Who’s going where? This is a great opportunity to let us know who is promoting and or joining your organization. These are their new positions.

Would you like to let us know who is moving and where? Send email to Stacy Gray to share in our next issue of OneVoice.

BUTTE COUNTY DCSS
Patsy Martinez	– Child Support Specialist II
Julie Freitas	– Retired (Child Support Specialist II)
DEL NORTE COUNTY DCSS
Aaron Goodwin	– Director
Debbie Mayhue	– Retired (Director)
EL DORADO COUNTY DCSS
Suzette Lucich	– Retired
Marcia Patrick	– Retired
IMPERIAL COUNTY DCSS
Liza Barraza	– Director
Bianca Legaspi	– Supervising Child Support Attorney
KERN COUNTY DCSS
Aine Ford	– Child Support Attorney 2
Kimberly Crompton	– CSO IV
LeMayo	– CSO IV
Ana Mendez	– CSO IV
LOS ANGELES COUNTY CSSD
Hooman Hassanpour	– Information Technology Manager II
Leah Rochford	– Attorney IV
Roye Randall	– Attorney III
Adriana Payan	– Administrative Services Manager I
Virginia Duarte	– Administrative Services Manager I
Anahit Mouradian	– Paralegal
Violeta Martinez	– Senior Departmental Personnel Technician
Melania Gordzholadze	– Senior Departmental Personnel Technician
Diana Morales	– Child Support Officer III
Jason Mendez	– Child Support Officer III
Wendy Weisler	– Retired (Attorney IV)
Mary Milus	– Retired (Supervising Payroll Clerk III)
Cheryl Tureaud	– Retired (Child Support Officer III)
Lorrayne Green	– Retired (Child Support Officer III)
MARIN COUNTY DCSS
James Powers	– Legal Process Supervisor
Tray-Yun Kuo	– Senior Accounting Assistant
NORTH COAST REGIONAL DCSS
Charles King	– Supervising Child Support Specialist
Violet Orozco	– Child Support Specialist I
Shana Katz	– Child Support Specialist I
Alicia Jones	– Child Support Specialist III
Tiana Davis	– Child Support Specialist III
Natalie Romero	– Child Support Specialist III
Cate Fini	– Retired (Child Support Specialist II)
RIVERSIDE COUNTY DCSS
Lupita Andrade	– Senior Child Support Specialist
Natasha Grace	– Senior Child Support Specialist
Teresa Myers	– Senior Child Support Specialist
Shirley Washington	– Senior Child Support Specialist
Robin Jones	– Retired
Jan Long	– Retired
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY DCSS
James Crabtree	– Deputy Director, Operations
SAN MATEO COUNTY DCSS
Erika Orozco	– Child Support Supervisor
Karina Bravo Salgado	– Child Support Supervisor
Amrit Singh	– Child Support Supervisor
SANTA CLARA COUNTY DCSS
Erin Bigelow	– Division Manager
Lori McKeown	– Retired
SANTA CRUZ/SAN BENITO REGIONAL DCSS
Roxanna Hernandez	– Child Support Specialist II
SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY DCSS
DJ Anderson	– Program Manager
Leticia Rocha-Corona	– Management Analyst III
SHASTA COUNTY DCSS
Chris Navarro	– Child Support Attorney II
Christina Balke	– Child Suppport Specialist II
Dawn Chase	– Child Suppport Specialist II
Linda Walker	– Child Suppport Specialist II
Holly Jonio	– Retired
SISKIYOU/MODOC REGIONAL DCSS
Faith Dooley	– Retired
SONOMA COUNTY DCSS
Alicia Ceniceroz	– Administrative Services Officer
Steven Franceschi	– Retired
STANISLAUS COUNTY DCSS
Rhonda Mason	– Assistant Director
Tammy Nunes	– Manager I
VENTURA COUNTY DCSS
Marie Martinez	– CSR I
Rudolph Rodriguez	– CSR I
Angela Garcia	– CSR I
Oriana Lopez	– CSSS III
Araceli Rodriguez	– CSR II
Priscilla Stevenson	– Retired
Lisa Mellein	– Retired
Mayra Torres	– Retired
Aida Morales	– Retired

By Ross Hutchings, CAE, Executive Director, CSDA

Can you believe it has already been a year since being appointed as your Executive Director? Seems like yesterday when I attended my first Board and Membership Meeting in July 2016. I’m sure I drove those who sat next to me nuts as I kept asking what various things meant as they were being discussed. A year later I have a much better idea of some of what is done by LCSAs, however, I have a long way to go to learn all your acronyms!

