4th Annual WNY Family Engagement Conference

4th Annual WNY Family Engagement Conference

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Join us for the 4th Annual WNY Family Engagement Conference at the M Hotel Buffalo in Cheektowaga, NY. This exciting in-person event is a great opportunity for both education and mental health professionals to get together and learn about evidence-based family engagement strategies and participate in break out sessions specific to mental health, family dynamics and disability issues.

About our keynote speaker, Hasan Davis:

For more than 25 years, Hasan has held to the belief that each child can and will succeed as long as adults in their world create hope. Starting as a counselor and a teaching artist, and through his years as a youth development specialist, Hasan has transformed the attitudes and strategies of school and facility staff, parents, and members of the community to help hundreds of children graduate from high school and go on to earn degrees from colleges and universities.

In addition to his work at schools, Hasan has been Commissioner of Juvenile Justice for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Vice Chair of the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice, and an organizational consultant. With this experience, he has transformed organizations and public systems to ensure they have the capacity to not only meet the needs of the children and families they serve, but also are transparent and set metrics and methods of accountability.

He brings to the process a powerful combination of passion, caring, and leadership to craft a refreshing, common-sense roadmap to help all youth achieve their dreams, no matter the odds.

About our afternoon speaker, Antoine Johnson:

Antoine is currently the Program Manager for the Buffalo Fatherhood Initiative of Buffalo Prenatal-Perinatal Network, Inc. His past experiences and expertise has involved helping community members (e.g. low-income and vulnerable individuals) achieve equitable opportunities in affordable housing, support services and mental health.

His professional roles have involved providing community-based support services to underserved and marginalized communities (e.g. communities of color and low socioeconomic status). For over three years, Antoine provided Individualized Residential Alternative (IRA) Services to individuals with developmental disabilities (DD) and mental health diagnoses, including autism, in community-based residential settings. This experience provided Antoine the opportunity to help improve the quality of life and overall well-being of youth and young adults with DD. In addition, Antoine helped to improve low-income communities by providing service-enriched affordable housing opportunities for individuals and families who were considered to be homeless or living inhabitable housing situations. Antoine managed the Buffalo Rapid Rehousing Program. He assisted families experiencing homelessness and who needed temporary assistance in order to obtain and retain housing by providing short-term rental assistance and case management services. 

He is currently a Fatherhood Practitioner whose work involves providing interventions and services to low-income fathers and families in communities throughout Western New York. The focus of his work is to help close the gap in disparity of services available to men and fathers and reduce the number of father absenteeism homes for the one in four children who grow up without a father. His experience and expertise has prepared him to undertake action-oriented, policy-relevant, and community-engaged activities in order to drive improvements in the health of communities he serves.