Northwest Indiana Community Action is excited to host their 5th Annual Reimagine Conference. The conference will be held at Valparaiso University on October 12 and 13. This year’s theme is “Celebrating Resilience”. Trauma, adversity and stress are a part of life, resilience is about learning to adapt in the face of these issues.
Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, describe stressful events or circumstances that overwhelm children’s nervous systems. Every year, NWICA presents an ACEs Champion Award. This award is given to an individual or organization that works to prevent and resolve the impacts of these issues in the community. They demonstrate and create safe, nurturing environments for those impacted as well as help to overcome ACEs.
One of last year’s award recipients was Amanda Zelechoski, “Being recognized as an ACEs Champion meant the world to me because it came from my own NWI community … where I live and work, where my children are growing up, and where I’ve worked hard to advocate for increased child trauma awareness, education, screening, and intervention for over a decade.”
Amanda demonstrated an ACEs Champion by offering a free webinar, along with co-founder Dr. Lindsay Malloy, in August 2020 that discussed scientific findings on the impact of the pandemic on mental health of children and intervention strategies for parents. This quickly turned into a digital resource and nonprofit organization called “Pandemic Parenting”, reaching thousands of caregivers and professionals in over 100 countries.
Amanda has continued several projects to better trauma-informed education, mental health and juvenile justice services, as well as to establish post-grad programs at Purdue University Northwest.
If you know someone that represents an ACEs Champion, you can visit NWICA’s Reimagine page to nominate them for the ACEs Champion award. Deadline for nominations is August 1.
If you would like to support or participate in the conference in other ways, there are conference sponsorship opportunities for all businesses. Options from exhibitor to presenting sponsor are available with different prices and benefits to each.
Last year’s conference brought in over 250 attendees who were all given more information on each sponsor. The event app contains virtual booths that garnered thousands of hits throughout past conferences. There are many opportunities for business exposure to new potential clients and customers. For more information on sponsorship opportunities visit NWICA’s website under the events tab.
For information on the conference, registration, sponsorship and ACEs Champions, visit Northwest Indiana Community Action’s website Events tab.