What a year it has been. One of the goals I mentioned in the interview process, and was supported by the Board, was to visit all the directors in their own LCSA offices. To date I have visited 47 out of the 49 LCSAs. The two missing are due to medical issues and a change in directors—both who will be visited by August. These visits gave me an opportunity to see firsthand each office/working environment, learn about each county, understand the demographics and challenges, and most of all visit one-on-one with the directors. But the benefits went way beyond what I expected. I was able to ask a series of questions that we now can compare regarding child support issues, county challenges, and perceptions regarding CSDA. From this, we have a number of overriding themes that the Board will use as we develop positions and programs to address these. Thank you all for taking the time to meet with me. It helped me to get to know you better and I hope helped build our relationship quicker. The benefit has been so universal that I plan to continue to visit at least one-third of the LCSAs each year. We need to stay in touch, and the best way is for that to be face-to face.

I had the good fortune to help lead you through our strategic planning process last November in Riverside. From that, we built our Business Plan which included three platforms. These three items are driving our organization. For the Advocacy Platform, a new Advocacy Committee was formed and has collected a list of 35 items of importance to you. They are working on the top three items you identified. White papers listing the pros and cons will be distributed, and a discussion will be held at our July Membership Meeting. If two-thirds agree, we will develop our official position on these items. This helps lead us to the second platform, One Voice. Our goal is to continue to provide a trusted environment where everyone can share their opinions, hold discussions, and if possible, come to a consensus with positions and promote those both internally and externally. Our third platform is Training where we are continuing with our outstanding ongoing training: Leadership Institute and Legal College. Our Policy Symposium was one of the best yet with an outstanding program and an increase in non IVD attendees. Our Annual Conference was outstanding with the second best attendance, eclipsed only by the first one in 2005, and high satisfaction (results from the surveys). And we are looking at possible development of a certification program and offering additional regional or online training.

But I think the biggest change I have seen since being here is the attitude toward the organization, toward each other. Although we have maybe not yet “arrived,” I think there is a feeling that we are on the right track. I have always felt that a professional organization is a community, sorority, or fraternity—it is a place where we come together with common interests and feel that it is a safe environment to share our opinions, listen to varying points of view, and learn from one another. The addition of ONE VOICE newsletter has helped facilitate this by including in-depth articles on a variety of different subjects, sharing ideas from LCSAs, keeping membership informed of Board and leadership activities, promoting CSDA events, recognizing staff accomplishments and sharing insights into our Directors. CSDA is the place where we can share best practices, get new ideas, learn from each other’s mistakes, and create common shared interests.

Although it is important to recognize our successes, we must not rest on our laurels. We all know that the only constant in life is change. In today’s fast-paced society, it is not good enough to be prepared for what comes next; we must anticipate it. Forecasting or strategic thinking is what we need to engage in to anticipate these changes. Your Board has begun that process (see President Natalie’s article in this issue). We want to share and practice this with the entire membership to help us develop collectively. It takes practice to be strategic and forward-thinking. We are also working on implementing various tools to help us better communicate and share with one another so we can become a nimble, dynamic organization with the ability to adapt quickly to take advantage of these changes.

Thank you all for your support of CSDA and of this industry. You have encouraged and supported me in my role. You are a dedicated group of people who really care about improving the profession. I am excited about the potential and growth and look forward to working with you in the future.

Complimentary

PowerPoint 2016 & Office Mix Webinar*

Wednesday, September 20, 2017, (10 – 11 AM)

 

Contact your director or manager for approval and link to register.

 

Who should attend?

Directors and team members responsible for training, education, documentation, and product support. Participants do not need access to a personal desktop or laptop computer to attend (group viewings OK).

Note to directors: Please share this opportunity with your staff. Staff should have director or manager approval before attending.

