The Collaborative Practice Center in Santa Rosa and the Collaborative Council of the Redwood Empire (CCRE) hosted the Delegates' Conclave for Northern California CP Cal groups on Friday, November 1, 2013.
We welcomed the attendance of CP Cal's president, Fred Glassman, who got caught in the shutdown at LAX on his way home, which delayed his return to Southern California until Saturday morning. What a trooper!
The other attendees were:
- Suzan Barrie Aiken, President Elect
- Paula Jackson, Executive Director
- Past Presidents Randy Cheek, George Richardson and Hal Bartholomew
- Board members Charlie Spiegel, Natalie Leininger, Jay Bray, and Peg Anderson
- Delegates included Kathryn Amenta, Ann Buscho, Camille King, Elaine Fraser, Pat Roma, and Kathleen Faulkner
The first half of the program was devoted to Divorce Options introduction and discussion. Charlie, Natalie and Ann provided us with samples of DO slides and training on how to prepare ourselves as presenters for these amazing materials. The slides included some new revisions to the presentation materials, as well as a set of slides prepared by Steve Rutlen for use in bringing the value of the DO program to mental health professionals who can educate their clients about the availability of the DO workshops.
We also had a lively conversation about how our practice groups are getting the word out to the public about the workshops, and how to provide information about the program to referring professionals and former attendees. One attendee spoke about publicizing the program on a Therapists Exchange, another spoke about broadcasting presentation dates on his entire Linked In network. A discussion ensued about the methods we use to enroll attendees, such as EventBrite (useful for e-mail blasts to Linked In lists) and Meet Up. We also agreed to post on our individual and practice group websites a link to the Divorce Options page on the CP Cal website. See the sidebar article on embedding CP Cal links on member group websites.
We also spoke about our experiences with presentations occurring on different days of the week- weekdays vs. Saturdays, daytime vs. evenings-and locations-hotels, campuses, libraries, offices, churches, etc. Ideas were exchanged about how we are managing the printing of handout materials, our experience with attendance trends, and the reported evaluations of attendees at the presentations. Charlie led a discussion about the Divorce Options Committee and the need for more members, an update on the revisions currently being made, progress on LGBT content, a new brochure that is nearly finished, protocols for pricing, advance registration, and "drop-ins," and variations on the program title (What Couples Need to Know About Divorce, DivorceOptions_Marin, etc.) In addition, we spoke about involving bench officers in the presentation, and protocols for whether or not the presenters may hand out business cards. We expect that the attending delegates will bring this information back to their practice groups for consideration in each group's use of this valuable tool.
An important take-away: the Divorce Options committee welcomes our suggestions at divorceoptions@cpcal.com.
We then moved on to a discussion facilitated by Fred about the charge of the Diversity Committee, and the progress already happening. Fred and Jay Bray are co-chairing the committee, and Justin Reckers is working with them. They propose to create a traveling presentation for practice groups, and this is another committee that will welcome new members.
Peg announced a new initiative to fill in some of the sections of the Toolbox on the CP Cal web site: a Collaborative Competition among all practice groups except CCRE (Collaborative Council of the Redwood Empire) and SCPG (Sacramento Collaborative Practice Group), which have already donated many of the posted materials. In the following article you will find the information about deadlines, and the three winning groups receiving registration discounts for one member (to be chosen by the group) of $250 for Celebration 9 in April 2014.
Natalie, one of the Celebration 9 co-chairs, reported on the progress being made for this event. The brochure cover is stunning and exciting, and ties in directly with our diversity commitment. She outlined some of the presenters and remarked on the high quality of the many presentation proposals that the program committee will be studying in the next couple of weeks. We were also reminded that CP Cal's Board is continuing the matching grant program for CP Cal Celebration 9 registration fees. $5000 has been aside in the CP Cal budget to provide matching grants with practice groups of up to $150 toward registration of the group's members. Ideas for how the recipients might be chosen will be circulated in the near future. Please see the article below for more information on Celebration 9 and the Matching Grant Program.
Peg also provided all conclave attendees with a summary of information gleaned from the delegate survey sent out in preparation for this conclave:
- Six practice groups reported that collaborative (or other) cases have come in from Divorce Options presentations.
- CPEB (Collaborative Practice East Bay) would like to have a meeting presentation regarding the use of social media.
- Three groups would like to have tools in the website toolbox to address case/team challenges. Other topics suggested for this location were
- cases falling out
- fundamental and advance collaborative training
- handouts to parents about parenting during and after divorce
- marketing tools
- Several groups shared creative initiatives:
- CPSV - two day training for estate planning and trust professionals, and incorporating these pros as members and on their website
- SCPG - creating interest-based workbooks
- CPM - considering creating a low/no-cost dispute resolution program
- Several groups also expressed an interest in partnering with other groups for skill-building training in these areas:
- CPSF - team dynamics; strategies for impasse/resolution; managing conflict; communication skills; negotiation
- CPSV - fundamental and advance collaborative trainings
- SCPG - basic and intermediate training
- CPEB - team building; communications; dealing with impasse
We ended the conclave with a reception including jokes, stories, yummy food and delicious Sonoma County wines, and all look forward to our next NorCal Delegates' Conclave on January 31, 2014.
