sure to find the training and help you need!

It Takes More than Love: Timeless Truths for Navigating the Complexities of Transracial Adoption and Foster Care - Dr. Bethany Salmon
Are you a transracial adoptive parent or a foster parent who wants to ensure that their home is equipped to navigate the complexities of being a multicultural family? If so this workshop is for you! Join Dr. Brittany Salmon as she walks you through the three tiers of racial representation and offers timeless truths and Biblical encouragement for navigating the complexities of being a multicultural family in a divisive world.

Safe Place for Lament - Aixa de López & Jackie Darby
As we walk on the path of adoption and foster care, we will encounter the harsh reality that in order to help our children heal and flourish, we must make space in our everyday lives for lament or mourning. Join Aixa (adoptive mom) and Jackie (adult adoptee) as we look to the Word of God, and discuss practical ways to bear one another’s burdens through the grieving process of familial loss and trauma.

Healing Practices of the Christian Home: Creating an environment where children can thrive. - Jodi Jackson Tucker
All children also need a home environment that builds their inner self, their relationship with God and their connection to others. This is especially important for post-trauma children. Mothers today face a great challenge as these Christian practices often conflict with societal pressures.
This workshop will encourage mothers with both Biblical principles and sound science to create a healing Christian home environment.  Each recommended practice will be supported by Biblical references and evidence-based science, as well as personal reflections from an adoptive parent of 30 years.
The concepts shared will be organized around our beings as created by God: mind, body, soul and spirit.  Each aspect will be explored as it is reflected in the healing Christian home. 

Make Sure You Know - Dr. Sharen Ford
In the journey of caring for or adopting a child from the foster care system … what you know and when you knew it matters.  Knowledge is informational but it is also powerful.  We’ll discuss asking the right questions, acquiring needed information, and preserving the rights and benefits those who can’t speak for themselves.
This workshop will share information about Information Sharing Forms and how they can and should be used and the Adoption Assistance Program.

Building a Calmer Brain from the Bottom Up - Melissa Corkum
Sometimes our kids seem to be angry and explosive all the time. Or maybe you feel angry and explosive all the time. Learn how to harness the power of neurobiology and polyvagal theory into practical ways to regulate your whole family’s nervous system from the bottom up.

Navigating Blocked Compassion in Your Marriage - Melissa Corkum
Keeping your marriage strong is challenging even on good days. Add the demands of adulting, managing challenging behaviors, and navigating the complexities of foster care and adoption, and it’s easy to find yourself at odds with your spouse rather than on the same team. Just as blocked care can develop with your children, blocked compassion can surface in your marriage. In this session, learn practical strategies for reclaiming compassion and reconnecting in your marriage.

Practical Ways to Hold Space for Your Child’s Experience - Melissa Corkum
You love your kids deeply, so it’s a knife to the heart when they scream, “I hate you!” or quietly admit they don’t feel like they belong in your family. Join adoptee and adoptive mom, Melissa Corkum, to learn practical ways to respond with compassion in these moments, honoring both your child’s experience and your own.

Teens: Encouraging Connection and Attachment, While Navigating the Impact of Trauma and Mental Health - Mia Arrington
Fostering connection and attachment can often feel overwhelming and difficult to establish. Teens are sometimes viewed as difficult or impossible to connect with, but what if connection and attachment with teens is simpler than what we think it is? Join this breakout session as Mia explores how to encourage connection and attachment with teens, while navigating the impact of trauma and mental health. We will discuss strategies to help reach the heart of your teen.  

Trauma & Mental Health: Understanding and Application - Jennifer Hook
Are you confused about your child’s mental health diagnosis or don’t know where to start? With so many diagnoses out there, it can be helpful to gain some clarity on the common mental health diagnoses our kiddos experience in relation to trauma related symptoms. We will discuss therapeutic recommendations and dive deep into practical applications to use in your home or office to help improve your child’s mental health outcomes. Lastly, we will end with a time of Q&A and interactive discussion.

The Defiant Child - Jennifer Hook
Are you caring for a child with extreme defiance behaviors? Join Jenn, therapist for children and adolescents in foster care, as we discuss what oppositional defiance is, how to differentiate that from trauma behaviors, and receive tips and encouragement as you continue loving your child through the hard parts of their story.