What you will learn?

Learn to create engaging and interactive video content with PowerPoint and Office Mix. Office Mix is a FREE add-on set of tools for PowerPoint. Learn how easy it is to use Office Mix to add recorded video and screen-sharing content to PowerPoint slides.

Recommendations

Experience with MS Office Suite 2016 (PowerPoint 2016) – Preferred

Experience with MS Office Suite 2013 (PowerPoint 2013) – Minimally required

*This is a CSDA members-only benefit

Another annual training conference is in the books and, WOW, was it an amazing success! The 2017 CSDA Annual Training Conference and Expo was held in Garden Grove, California, May 1-4 and was packed full of opportunities from beginning to end. We nearly broke our all-time attendance record having a grand total of 892 participants onsite during the week. We are pleased to report that all LCSAs were in attendance along with colleagues from the California Department of Child Support Services, Office of the Attorney General, Superior Court, District Attorney, staff from the Nevada State Child Support program, and Guam Child Support Enforcement Division. It is certainly exciting to see the continued growth of this event and its reach to partners beyond the California program!
The week was kicked off with an opportunity to network with fellow child support professionals while learning about the wide array of innovative and cutting-edge services offered by conference sponsors and exhibitors. The room was abuzz with riveting conversation as attendees made connections and shared stories. Because of the support of our 23 sponsors and exhibitors, over $40,000 in addition to significant in-kind donations were raised to offset the overall cost of the event and lowered registration costs for all of us. Thank you to all our sponsors and exhibitors!!
The educational offerings over the next three days proved to be relevant, empowering, and motivating. With nearly 70 session workshops from technical discussions to simulations to topics focused on individual wellness…. there was something for every liking. Feedback from conference evaluations included positive comments about the wide variety of session topics, the quality of session speakers, as well as our distinguished plenary speakers. We were challenged by Director Alisha Griffin to think differently about the way we deliver services to families; Dr. Kathryn Edin shared details of her discoveries about the overwhelming number of families living on $2.00 per day; and Frank Abagnale left each of us thinking a little differently about identity theft and the unique challenges that come with social media. Dr. Edin and Abagnale’s books were sold out in a flash and both authors graciously signed a great number of books for attendees. A heartfelt thank you is extended to Alisha Griffin, Dr. Kathryn Edin and Frank Abagnale for taking the time out of their busy schedules to spend time with us.
Throughout the week, attendees took full advantage of the mobile app, not only to access materials, but to add to the ‘live feed’. The child support community certainly made their mark on Twitter by tweeting about their positive experiences throughout the week, that was a lot of fun! After hours, some attendees made their way to Disneyland or shuttled off to the LA Dodgers/SF Giants game; everyone seemed to enjoy their evenings and many spoke of the value they found in networking.
The Awards Banquet was an excellent time to honor the contributions of so many brilliant child support professionals and enjoy the company of colleagues. Many took the opportunity to sit with talented caricature artists or visit the selfie stations to help draw out their inner Superhero. Attendees were eager to grab a seat at the closing plenary, certainly the most well-attended closing plenary we have had, to listen to the life story of Frank Abagnale, as told himself. He certainly kept the audience engaged.
It is fitting that the conference theme was “Partnership of Heroes” because the success of this event is truly due to the partnership we have in this program. Whether you are a conference committee member, a session coordinator, a speaker, IT support, one of the 52 onsite volunteers, an attendee, or someone who supported the conference process in other ways…. you made this happen. The 2017 Conference Planning Committee would like to extend their sincere thank you to all of you for your dedication to making each year better than the last. We already look forward to creating an amazing experience for 2018. Thank you and please mark your calendars for next year! Monday, April 30 – Thursday May 3, 2018 Hyatt Regency Orange County. *

* Look for further details in upcoming Newsletters and communications from CSDA.

