PIN Holds Second Annual Conference for Families

Parents and providers of services for children with emotional and behavioral disorders came out in force on October 16 to attend the second annual Advocacy and Information Conference in Philadelphia.

More than 170 people attended the conference, which was held at the Doubletree Hotel in Center City. The conference was sponsored by Parents Involved Network of Pennsylvania (PIN), a project of MHASP. Keynote speaker Health Commissioner Estelle Richman, told the gathering at the general session in the morning that children's needs should be addressed as a whole and that parents should not take "No" for an answer when looking for services.

"We need to make sure that people don't come in compartments," said Richman, who since the conference has left her position as health commissioner to oversee all social services in the city in the new Street administration.

"We need to treat the whole person. In the past we've said we treat the person, but then we didn't talk to the school. Or we've just looked at what happens at school, but never looked at what happens to that person on weekends or in the evenings."

Richman also talked about the importance of letting families make decisions in the treatment of their children.

"We must try to make sure that children and families have lives, not programs," she said. "Programs aren't going to always be there, and they aren't always going to work. We need to get back to asking families, 'how do you live your lives,' rather than simply creating more programs that don't address how people live. We have to ask, 'how do we create healthy lives' not just programs."

Another keynote speakers was Harriet Williams, director of children's services for the Philadelphia County Office of Mental Health.

During the rest of the day attendees were able to choose from among 12 different workshops on topics that ranged from "Adolescent HIV and Sexual Health Issues" to "Juvenile Justice" to "Kinship Caregiving".

"It was a huge success," said PIN staffer Candi Parente, who helped organize the conference. "The only thing people seemed to be unhappy about was that they couldn't go to more workshops."