Intersection of Trauma and Adolescence - Bethany Hall
Parenting teens can feel overwhelming—especially when trauma has shaped their journey. In this workshop, we’ll unpack the mysteries of the adolescent brain and explore how to stay connected while giving them room to grow. Learn how to navigate the push-and-pull of identity development, adjust your parenting style to meet their unique needs, and support their resilience with practical, actionable strategies. Whether you’re managing big emotions or sensitive nervous systems (or both!), this session will help you parent with hope and stay connected through the challenges of adolescence.

Rewiring Connection: The Science of Blocked Care - Bethany Hall
Caring for kids with challenging behaviors can leave even the most compassionate caregivers feeling stuck, frustrated, or disconnected. It feels hard because it IS hard! Come explore the concept of Blocked Care—what happens when our nervous system shifts into protection mode instead of connection. Together, we’ll uncover why these feelings make so much sense from a brain-based perspective, discuss ways to break the cycle of guilt and shame, and discover practical strategies to cultivate compassion for ourselves and our children. If you’ve ever felt stuck, knowing what to do but not wanting to do it, this session will help you find hope, healing, and a renewed sense of purpose in your parenting journey.

Cultivating Belonging - Kristen Thomas
This breakout aims to equip foster/adoptive parents with practical trauma-informed ways to cultivate the healing power of belonging in children/teens/young adults from hard places.

Using the Connected Families Framework: Effectively Address Behaviors Without Sacrificing Safety and Connection - Sarah Worley
Have you ever wondered why, even with the best of intentions, parenting moments can go sideways so quickly? Afterward, are you left feeling discouraged, hopeless, and unsure of your abilities as a parent? In this session, we'll unpack the Connected Families Framework, a biblically saturated lens through which to view yourself, your child, and how you approach discipline. You will leave with a better understanding of the framework and a roadmap for discipline that is neither too permissive nor too punitive, but that connects with your child's heart and teaches new skills.

Let’s Play - Ann Maura Hinton
In this interactive workshop, we'll explore the role of play in development, delving into different play styles and how each one contributes to emotional, cognitive and physical growth not only to connect with your children, but also to rekindle the play in each of you.

Roots & Belonging: Understanding Black Hair Culture for Parents - Imani Powell
This session offers parents insight into the cultural and historical significance of Black hair while preparing children for the realities they may face in the world. Discussions will include the impact of the Crown Act and the language surrounding hair and identity

Hands-On Hair Care for Parents: Building Confidence with Curls, Coils, and Connection - Imani Powell
This interactive workshop empowers parents to maintain their child’s hair health while selecting products based on different styles. Therapeutic exercises help transform hair care into a positive bonding experience.

Grief Workshop - Jesse Boykin
Join us for this interactive time of learning to carry our grief with us as foster and adoptive moms. Whatever you're grieving- from children who have left your home to the loss of yourself, we will work through it together. Join us to be encouraged with biblical truths and hope for tomorrow. 

Compassion Fatigue, Burnout, and the Gospel - Jami Kaeb
As believers we are called to follow the example of Jesus; serve selflessly and give generously. But what do we do when our service for God provokes in us anxiety, depression, and burnout? This message will present a different way to think about our responsibility to live out the gospel.

Parenting from a Distance: Navigating Raising a Child with Severe Mental Illness Who is not Safe Living at Home - Anna Bernacki
Parenting a child with extreme mental health needs is uniquely challenging, especially when safety requires the child to live away from home. This workshop is designed to equip foster and adoptive parents with practical strategies to maintain meaningful connections with their child from a distance, while simultaneously fostering healing within the family at home. You’ll gain tools to advocate confidently for your child’s needs and discover ways to strengthen your resilience as a parent. With guidance and actionable resources, this workshop offers hope, connection, and support to help you navigate the complexities of loving and supporting your whole family while your child is away.

Self Care Isn’t Selfish: Preserve & Recover Your Wellspring of Life - Jesse Faris & Tona Ottinger
Can followers of Jesus care for themselves even as they pour out for others? Let’s explore the vital importance of self-care as a spiritual and emotional necessity, not a selfish indulgence. Through practical tips and biblical insights, we will discover ways to receive care from the Lord as we walk in faith.

Loving Limitations: Embracing Needs in a DIY World - Jesse Faris & Tona Ottinger
Every mom has heard some version of “I do it myself!” from a child who clearly needs help–and yet, many of us believe the myth of the "supermom" who can do it all on her own. Join us as we learn how to embrace our own limitations as a reflection of God’s design for community and interdependence. Together we will discover how embracing needs can lead to deeper connections, healthier boundaries, and a more sustainable approach to parenting.