View/Download Materials, Pictures & Resources

CSDA Scholarship Recipients’ Perspective

 

Vicki West, Director, Madera County DCSS

I was born long ago on a dark and stormy night in Detroit, Michigan… not really, it was the middle of August so I doubt it was stormy, but I was born at around 9:00 pm so I guess it was dark at least! My father was an FBI special agent stationed in Detroit and my mother had been a secretary for the FBI when they met, but she stayed home after I was born. I was their first born so I got all the attention until my sisters (yes, plural, they were twins) entered the picture two and half years later. It was a great place to be a kid at that time. We knew everyone on our street and we would leave in the morning and come home in the evening when either the porch light came on or my dad whistled for us! I experienced the joy of having a childhood just as it was depicted on TV in shows like Leave it to Beaver and My Three Sons (look it up if you are too young to remember, LOL).
We lived in Detroit until I was 12 years old. My dad was transferred to Washington, DC, and we moved there in January thinking we were moving to the South! Imagine our surprise when we didn’t know if we had a front sidewalk until all the snow melted in April. I had fun in high school and I am still close to some of my high school friends. I attended Montgomery Community College and majored in Dental Assisting. The most interesting part of my education was my internship. I was fortunate to be able to intern at Walter Reed Army Medical Center during the time of the Vietnam War, so I could assist with not only dental procedures, but also with facial reconstructions and other war related injuries.
After graduation, I worked as a dental assistant for several years. First one, then the other of my sisters, moved to sunny California after they graduated from school. I decided to visit them and I loved it so much I got a job and stayed. After a few months of my being in California, they both moved back to DC, but they assured me it wasn’t to get away from me! By that time I was committed to living in California. I married and had two amazing children and then divorced. So, for the majority of my children’s childhood I was a single mother. That experience made me appreciate the mission of the Department of Child Support Services in a very special way.
I have been with Child Support for over 31 years in several capacities. I began as a Family Support Officer in February of 1986. I moved up to Assistant Administrator and then Administrator when our former Administrator retired. I held that position until the transition out of the District Attorney’s office occurred in 2000. At that time, I became the Deputy Director until I retired (sort of) in 2012. I actually retired one day and returned the following day to work as a retired annuitant until February of 2016. Our former director, Tania Say, was “headhunted” by the Information Technology Department and I was asked to come out of retirement to take on the assignment of Director. I have been honored to serve in that capacity for the past 17 months. Needless to say, the work we do is very near and dear to my heart and I truly believe we make a positive difference in the lives of children.
One other fact that not everyone might know, is that I returned to college to finish my bachelor’s degree and graduated in 2007. I was accepted into the EMBA program at Fresno State and obtained my MBA and graduated in December of 2008 with distinction, proving that it truly is never too late. I enjoyed school so much I decided to become a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Phoenix and I taught business classes for the next 4 years. The classes were in the evening from 6 pm to 10 pm, so it made for a very long day. Although I loved teaching, it became more difficult for me to see well enough to drive at night, so I left the teaching field in 2016. However, I consider myself a life-long learner and I will always continue to grow and increase my knowledge.
I enjoy traveling and I intend to travel even more when I actually retire! I am very blessed in the fact that both my children and their families live within a 20-mile radius of my home. It is especially fun to be able to have Sunday night dinners with all of them. I have six wonderful and amazing grandchildren too. Sometimes I am worn out counting my blessings! 

conversJill Francis, Director, Marin County DCSS

Role Model

My mom has been a great role model. She has an unstoppable drive. Never content with the status quo, she has reinvented herself and her occupation many times over. Her career has taken her from positions like the Executive Director of two different non-profit organizations to a Senior Project Manager for an international consulting firm. She showed me from a very early age how to take risks and to always go after what I want in life.
At her core, there is a love for people. Like me, she is an only child. Missing that sibling connection has never really been an issue for her and she made sure it wasn’t an issue for me either. She showed me the value in creating life-long friendships that become as close as family. While I was growing up she always had a wonderful group of friends surrounding her and, oh boy, did those ladies know how to have fun! In my mind, I can still hear them at our dining room table laughing, singing, and telling stories for hours.
Even in retirement today, she can’t sit still. Just this month she opened her own eBay store, she is an Uber driver, and she is the president of one of the social clubs in her 2000-home, over-55 community in Las Vegas, NV. She is an amazing woman. She proved to me that I can do anything I set my mind to and instilled in me the importance of maintaining positive, healthy relationships with great people.

Child Support Services or Walmart?

