Welcoming Children Home Conference:

 

November 2nd, 2024 | 8:30 AM - 4 PM

Grace Central Coast SLO Campus
1350 Osos St. San Luis Obispo, CA 93401


Cost: $25 (Includes lunch and breakout sessions)

 

REGISTRATION COMING SOON

 

Vision:

 

The purpose of this Central Coast Conference is to inform and motivate Christians of both the Biblical call to care for the orphan and the needs of vulnerable children in our community.

This conference is for everyone! Adoptive and Foster Care families who are looking for support, community, and training as well as people who are not feeling called to adopt but want to support families who are. Everyone can do something!

 
 

Keynote Speaker:

Philip Pattison

Philip Pattison is a Foster/Adoptive Dad, Pastor and the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Foster the City, a movement of 300+ churches working together to provide loving homes for children entering foster care. Philip and his family of 6 reside in the San Francisco Bay Area and you'll most likely find him exploring new coffee shops, cheering for his kids at the ballpark or dreaming about ways that local churches can keep moving towards vulnerable children and families.

 

View the San Luis Obispo Interactive Downtown Parking Map HERE

 

Ron Huxley:
Ron Huxley, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 32 years of experience in the mental health field. His specialty is creating practical tools for individuals and families in adoptions and trauma-informed care. Ron is the author of the book “Love and Limits: Achieving a Balance in Parenting” and the founder of TraumaToolbox.com and FamilyHealer.tv media.

Lindsey Clark:
Lindsey Clark is a stay-at-home mom, foster mom, and homeschooler on the central coast. She has been married to her husband Brendan for 11 years. Together they have 3 biological children and have fostered 6 infants. She specializes in medically fragile and drug exposed infants and fosters through SLO County’s Options For Recovery (OFR) program where she meets with and mentors birth parents while working towards reunification. Lindsey also grew up in a family that fostered and has had 39 foster siblings.

Becca Lenz:
Becca Lenz has served on the Grace Central Coast Foster Care and Adoption team since 2015. She and her husband Tony first became interested in foster care after several friends began to foster, and Becca and Tony would provide childcare. Shortly after, they became licensed foster parents and had three short term placements. Becca and her husband decided to transition to a support role. Rather than bringing children into their home full time, Becca and Tony felt called to serve foster families in other ways. From making meals, sending encouraging messages, purchasing needed supplies, to serving as an Advocate for Foster the Central Coast and overseeing Support Teams, Becca has found great joy in supporting Foster children and their families.

Brent Estes:
Brent Estes, LMFT, is in private practice at two offices in San Luis Obispo County. He specializes in the treatment of children, adolescents, and their families. He has been a presenter at various local, state, and national child and adolescent conferences. Brent has worked with numerous orphan, foster, and adopted children/teens for 30 years in residential, hospital, school, and outpatient settings.

Daniel Carlisle:
Daniel Carlisle is a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist who has worked in the foster care system for the past 18 years. His professional focus has been on providing social work and clinical services to "at risk" youth who are in foster care and receive intensive services. Daniel's passion for foster care/adoption has also impacted his personal life. He and his wife have been foster parents for a number of years. Over the years he and his family have adopted 5 children from the foster care system. He has a professional and personal understanding of the joys and heart ache of foster parenting and adoption.

Rob Grindy:
Rob Grindy has been in his process of daily sanctification for the last 25 years and has lived on the beautiful Central Coast of California since 2007 with his amazing bride Katy. They currently have four earth-bound children, and an untold number of heaven-bound that they’re excited to worship with in glory! In his spare time, Rob loves coaching and watching his boys play baseball, making his princess laugh, serving with his local church family at Grace Baptist Santa Maria, and enjoying quiet, streaming nights at home on the couch next to Katy.

Chelsea Sobolik:
Chelsea Sobolik serves as the Senior Director of Policy & Advocacy for Lifeline Children’s Services, the leading evangelical child welfare organization in the country. Prior to joining Lifeline, she was the Director of Policy for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). Previously, she worked on Capitol Hill on pro-life policies, domestic and international religious freedom, adoption, and foster care issues. Chelsea has been published in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, and others. She is the author of Longing for Motherhood – Holding onto Hope in the Midst of Childlessness, and a forthcoming book on women and work. Chelsea was adopted as a newborn from Bucharest, Romania, grew up in North Carolina, and lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband Michael. She and her husband are currently adopting from India.

Douglas Murphy:
Douglas Murphy, MD, is a private practice child & adolescent and general psychiatrist with 32 years experience in medicine and psychiatry, practicing psychiatry on the Central Coast since 2000. He is passionate about faith, the bible, worship, neuroscience and psychiatry, and how these inform our understanding of mental health problems, mental illness and the most effective solutions for the suffering they cause.

Susan Boyd:
Susan K. Boyd, a Licensed Marriage & Family therapist in Private Practice for over 27 years, enjoys helping individuals, couples, families and parents! She is a Christian who feels very blessed to be in a job she loves with clients she appreciates coming along side. She’s been a guest on National Radio and Television News Broadcasts. She has given seminars to churches, Christian School faculty, Bakersfield College for parents of foster children, and other organizations. Most recently, she has spoken at the World Conference for the American Association of Christian Counselors in Nashville for four years on the subject of Bullying. She’s authored two books on Bullying and three Step into Scripture Bible Studies and has a fourth to be released in the fall of 2022.

Paul Bautts:
Paul Bautts is a retired pastor, who has 40 years of pastoral experience after graduating from Talbot School of Theology. His daughter has provided foster care for several children, one of whom is now his beloved, adopted granddaughter.