Room 206 - During the 9:15 am service
Listen, share, learn, pray
Are you part of or do you support a foster, kinship, adoptive or at risk family? Have you in the past? Do you have a heart for caring for those in need?
Join us as we listen, share, learn, and pray, seeking to build and strengthen a diverse multi-generational community who cares for those in need on behalf of our heavenly Father.
Session Topic - Parenting adopted children (Q&A PANEL)
This session will be a Q&A panel on parenting adopted children featuring adult adoptees and licensed therapists who have worked with adoptive families.
We are providing attendees with an hour of continuing education credit.
PANELISTS
Madison Hester has been working with clients since 2019. While obtaining her Master’s at UNG, she completed a thesis which focused on researching the need for more adoption competent training for counselors, adopted individuals, and adoptive parents. As the daughter and sibling of adoptees, she is able to provide a unique perspective.
Shellie Gerrell began working in the counseling field in 2007. She previously obtained her Masters of Teaching degree from Piedmont College and worked as a Georgia educator for fifteen years. As an adoptee and mother of adoptees, Shellie specializes in areas of attachment, complex familial structures, abandonment, infertility, adoption and couple’s counseling. Her personal life experience, diverse family structure and educational background, lay the groundwork for unconditional positive regard for her clients.
Robert Dothard is the proud product of the "Adoption" process. He feels his parents were selected by God and tasked with giving him every opportunity enjoyed by everyone reading this! He and his wife have raised two boys and have been foster parents, and their home is currently available for future foster care. He is the owner of a Personal Training Studio, and he has been a Fitness Pro for over 30 yrs. Professional highlights include training Olympic and Professional Athletes, he has been featured on Biggest Loser & CNN's Fit Nation Trainer. He says he owes all he has become to loving parents and a caring military community!
Matthew Davis was adopted around age 7. Before the age of 4 he had spent time in five foster homes, the last of which he was in for three and half years until adoption. Two younger, maternal, half-sisters joined him at his last foster home before the three of them were eventually adopted into the same adoptive family. He serves on the Living 1:27 Foster Care Ministry leadership team.