In early Fall 1993, I needed to find a more permanent employment solution when my perpetual “summer job” at a local jet ski rental and surf clothing shop in Clearlake, CA (Northern California) was coming to a close. At 23 I was no longer a teenager and out of college so it was time to “grow up.” In that moment, within my rural community, there seemed to be only two viable options available.

First, a new Walmart being built in Ukiah, just 15 minutes from my house, was offering full-time jobs, decent pay, and health insurance benefits. As unappealing as it sounded to me to stay in retail, it seemed to be the best opportunity out there. That was until I got an unexpected call from the Lake County Family Support office (later called Child Support Services).

Second, I had applied for a Family Support Officer position many months earlier and they were using that eligibility list to see if anyone was interested in an extra-hire Office Assistant position. The job was short-term (900 hours max) with no benefits, the office was a 45-minute commute from my house, and the pay was less than starting wages at Walmart. I’m not sure why I even considered it, but something told me this was right for me.

So, in a rare venture away from my mom’s sage advice, I took the Family Support position and launched what would be my career of almost 24 years now. I sometimes wonder where I would be today if I had gone the Walmart route.

“Careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder” – Sheryl Sandburg

For the last 24 years my career path has felt exactly like the career ‘jungle gym’ Sheryl Sandburg talks about in her book Lean In.
I spent a year at Lake County Family Support eventually securing that Family Support Officer position. I then moved to Mendocino County Family Support for five years, becoming a Supervisor after about three. With growth potential limited in Mendocino County, I decided to return to a Family Support Officer position in Sonoma County where I eventually became a supervisor again and then promoted into a management role in 2004.
By 2006 however, the economy was starting to turn and funding for the newly renamed and restructured “Child Support Services” program was beginning to flatten out. With a reduction in work force looming on the horizon, I knew I needed to take my career in a different direction.
In June 2006, I took a huge leap of faith and quit my job with Sonoma County to be a consultant for the new California Child Support Automated System (CCSAS) implementation project. Through that project, I was able to work directly with eight different local child support agencies across the state; agencies in counties as small as Trinity to as large as Los Angeles. It was an awesome opportunity to see how each local office approached the same work in different ways and it helped me to build a wonderful network of child support colleagues and friends.
After the project was over I continued to work as a consultant on other State projects but I missed the child support program that I had grown to love and the connections I had made with other child support professionals that shared my passion for the work.
Through CCSAS implementation I had spent over a year working with Marin County Child Support Services staff helping them through their conversion to the system. It was a small office that produced some pretty amazing results. So, in 2010, when I saw an opportunity to join their staff as the Assistant Director, I jumped at the chance. I could not have been happier to rejoin the program. I was even happier to be joining a great County team that I already knew and liked. When our Director retired in 2014, I was appointed as the Director and am still fortunate enough to lead that organization today.

Life is Good!

I am a Californian through-and-through. I was born in Fullerton (Southern California) and have lived all across the state, but my comfort zone is in the northern Bay Area. We have a wonderful blend of geographic and cultural diversity, city life, country life, and some of the best food and wines in the world. Like my Mom, I have a terrific network of friends that have become as close as family. We enjoy going to music festivals, camping together all across the state, and have even traveled the world together. I consider myself extremely lucky to live in such a beautiful place, to work in an industry I love, and to have such an incredible family of friends around me at all times. Life is good!

Child support professionals do far more than bring in needed funds for families living at poverty levels and offsetting CalWORKs program costs. You are addressing the issues of individuals to help increase their ability to make their payments, reconnect with their children, and to achieve the well-being we all strive for. A less understood issue is opioid addiction, from its earliest stages, often beginning with prescription painkillers, and for a growing number of individuals advancing through an aggressive network of illicit drug sellers.

Opioid abuse is an epidemic beyond a scale I think most of us believe could not happen in the United States. The problem is more complex in recent years with the introduction of powerful synthetic drugs. A Joint Taskforce convened in August of 2016 by the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities cite in their report:

• 174 overdoses in six days in an Ohio city
• 8 overdoses in 70 minutes in a Pennsylvania county
• 26 overdoses in 3.5 hours in a West Virginia city

The Joint Taskforce members from California are Supervisor Leticia Perez, Kern County, and Councilmember Walt Allen, Covina, CA.
The Joint Taskforce report “NAC0-NLC: A Prescription for Action” states, “Americans consume up to 80% of the world’s prescription opioids.” – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
And from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services –
Each day in the U.S.

