ahka | MSSA Spring 2011 Conference (Reply)

This year, I joined Minnesota Social Services Association (MSSA) and attended their spring conference at the Minneapolis Hilton, last week. Most of the attendees were county workers, social workers, counselors and various helpers. Most of the attendees were public/government employees so conference included only sessions and no food of any kind. In comparison to other conferences that I have attended before, it looked like there were a lot of people and everything looked very bland and simple on the rich Hilton’s background.

There were offered so many different breakout sessions, it was very difficult to figure out which one to attend. The sessions that I attended, some were very good, and some were just plain for me. I don’t really like sessions that talk a lot about statistical data and unfortunately I ended up in one of those. Also, a few sessions were talking about things that I already know and I felt like I didn’t get anything out of them. I hope other attendees learned something from those sessions. Of course, I will stop talking about the sessions that I did not like.

There were great sessions where people shared their own life experiences related to mental health problems, growing up in a family of alcoholics, and being in the foster care system. Those were the most interesting sessions for me and very touching. These stories gave an insider’s view on the issues that a lot of my clients deal. These sessions were also motivational to all of us because all of these survivors of horrible life experiences praised some special social services workers who have helped them move through and forward from their horrendous situations.

As I wrote here at the end of the conference we all had a treat. Our Governor Mark Dayton came to talk to us and the keynote speaker was an actress Victoria Rowell.

However, the biggest highlight of the conference was full day seminar on Dealing with highly resistant clients by Clifton W. Mitchell, Ph.D.

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