Past Programs
Since 1996, the Community Coalition for Children has strived to bring highly regarded speakers whose research and work with families and children will be meaningful to the children and families of eastern Connecticut. Each year, the program is intended to ignite a dialogue about issues affecting children and healthy child-rearing practices.
Annually, the programs reach an average of over 1,200 students and adults in eastern Connecticut. Both press coverage and attendee comments suggest that the programs have triggered in-depth discussion and interest in positive youth development. Participants in the programs rave about the Community Coalition for Children's ability to meet its goal of providing an avenue for meaningful, productive discussion on children and families in a forum that is always free and open to the public.
We invite you to browse through the bios of the speakers that the CCC has been proud to host over the last 15 years.
2010: Jeff Wolfsberg (Drug Education Specialist)
Hey, Did you Ever Try Drugs?
Jeff Wolfsberg is a highly regarded leader in the world of school-based drug education and early intervention. With more than a decade of counseling and educational experience, Jeff has worked with more than 1,500 of the world’s finest independent secondary schools, colleges, and universities in enhancing their response to underage drinking, alcohol misuse, and teen drugs.
As a professional speaker and educator, Jeff has designed and presented programs to universities, Fortune 500 companies, educational conferences, and professional associations. He is a regular guest expert for FOX TV and has provided commentary on adolescent and family wellness for National Public Radio affiliates, guest host on The View, other national media outlets. He is also the author and narrator of the two-disc instructional audio program “Mom, Did You Ever Try Drugs-Answers to the Most-Asked Questions about Parenting, Alcohol and Other Drugs” and “7 Mistakes Parents Make When Talking With Their Teen About Dating.”
Jeff believes that teens have a natural internal compass to move towards health and it is our instruction that will assist in this natural movement. He describes this theory by a “Behavioral Model” approach. The cognitive-behavioral approach teaches students how to anticipate, identify, and manage high-risk situations, while also preparing for the future by striving for lifestyle balance.
We encourage you to go to Jeff Wolfsberg’s website at www.jeffwolfsberg.com to find out more information about him, what people think of him, and further resources he has to offer.
Check out Reactions from Students, Faculty and Public that attended Jeff Wolfsberg's Presentation this year!
2009: Kenneth R. Ginsburg, M.D., M.S. Ed.
Building Resilience in Children & Teens
Dr. Ginsburg is an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and practices adolescent medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The theme that ties together his clinical practice, teaching, research, and advocacy efforts is that of building on strength of children and teens by fostering their internal resilience. His plan for resilience can help kids from 18 months to 18 years, not to mention their parents and educators. His books include; But I’m almost Thirteen: An Action Plan to Raise a Responsible Adolescent, focused on parent-child communication, and two recent books published by The American Academy of Pediatrics are: A Parent’s Guide to Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Your Child Roots and Wings along with, Less Stress, More Success.
His teachings offer strength and a great amount of support throughout children & teens' growing years, as they learn how to cope with stressors such as school, sports, family/friends, money, etc. Dr. Ginsburg teaches parents and educators how to listen and communicate effectively with their children in order to help make for a healthy and successful development.
2008: Rosalind Wiseman
Creating Schools and Communities of Dignity
Author of New York Times bestselling Queen Bees & Wannabes along with Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads Rosalind Wiseman establishes an understanding of how to deal with conflicts amongst peers, families, and within their own community.
Adolescents today grow up in a society that measure who is most popular, rich, beautiful. Parents constantly compete with one another at who has the most perfect child has created an undignified community. These behaviors lead to acts of jealousy and hatred. Students and parents need to be learned how to handle both appropriately and effectively.
Rosalind Wiseman teaches parents and children how to resolve these situations strategically by approaching problems head on, creating calmness, explaining the situation, affirming and acknowledging, and locking in or out the friendship at stake.
For more information on her work visit www.empowerprogram.org
2007: Glenn E. Singleton
Beyond Diversity Let's Get Real!