• 650,000 opioid prescriptions are dispensed by health care professionals
• 3,900 people initiate nonmedical use of prescription opioids for the first time
• 580 people use heroin for the first time
• 78 people die from an opioid-related overdose (these numbers are increasing)

A lesser known fact is the shift in demographics from the poorest neighborhoods to middle class men, women, and youth. We now follow the pattern as they lose their jobs and families, or drop out of school, and begin buying illegal drugs after they can no longer afford or legally receive prescriptions.

The California Opioid Overdose Dashboard (https://pdop.shinyapps.io/ODdash_v1/) reports for 2015:

• 24,443,223 opioid prescriptions
• 4,095 opioid overdose hospitalizations
• 3,935 opioid overdose ED visits (excluding heroin)
• 1,966 opioid overdose deaths *

*These are the known or reported opioid overdoses. Not all coroners run costly lab tests for deaths attributed to other causes where opioids contributed (such as auto accidents), students away at college in other states, or opioid overdose victims discovered by their friends and revived. Under-reporting also applies to the daily U.S. counts listed above.

If you know someone who has a relative or friend with an opioid addiction, raise your (virtual) hand. Secretary Hazel, Commonwealth of Virginia DHHR often asks – “Who pays for it?” The answer is … We all do.

What is an opioid?

In the broad term, they are substances that bind to opioid receptors in the brain and body. This includes commonly prescribed drugs like Vicodin, Oxycontin or Percocet, as well as substances like heroin, fentanyl and recent “designer drugs” like “Smarties” and Gray Death.

Who is impacted?

Opioids used to be associated with impoverished minority neighborhoods. Over the last 15 years the use of opioid prescriptions have become so prevalent that the U.S. is in the midst of an epidemic that is blind to age, race, and economic status. Although there is a reduction in California prescription opioid overdoses, in a two-year period heroin overdoses have doubled in some counties. In California the highest rates of opioid deaths (among the worst in the nation) are in Lake County and surrounding rural northern counties, for ages 12 and older. The rural and tribal communities will benefit from added treatment centers, public awareness and education.

How is California addressing opioid addiction and overdoses?

California organizations are delivering outreach, education, and treatment services in addition to justice interdictions and diversion programs. A partial list of initiatives include:

• The California Opioid Safety Coalitions Network, with support from CHCF, have come together in 24 counties to decrease opioid overuse and deaths.
• CA Department of Justice Statewide Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), monitoring system and legislation requiring reporting have resulted in a reduction in opioid prescriptions and overdoses.
• The CA Department of Health Care (DHCS) recently received a two-year grant to be used in rural and tribal communities with the highest rates of abuse. The grant will fund approaches for 1.) opioid misuse prevention efforts, 2.) expand access to Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT), 3.) coordination of local coalitions to reduce opioid abuse, and 4.) increase education and training to help reduce the associated stigma.

What can local Child Support organizations do?

Staff and public awareness, and recognizing opioid abuse for referral can make a difference.

• Engage your local opioid safety coalitions for information and staff awareness or training at http://www.chcf.org/oscn/about and select your county link.
• Take advantage of existing collateral for outreach and education for your county. Marin County’s RxSafeMarin Program website was recognized by CA DPH for its public awareness campaign collateral posted in public and medical locations, and has offered to share with other counties at http://www.rxsafemarin.org/.

Rena Burns is the national Health and Human Services Industry Solutions Leader for the IBM Global Center of Competence.