Information Sharing: How to Talk with My Child About Their Biological Family - Susan Paa
As foster and adoptive parents, we are often to privy to information our children do not always have but, want and need to know about their biological family.  This session will provide guiding principles to reduce parental anxiety and increase confidence on what to share and when.  This session will also cover how to hold the tension of the "both and" (i.e. happy/sad, grief/gratefulness, loss/gain) of our children's foster care and/or adoption narrative.  

Our Stories - Dr. Christina Reese
We each have a story and each of our stories are unique. Understanding your story can help to develop insight about how you are parenting and connecting to your child. Our children also have their own stories, which include trauma and other experiences that have changed their thoughts, feelings and behaviors. What happens when our story intersects with our child's stories? How can we use our story to connect with our child? And how can we help our child to understand the meaning of their own story? Come explore OUR STORIES with Dr. Christina Reese

Navigating Sleep Challenges + Increasing Felt Safety at Bedtime - Allison Ezell
In this workshop, Pediatric Sleep Consultant Allison Ezell will unpack some of the most common sleep challenges faced by foster and adoptive parents, including separation struggles, parasomnias, and difficulty falling (or staying) asleep. Additionally, she will cover specific strategies that you can use to increase your child's felt safety around bedtime, no matter if they've been in your home one week or 10 years. If time allows, she will take questions from the audience about your specific sleep struggles. 

IEP, 504, and More Acronyms - Brandi Church
Understanding School-Based supports for your Foster/Adopted child and interventions for kids struggling with academics or social-emotional skills. 

 Parenting Older Teens and Young Adults: Launching While Connecting ... Is it possible? - Elaine Shenk
Our relationships with our older teen and young adult children have often been characterized by lack of trust, difficulty following directions and hesitation in engaging in vulnerable connections. But now comes the developmental stage of launching these children into independence! Our child, who has been adopted often struggles to seek guidance and direction from us, does not consult with us, and therefore struggles to make good decisions and be successful after becoming independent. They want to “do it themselves” often struggling to do so and not being willing to accept help. Due to trauma that they have experienced there are often developmental delays and mental health diagnoses that complicate the child’s search for independence.
In this workshop, you will find support and guidance to navigate this transitioning relationship. Ideas and interventions for remaining connected while pursuing independence will be discussed as well as what type of support services to look for if your child has complicating issues like mental illness or intellectual disability. Reminders about what is important, keeping your child’s preciousness and your own sanity in mind will be included!

Confessions of a Reformed Yeller - Kayla Moffitt
Parenting children from hard places and with big behaviors can push even the most patient of hearts. Not that Kayla claims to have ever been overly patient to begin with! When her 5 children moved in during a time of heightened grief in her own life, her grace tank quickly fell to empty. With her life consumed by a whirlwind of navigating trauma, heavy diagnoses, sleepless nights, and navigating her own battles, Kayla quickly fell into a pattern that she'd later learn she desperately wanted out of: Yelling.
Join Kayla as she shares how to unpack the realities of losing our cool, why it happens, how it happens, and how to prevent it from continuing to happen on our journey towards more grace and joy-filled parenting. This session is a safe space for authenticity, laughter, and the reassurance that you are never alone in your struggle.

Fill Their Cup: Supporting Your Biological Kids During Your Foster Care Journey - Talia-Rae Farrow
In this workshop I will share about my experiences as a biological child in a foster and adoptive home. My hope is that parents will learn how to better support their biological children as they ride the roller coaster of foster care and adoption.

When the Cradle is Empty: The Pain of Infertility - Bethany Kellogg
In this workshop Bethany will share her personal journey through infertility and provide a Biblical lens with which to view it from. She will discuss ways to handle the challenges of fostering and adopting in the midst of going through infertility. Participants can also expect practical applications and resources.

Bridging Bonds: Navigating Biological Relationships in Foster and Adoptive Families - Erin Bouchard
When we envisioned being a foster or adoptive parent, we often didn't envision navigating extended biological family relationships, in this workshop we'll dive how we can be the bridge between our children and their biological family.

The Relentless Pursuit of Cultivating Healthy Rhythms - Jason Johnson
We are bombarded daily by a myriad of images, messages and opportunities to consume that which is being sold to us as good. And yet, despite the bountiful harvest this world has to offer, we’re all too often still left feeling empty for more. This session will walk us through the unique distinctions between consuming and cultivating and give us practical insight and next steps for what a life oriented around cultivating things that ultimately satisfy and sustain looks like.