The 9th Annual Bluegrass Region Grandparents and Relatives As Parents Conference (GAP) will be Thursday, March 24, 2011, at the Clarion Hotel (formerly the Holiday Inn North), 1950 Newtown Pike, Lexington. Registration begins at 8:00 a.m., and the first session, the keynote address, begins at 8:30. The conference will end by 3:30 p.m.

The GAP conference offers information and support to people who have full parental responsibility for one or more of their own grandchildren and to others raising their relative’s children.  Planners anticipate an attendance of about 350 people. The conference is open to everyone, whether you are raising children or not.

Registration for the conference is $5.00, payable the morning of the conference. The fee includes a continental breakfast and lunch. The GAP conference offers Continuing Education Units (CEUs) in social work and to lawyers. For more information please call 859-257-5582.

Exhibitors with books and other materials of interest, some free, will be at the conference. Applications and the $35.00 fee to reserve exhibit space were due by Friday, March 4, 2011. If you have a question about exhibiting, please call 859-381-3073.    

The keynote speaker will be Charlie Appelstein, MSW, president of Appelstein Training Resources. A youth care specialist, Appelstein leads training sessions and consults with individuals and groups who work with children and youth experiencing serious emotional and behavioral issues. His web site describes Appelstein’s “strength-based training” as a “positive and inspiring approach” to guiding at-risk children, youth, and families. Its focus is on strength building rather than flaw fixing. Appelstein received the master of social work degree from Simmons College of Social Work in 1987. In addition to his keynote address, Appelstein will  lead two workshops at the GAP conference.

The conference will offer at least 15 workshops addressing a range of problems faced by grandparents and relatives raising the children of others. These include legal issues peculiar to raising children belonging to others, and some of the special parenting and behavioral questions that arise because many of the children being raised by relatives have experienced abuse and neglect in early childhood.

Two panel discussions are planned. One led by lawyer Carl Devine, partner in the Lexington firm of Miller, Griffin, & Marks, is a panel of local and regional Family and District Court Judges who will discuss family law issues as they relate to raising relative’s children. A second panel, chaired by Douglas Burnham of the University of Kentucky College of Social Work, will be made up of persons who have been raised by their grandparents.

Again this year, GAP’s ever-popular one-on-one consultations with volunteer lawyers will be available to those attending the conference. The consultation is free, but reservations are necessary. If you would like a free consultation with a practicing lawyer on an issue facing you in parenting other relative’s children, please call 859-257-5582 to reserve your time.

Among other workshops offered are two led by members of Asbury University’s Department of Social Work, Sharon Bryson and Michelle Wells. Bryson’s will concern boundaries and systems for successful grandparenting. Wells will lead a discussion about dealing effectively with loss, including abandonment, separation, and death. Both of these topics are very significant for people parenting grandchildren or other relative’s children. More than 80 percent of the cases where grandparents must take over raising their grandchildren arise because of drug and alcohol abuse by the parents. Frequently, the children’s early experiences in the chaos of drug and alcohol abuse by the adults who should be caring for the children creates parenting problems for those who must deal with them after they are removed from their birth parents, often by the state, because of abuse or neglect.

Eileen O’Brien, a partner in the Lexington law firm of Stoll, Keenon, & Ogden, will lead a workshop aimed at helping legal guardians navigate the complex legal situations that arise in parenting other’s children.

Organized by volunteers who saw the need for such a resource as more and more grandparents are being compelled to take over parenting of grandchildren, the GAP conference planning committee was chaired again this year by Mary Jo Dendy, MSW, of Sandersville/Meadowthorpe Family Resource Center and Holly Salisbury, retired after a career at the University of Kentucky. Last year’s conference drew attendees from at least 51 Kentucky counties.