By Mary Lawrence-Jones, Assistant Director, Sacramento County DCSS

Sacramento County Department of Child Support Services (SCDCSS) sponsored its second annual Employee Enrichment Mini-Conference on April 17 & 18, 2017. The event was held at Sacramento DCSS and was titled “Adjusting Our Lens… Bringing it All Into Focus.” 
The purpose of the Mini-Conference was to show appreciation for all the hard work done on a daily basis and to provide an opportunity for personal growth and development for Sacramento County child
support professionals. To continue this development and to adapt to inevitable change, it is recognized that all need to grow and personally stretch. To help meet the challenges ahead, the conference brought together inspired professionals from several industries to share tools and ideas that might not readily be available. The Mini-Conference consisted of a plenary session and several breakout sessions addressing topics from communications to goal setting.
In addition to SCDCSS an invitation was extended to surrounding local child support agencies
and several Sacramento County Departments. Those in attendance included child support professionals from Central Sierra, Contra Costa, El Dorado, San Joaquin, Solano, Sutter, Stanislaus, and Yolo. Staff from the Sacramento County Assessor’s Office, Voting Registration, Department of Human Assistance, and Agriculture also participated. This year’s total attendance exceeded 250 participants.
The event featured four very dynamic speakers, each with exemplary credentials and practical experiences within their industry. Their presentations were all well received, much enjoyed and appreciated, as shared in the evaluations completed at the conclusion of the event.
Vincent Ivan Phillips, Owner of Communication VIP Training and Coaching, author and former instructor at the University of Tennessee, was the keynote speaker and facilitator of several breakout sessions. His topics centered on word choice, and “Fire Terms”; words which lead to heated emotional discussions. He also spoke on the delivery of information, and how to increase conversational clarity. Mr. Phillips was also featured at the 2016 CSDA Annual Training Conference in Anaheim, California.
Elaine Bowers, Board Certified Registered Art Therapist, (ATR-BC) Licensed Marriage Family Therapist, (MFT) trained in Art Therapy & Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) was another dynamic speaker. Ms. Bowers facilitated workshops that focused on new ways to feel relaxed and less stressed in difficult situations. Participants learned basic relaxation skills and visual resource tools designed to assist in coping with conflict or stressful situations in the workplace or home setting.
Kent Hill and Shane Nelson, both Project Directors for the Pacific Institute, co-presented on the topic of goal clarity. Coming to us with exemplary credentials of success, a few of their accomplishments consisted of (Mr. Hill)—Georgia Tech’s All-Time Football Team and Hall of Fame and LA Rams All Rookie Honoree; (Mr. Nelson)—former member of the NFL Buffalo Bills, Rookie of the Year and National Junior College Football Hall of Fame. Their inspiring and motivating breakout session left participants with a clear understanding of how important the creation of goals are to overall successful performance.
The final breakout session was conducted by Don Tillery, Program Manager, and member of the Sacramento County Executive Leadership team. Mr. Tillery’s background prior to joining the SCDCSS team included debt and accounts receivable management, and financial services for higher-education institutions. Mr. Tillery’s workshop titled: “Money Management – Saving for a Sunny Day,” focused on numerous tips and techniques for saving money and creating a Sunny Day Fund.
The Employee Enrichment Mini-Conference was well received as shared by several comments below:
“Hello Leaders: Just want to thank you for providing the course I took today. It provided a great speaker, empowering and encouraging information and the opportunity to operate in excellence in conversation with anyone. I believe the class for Supervisors and Leads would be a great companion to the class with Vincent Phipps this morning. Thanks again!!”

“This was an excellent session. Elaine was very calming and made this workshop a variety of activities in one. She provided us some very easy and quiet things we can do to calm ourselves. I found this useful as we often work in situations that can become heated. I think the techniques we learned with her on breathing and engaging the whole mind can be done right then and there to ground ourselves to the moment. Our job can be stressful and demonstrating some artistic ways to vent that stress, find peace and maybe even some goal planning insight was appreciated. I would recommend this session to everyone.”

“Always love training with Kent and Shane. They are dynamic, compassionate and invested in what they do which creates the right environment for learning and absorbing the information.”

“Kent and Shane’s presentation was engaging, insightful and full of great anecdotes to personalize the experience. It was very enjoyable.”

“I want to thank you both for ensuring that our CCC staff and I had a wonderful learning experience. Your ambassadors did a great job making sure we knew where we were supposed to be and the speakers filled our minds with positive thoughts……. It truly was a job well done! Thank You.”
In conclusion, Sacramento (DCSS) is proud to present an event that helps its employees grow both personally and professionally. We look forward to another event next year!