Lewis B. Smedes Conference Speakers
The following speakers are confirmed presenters at the 2011 Smedes Conference on Foster Care & Adoption.
Margaret Coyne, J.D.
Executive Director, Advokids
Margaret Coyne is the Executive Director of Advokids, a nonprofit legal advocacy and education organization that she co-founded in 1993. After graduating from The University of San Francisco School of Law in 1982, she served as a Deputy City Attorney, representing the San Francisco Department of Human Services, Child Welfare Division, before moving to private practice. Ms. Coyne was the first attorney appointed to exclusively represent children on the San Francisco Juvenile Court Minor’s Panel in 1985. She retired from private practice in 2002 and now works with Advokids to promote safety, stability, and permanency for children in foster care.
Cynthia Davis-Elliott, M.S.W.
Children’s Bureau
Cynthia is certified by the State of California as a Registered Adoption Facilitator. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology and Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Southern California. Cynthia is affiliated with Alliance Adoption Assistance, an organization dedicated to securing permanency for children of color. Cynthia is the Adoption Matching Coordinator for Children’s Bureau, and supervises all pairing of children with certified families. She has served as a Certified Mediator for Consortium for Children’s P3 program, and as an Adoption Clinical Training (ACT) facilitator for Kinship Center. Cynthia has taught sociology courses at Pierce College, and College of The Canyons, and has been a mentor parent to foster youth with the Department of Children and Family Services. She is a wife, mother of two, and the grandmother of the most brilliant, and gorgeous baby girl on the planet.
Allison Davis Maxon, LMFT
Regional Executive Director, Kinship Center
Allison is a clinician, educator and advocate specializing in adoption/permanency, attachment and trauma. She is passionate about creating Systems of Care that are permanency competent and strength-based. She recently presented at the prestigious Georgetown University National Symposium on Children’s Mental Health Systems of Care Conference on Kinship Center’s clinical competencies of “permanency” focused, attachment-based mental health services for children who have experienced trauma, neglect and/or loss. Allison is the co-author and master trainer of ACT: An Adoption and Permanency Curriculum for Child Welfare and Mental Health Professional and she is the co-author and master trainer of Pathways to Permanence: Parenting the Child of Loss and Trauma. She is the creator of The Ten Things Your Child Needs Everyday, a DVD with tools that help parents/caregivers strengthen their attachment relationship with their child.
Marisol De Jesus-Perez, M.A.
Marisol De Jesus Perez is a doctoral student at Fuller Theological Seminary in the program of Clinical Psychology and a current Research Fellow at the Travis Research Institute. She has worked as a psychotherapist in community mental health clinics and hospitals. Most of her research and clinical work has focused in children, adolescents, and families that have experienced some sort of trauma. She has also served as a missionary in different countries in Latin America, where she assisted families living under severe poverty in highly violent communities. Marisol and her husband currently serve as assistant pastors at a Hispanic church in Montebello, California.
Jan Morris, M.A.
Jan Morris, M.A. Special Education, has been an elementary educator for over 15 years in public and Christian schools, and, as a Certified Positive Discipline Lead Trainer, she has helped teachers and parents to learn about the most effective Biblically tested tools that encourage young people to be respectful, responsible and resourceful, and to love God and others. She believes that the Bible teaches us that children are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and that our Heavenly Father is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost. She is a personal parent coach as well as a group facilitator for many organizations such as MOPS, CMTA, and local schools and churches. She has four adult children, three grandsons and one granddaughter.
Mary Rotzien, Ph.D.
Mary Rotzien’s strong commitment to her faith led her to found Child S.H.A.R.E., a program that addresses the lack of stable, safe and loving housing for abused children while she was a student at Fuller Theological Seminary. In 1985, Dr. Rotzien began to find temporary homes in the faith community for children languishing in the foster care system. Dr. Rotzien is a licensed clinical psychologist who provides services to children, adolescents and adults with learning and attention differences and emotional/behavioral difficulties at her private practice in Pasadena, California.
Dave Scott, Ph.D. Associate Director,
Center for Missiological Research, Fuller Theological Seminary
Since 1998 he has been working with and researching the various responses that Christians everywhere are offering to the needs of children around the world. Most of that time has been spent with Viva, an Oxford-based organization dedicated to building networks of relationships and broad-based partnerships among Christians who work with children both locally and globally. He is married to Charity and they have three children of their own. And although he only recently completed his Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies (September 2011) he has been teaching as an adjunct in the School of Intercultural Studies since 2004 and helped to establish the children at risk emphasis there.
Janet Sherwood, J.D.
Founder, AdvoKids
Janet Sherwood is a California attorney in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. She limits her practice to juvenile dependency, adoption, and related child custody issues. Ms. Sherwood is an NACC certified Child Welfare Law Specialist (CWLS) and a certified Appellate Specialist through the State Bar of California’s Board of Legal Specialization. She regularly sits as a judge pro tempore in dependency courts in San Francisco and Alameda Counties. Ms. Sherwood is also a consultant, trainer, and frequent speaker throughout the State of California on juvenile dependency issues.
