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Your place for news, updates and events brought to you by the Quality Parenting Initiative Nevada.
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What is QPI?
Making sure every child living in foster care is cared for by a caregiver (foster, relative, fictive and/or adoptive) who provides skilled, nurturing parenting while helping the child maintain connections to his or her family. 
The QPI Nevada Brand
Foster parents nurture children who have experienced trauma and provide a safe, loving and healing environment in which the children can thrive. They are parenting partners who honor and support family relationships. Foster parents are dedicated, informed and committed advocates for children. They are instrumental and fully supported members of the child and family team. Great foster parents make a difference for children and families in our community.
  

QPI Calendar of Events & Foster Parent Support Meetings

Click here  for a listing of upcoming events, meetings and other activities of foster care support organizations throughout Clark County.

 
Enhance Your Skills

Various trainings are offered in the community to help enhance caregivers' capacity to parent. Please click on the links below to learn more about exciting training opportunities from which you can benefit.  

Just in Time

Nevada Partnership for Training

The Nevada Registry 

The Parenting Project
September 2015
DFS, Community Come Together to Get Back to School! Back to Basics!
  
More than 800 kids received backpacks at the annual Back to School! Back to Basics! event held last month. Thanks to the hard work, dedication and generosity of so many people, businesses and organizations, we held our most successful back to school event to date!
 
A volunteer stands amidst the sea of backpacks before the doors opened, ready to get to work. 
 
More than 1,000 backpacks and a countless number of school supplies poured in from all over Clark County.
 
The Meadow Gold "Moo Truck" was a hit for kids and grown-ups alike!
 
Now in its fourth year, Back to School! Back to Basics! is the annual drive that provides backpacks to children in DFS care. The backpacks and supplies were donated by local individuals, organizations and businesses. Several volunteers also stepped forward to stuff backpacks and work at the event.

 

A child tries on his new backpack.

 

Kids shared their personal thank-you messages on special posters for event sponsors.

 

Ali Caliendo of Foster Kinship, center, shared laughs as well as information about her organization. 
Judge Frank Sullivan & Courts
Present Webcast with Nationally Recognized Psychiatrist
                                                
Clark County Family Courts and Eighth Judicial District Court Judge Frank Sullivan invite you to participate in a live, interactive Webcast featuring Charles H. Zeanah, M.D., noted psychiatrist and expert in early childhood development.
 
Dr. Charles H. Zeanah
Zeanah is a professor of psychiatry and professor of clinical pediatrics. He is the director of child and adolescent psychiatry and vice-chair of the department of psychiatry and neurology at the Tulane University School of Medicine.
 
He is also an executive director of the Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. 
 
What: Developmental Science and Child Welfare: Moving Towards a More Child-Centered Court Improvement Practice Model
When: Noon - 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015
Where: Click here to register
 
This free webcast is presented by Judge Sullivan and the Clark County Family Courts, in partnership with the Quality Parenting Initiative.
 
Click here for more information about the webcast and how you can participate.

EDUCATION UPDATE
Waitin' on the Bus:
How Does My Child Get Transported to School?  
 
Getting kids to school is one of the many immediate challenges faced by foster parents when they receive a new placement. It can be hard enough just figuring out the when and where; now what about the how? Many parents rely on the school bus system, but it's not as simple as dropping kids off at a certain corner by a certain time and problem solved.
  
DFS's educational liaison Dr. Leslie Strasser Murdock offers some advice to parents on sorting out school transportation.
 
Click here to read more.
Make Your Family Vacation Memorable for All the Right Reasons
 
As summer winds down, family vacations are still in order for Labor Day weekend and beyond. Talk with your case manager ahead of any travel plans when vacationing with children in care.
 
Before loading up the car for that road trip, here are a couple must-read articles with useful travel tips.  

 

Family Travel Road Tips 

 

Best Foster Family Vacations
Step Up for Kids at Springs Preserve on Children's Day in Nevada!
  
Celebrate families and support healthy communities by coming out to the Springs Preserve on Children's Day in Nevada! This event is free and open to the public.
 
Don't miss these great opportunities:
  • Raffles
  • Cupcakes from Freed's Bakery
  • Tons of excellent community resources
 
What: 8th Annual Step Up for Kids Event
When: 3 - 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28, 2015
Where: Springs Preserve, 333 S. Valley View Blvd., Las Vegas
 
Free hot dogs, snacks,
live entertainment, a petting zoo
and much more!

Don't miss it.

Mark your calendars today.
 
Questions? Call 702-895-1040 or email Amanda.Haboush@unlv.edu.
Clark County Department of Family Services | 702-455-5444 | http://tinyurl.com/my66nkm
121 S. Martin Luther King Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89106

"Safe Children. Healthy Families. Caring Communities."

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