Employee Enrichment Mini-Conference
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!