Ms. Sherwood is the President of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Counsel for Children and is the Treasurer of Board of the Northern California Association of Counsel for Children. She is a founder and President of the Board of Directors of Advokids, a California nonprofit organization that provides legal resources and education for those who advocate on behalf of children in foster care. Ms. Sherwood is the author of California Juvenile Dependency Case Law Updates, 1991-2009, a compendium of California appellate decisions on juvenile dependency law. She is also the author of Representing the Child in Abuse & Neglect Cases, 31 ABA Family Advocate 28 (Winter 2009), co-author of Successful Appeals: Different Appellate Approaches to Children’s Continuously Changing Circumstances, 2009 NACC Children’s Law Manual Series 69, and author of the chapter on representing children in California Juvenile Dependency Practice (Cal. Cont. Ed. of the Bar, 2009 ed.).
April Steele, J.D.
Executive Director, Child S.H.A.R.E.
April Steele is a pastor and attorney, with several years of experience working in the justice system dealing with the issues faced by children in the foster care system. Ms. Steele served as an assistant district attorney assigned to the juvenile court division and later in her law career she moved into private practice, where she defended the rights of juveniles in delinquency actions and structured her caseload to focus on the representation of children and families in the foster care system. In her capacity as a pastor, April has built several strong relationships within the faith-based community. With her exemplary reputation and breadth of knowledge as a pastor, lawyer, small business owner and child advocate, April continues to effectively engage and bridge the faith community, the government and the justice system to serve abused and neglected children in the foster care system. April studied History and Political Science at LeTourneau University, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree and she earned her J.D. from Gonzaga University.
Melissa Cappleman
Certified Debt-Free Coach
www.CoachMelissa.net
As one of her dear friends says, “Once Melissa makes up her mind about something, get out of her way. She’s going to make it happen!” Indeed, Melissa jumped into financial coach training in March of 2007, and she has never looked back. It all started when she first heard The Dave Ramsey Show, a free podcast. Skeptical but inspired, Melissa struggled to balance her budget for eight months, even attending Financial Peace University at a local church that offered free babysitting. She finally realized that she needed a second set of eyes. After she decided to hire a financial coach, within four 30-minute sessions, she and her coach balanced her budget! Incredibly, for the first time in her adult life, Melissa had a budget that worked (and still works!). Melissa signed up for the Dave Ramsey Certified Counselor Training the very next month and found it so exciting to connect with other professionals who wanted to get their clients back on the road to financial HOPE. Since completing the training, she has been blessed to work with a wide variety of clients. Melissa has been told that what makes her a great coach is that she is gently straight-forward, knowledgeable and non-pretentious. She asks out loud the questions you wonder silently and talks about the issues you see but are afraid to bring up. She breaks tasks into bite-sized, easily digestible pieces. Perhaps most importantly, Melissa knows where you are coming from, and she wants to help you get where you want to be.
Julie Keith, M.A., D.Min.
Special Needs Pastor, First Church of the Nazarene of Pasadena
Julie Keith received her Bachelor’s Degree in Associate Ministry with an emphasis in Disability Ministry, a Master’s Degree in Marriage, Family & Child Counseling from Pacific Christian College and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Southwest Theological Seminary. She has served as a Disabilities Minister at Southwest Christian Church in Temecula, California and as a Disabilities Ministry Pastor at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, California. Julie currently serves as the Special Needs Pastor of In His Image Ministry at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, CA where she has worked since March of 2007. Julie has also worked in social services with individuals who have developmental disabilities and conducted training and education for staff in this field. Julie lives in Riverside California with her husband, Jeff and son, Dade. In her spare time she enjoys scrapbooking and spending quality time with her family.
Bob Levy
Los Angeles County Recruiter, Child S.H.A.R.E.
Working for Child S.H.A.R.E. has been the ongoing work that God started when Bob was a boy. At an early age, Bob found himself in the foster care system. It was painful to be without his family, but through the experience he learned a lot about when it means to be a family. While in foster care, Bob moved to 4 different homes in 2 years. Switching schools and friends was hard on him, but eventually Bob was reunited with his father. Bob didn’t really think about foster care or adoption until he himself was already the father of three, and watched a short Child S.H.A.R.E. video. Bob says, “That’s when the light went on!” He and his wife Carlotta have been foster parents to 4 children and have adopted their daughter through the help of Child S.H.A.R.E. “We can’t imagine trying to do this without the support and community of Child S.H.A.R.E. And now there is no greater privilege and honor that I could have than being able to devote my days to finding healthy, loving homes for children who are just like me.”
Shawn R. Prokopec, M.A.
Supervising Children’s Social Worker, DCFS
Shawn currently serves as the Supervising Children’s Social Worker for Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). Shawn is also the manager of the Metro North Faith-Based Collaborative encouraging the cooperation between DCFS and the faith-based community to provide supportive services to families and children. Shawn and her faith-based partners have developed a mentoring program for youth in long-term foster care, two visitation centers for parents to visit their children, are providing Life Books for foster youth to address their issues of grief and loss and are providing birthday and Christmas gift cards to approximately 600 children.