The co-author of Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools, Glenn Singleton knows first hand the challenges that face all of us, whether we are black, brown, white, or yellow. He serves as the adjunct professor of Educational Leadership at San Jose State University and there works to help future leaders to understand the three essential characteristics of anti-racist leadership, which are Passion, Practice, and Persistence.
His success with school districts in California and North Carolina prove that once educators, parents, students, and community leaders honestly examine their preconceptions, policies, and procedures, the racial achievement gap can be closed.
2006: 10 Year Celebration!!
Conversations About Children: A Decade of Practical Solutions
The Community Coalition for Children celebrated its 10th anniversary year with a very special panel discussion among several of our past presenters. This alumni panel, moderated by Faith Middleton of NPR, discussed current challenges and solutions as we all work together to raise our children.
We were glad to welcome back the following guest speakers to this year's panel:
- Conrad Boeding, M.A., Children of Rage: Preventing Youth Violence after Columbine.
- Dr. Michael Bradley, Ed.D., Yes, Your Teen Is Crazy and The Heart & Soul of the Next Generation: Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Teens.
- Barbara Coloroso, The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander and Just Because It's Not Wrong, Doesn't Make It Right
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Adele Faber, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk and numerous other books.
2005: Dr. Pedro Noguera
A Leading Voice on Education Reform and Diversity
Dr. Pedro Noguera is a "hip", "engaging", and "very knowledgeable" expert who focuses on teaching and achievement across cultures, involving and empowering families in partnership with schools, and parent and student advocacy.
Proof of the Pudding summarizes some of the substantive changes shared by CCC partners as a direct result of the 2005 Community Coalition for Children program with Dr. Noguera
2004: Michael J. Bradley, Ed.D.
Yes Your Teen Teen is Crazy! Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind
Dr. Michael Bradley is the award-winning author of Yes Your Teen is Crazy! Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind. Teens will appreciate the companion volume of Yes, Your Parents Are Crazy! A Teen Survival Handbook
A psychologist practicing in suburban Philadelphia, Dr. Bradley uses recent discoveries about teen brain development. Neuroscientists have confirmed that the growth that occurs between ages 12-20 is “critical to things like intelligence, self awareness, emotional control, impulse restraint, and rational decision-making.
Dr. Bradley helps parents, educators, mental health counselors, and teens themselves understand that teens are not young versions of the adults they will become. They are significantly different. Bridges must be built to connect teens with their parents and other key adults because, Dr. Bradley says, "parents are still the most influential force in your adolescent's life for better and for worse." He teaches adults how to make the first steps to change relationship dynamics.
His vignettes provide humorous, poignant, and expert insights into the challenges that greet teens, parents, educators and counselors as they navigate the fjords of adolescence. He believes that the concept of "inoculating adolescents against the craziness versus isolating them from the insanity" is a complex challenge for contemporary parents.
2003: Edward Hallowell, M.D.
Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness
Dr. Ned Hallowell, a child and adult psychiatrist, is a genuinely warm and gregarious presenter. An instructor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Sudbury, Massachusetts, he has worked for many years with children and adults with a wide range of emotional and learning Dr. Hallowell is best known for his best-selling book, Driven to Distraction, which focused on attention deficit disorders. Then in a subsequent book, he turned his energies to helping parents and teachers discern The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness -- strategies for helping kids create and sustain lifelong joy. His careful analysis of causes of worry, assessments of worry as a tonic or a toxic influence in our lives, and strategies for keeping a healthy balance are explored in his book Worry: Hope and Help For a Common Condition His section "Remedies that Work" enables readers to gain hands-on ways to manage the stressors that are part of the 21st Century.
2002: Barbara Coloroso
Kids Are Worth It! Relating with Wit and Wisdom
Barbara Coloroso is the author of the international best-seller, Kids Are Worth It! Her wit and wisdom are the result of her remarkable life experience. A former Franciscan nun, the parent of three grown children, an educator of special needs children, and a university instructor, she is a highly popular speaker. Her humor and story-telling approach to the often complex issues for parents and teachers make her very appealing to a wide range of audiences.
