Education, Trainings, Webinars
Educational Offerings
Guest Speakers, Interveiws, Panel Discussions, Trainings, Webinars
Our team offers a variety of educational in-person and virtual events and webinars designed to support parents and educate the public. Our goal is simple: to share our lived experience, observations, and knowledge about the impact of attachment disruption on children, families, and society. We explore the effects of high cortisol levels during critical stages of brain development and what that can look and feel like in parenting. The impact of broken trust and the resulting deceptive emotional lens that leads our kids to emotional dysregulation, relationship difficulties, and safety issues can be complicated. Survival brain function, "felt" disorganized emotions, alarm-rooted behaviors, chaos vs. comfort, sensory distortion and sensitivity, dysregulation as a coping response, fear and shame as an internal beacon, and more.
Learn and grow with us as a means to meet your traumatized child's needs and improve programs and inform systemic shifts. Knowledge brings calm, effective parenting, healthier child outcomes, and parent voice informing change across child-serving systems.
Live and Recorded Webinars, Live Forum discussions
Contact us at
Parent Resiliency Workshop
The Next Series is Coming in Spring 2027
(In-person and Virtual.)
Dr. Langston, LMSW, RPT, a trauma-centered family and youth therapist, will explore the scientific link between brain development and relationships. Early trauma impacts brain development, leading to, among other symptoms, impulsivity and an elevated survival response. Maladaptive behaviors can be complex, but effective relational therapy for parents and the child can be critical. This discussion will cover therapeutic parenting strategies.
As an attorney defending parents' rights to secure appropriate, often complex behavioral healthcare and treatment for struggling children, Attorney Vincent understands parents need guidance. Attorney Vincent will discuss parental/ guardianship rights in a DCF investigation, pathways to accessing the highest levels of care, and what navigating child-serving systems entails. The goal is to find out how it all works.
Therapeutic Parenting Tips & Strategies
Recorded Webinar
Parenting in the trauma trenches must be intentional, and consistent. Remaining emotionally and mentally centered, and calm in crisis situations is valuable and can be challenging. We are you. We walked this path and survived. Sharing the tips and tricks we used with you, in support of family integrity and healing, is our 'why'.
Learn about treatment models that helped and why. Find out more on trauma-competent clinicians and sources of funding to access therapeutic supports, helpful services, and community activities as untraditional support. Learn what role scheduled respite can play in your strategy and more.
This course will be available in January 2027!
Family Forward Advocacy CT Founders and ACTion Team members are available for public speaking, keynotes, and panel discussion engagements. For booking information:
Public Speaker Engagement Bookings
~ Coming Soon ~
Therapeutic Parenting Bootcamp
A Family Forward ACTion Team member will join a special guest for a panel discussion followed by a Q&A. Attendees will be encouraged to submit questions in the chat. Monthly topics will vary and rotate, and will include:
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Children's Behavioral Health Services Array Access: what they need, when they need it, and how to get it.
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Child Welfare as a Clinical Services Doorway: what works and what doesn't
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Juvenile Justice: The Default System
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Special Education: categories, accommodations & cost
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The Funding Shell Game: who pays for what and when
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Policy Reform: your voice is a powerful tool
Virtual event
Tap into our network of professional attorneys, advocates, clinicians, psychologists, social workers, and others.
Policy Reform ACTion Planning Course
'12 Town Hall Meeting, W. Hartford, CT
Maureen w/ CT Rep. John Larson
'20 Wash. DC
ASFA Reform Rally-Connie Reguli, Kimberly Love, Maureen & fellow advocates
Activate Your Voice
Coaching for Parents in the Trenches:
A Systemic Change Blueprint
Become a change agent, a credible and effective voice in your state. Passion and purpose are great, but you need a plan. Learn to set achievable goals, network, lobby lawmakers, build a coalition and inform state agency policies and practices to better support parents raising kids affected by brain disorders, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and other complex needs.
This is a "Get Started" course comprised of two 2-hour segments. It is offered on demand based on interest. Please email us to learn more.
Policy Reform ACTion Planning Course
Maureen O'Neill-Davis, recipient of The Robert Haller Memorial Award for Outstanding Community Service '17, pictured w/Steven Hernandez, Exec. Dir., CT Commission on Women, Children & Seniors and Wendy Haller. wife of the late Robert Haller
Activate Your Voice
Coaching for Parents in the Trenches:
A Systemic Change Blueprint
Becoming a change agent is a journey. Our founders networked and trained for years to be bold, informed, and effective. Both became known in Connecticut for speaking out and gathering parent voices around a common goal: reforming child welfare culture and policies where they intersect with access to high- and complex-need care for children in the behavioral health care and special education systems.
Passion and purpose are great, but you need a plan. Learn to set achievable goals, network, lobby lawmakers, build a coalition, and inform state agency policies and practices to better support parents raising kids affected by brain disorders, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Trauma, and other specialized and complex needs.
This is an introductory "Get Started" course comprised of six 2-hour segments. Each segment builds on the last and provides a strong foundation of information and skills to help you be heard, make the change you want to see, and shift agency culture in your state.
This course is offered in February 2027.
Parenting is a natural act. But when it comes to advocating and therapeutic parenting of our traumatized kiddos, some human parents need a little coaching, mentoring, and support.
Parent Policy Reform Advocacy Coaching
Therapeutic Parent Mentoring
Becoming a comfortable, effective public policy change agent takes time and planning. When starting out it can help to have a mentor to brainstorm with, help you organize strategies, and explore networking opportunities. FFACT Co-Founders had mentors. Now we're here for you.
There are days when parenting in the face of trauma makes you question your own sanity. Days when you feel like giving up. All you need is someone to listen who understands the struggles and can remind or reintroduce those strategies you know work, right when you need it. Maybe a system is failing you, your family or your impaired child, and you just need encouragement or to feel heard. We're just a call/text/email away.