Other books authored by Ms. Coloroso include:
- The Bully, The Bullied, and the Bystander
- From Pre-School Through High School, How Parents and Teachers Can Break the Cycle of Violence.
- Parenting Through Crisis: Helping Kids in Times of Loss, Grief, and Change
2001: Mary Pipher, Ph.D.
Rebuilding Our Families
Dr. Mary Pipher is perhaps best known for her highly successful book Reviving Ophelia, which describes a "girl-poisoning" society that forces a choice between being shunned for staying true to oneself and struggling to stay within a narrow definition of female. She has also written about families, caring for the elderly, and about the newest wave of immigration into the heart of America.
Dr. Pipher contends that people need "protected time and space and to reconnect with one another and the outside world." She sees current American culture as toxic to families because of its emphasis on consumerist autonomy at the expense of the cooperative interrelationship that families required. In The Shelter of Each Other, she challenges each of us to face the truth about ourselves and to find the courage to protect, nurture, and revitalize the families we cherish.
2000: Conrad Boeding, M.A.
Providing A Safe Childhood in Violent Times
As founder and director of the Human Passages Institute in Lakewood, Colorado, Conrad Boeding has devoted his career to helping children and adolescents who have lost the ability to trust. His book, The Love Disorder, describes his methods in practical language so that parents and professionals alike may employ them.
In his work, Children of Rage: Preventing Youth Violence After Columbine, Mr. Boeding illustrates how this psychological problem has developed into a broader social issue, creating a growing subculture of alienated, angry and aggressive youth. In an age of alarming youth violence, Mr. Boeding show us how we can regain our children' trust in the adults and institutions responsible for their care.
Human Passages Institute; 777 S. Wadsworth Blvd, Bldg.1, Suite 105; Lakewood, CO 80226; 303-914-9729
1999: Michael Thompson, Ph.D. and Judith V. Jordan, Ph.D.
Gender Dilemmas: Raising Strong and Competent Girls and Boys
Dr. Michael Thompson co-author of nationally acclaimed best-seller, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys Dr. Thompson is a child and family psychologist practicing in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also co-authored Finding the Heart of the Child and has worked with more than one hundred schools across the United States, conducting problem-solving workshops, with parents, teachers, and students.
Dr. Judith V. Jordan, nationally recognized teacher, lecturer, and consultant on women's psychological development, co-authored Women's Growth in Connection and is editor of Women's Growth in Diversity. She has served as Co-Director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute of the Stone Center at Wellesley College, as an Attending Psychologist at McLean Hospital, and as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School.
1998: Robert Brooks, Ph.D
Raising Resilient Children: Strategies for Fostering Self Esteem & Motivation
Dr. Robert Brooks is a nationally renowned psychologist and lecturer. He is the author of So That's How I was Born and The Self-Esteem Teacher.
Dr. Brooks focuses on raising resilient children and methods to foster self-esteem and motivation. By finding each child's "islands of competence," we build on those strengths to help them succeed. In this way, we discover the "everyday courage" of our children.
1997: Adele Faber
How To Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk
Adele Faber has based her work on the work of the late child psychologist Dr. Haim Ginott. She has won the international praise of mothers and fathers and professional educators-for the simple reason that her successful parenting workshops get results!
In their book How To Talk so Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, Faber and Elaine Mazlish offer skills based on psychological insights, their own experience as parents, and what they've learned from parents throughout the world. The authors' method is supportive, friendly, and best of all, effective. It offers innovative ways to solve such common problems as:
- How to listen to-and understand your child's concerns
- How to have cooperation in your family without nagging
- How you and your child can deal with feelings
- How to find alternatives to punishment
- How to help your child attain a positive self-image
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