Guidelines for Speakers

General Guidance on Identifying and Working with Speakers for Family Reunification Day Event

There are several criteria to consider when identifying speakers for the Family Reunification Day Event:

• Are they, or will they be, comfortable speaking in front of an audience? This is a basic consideration, but some people do not like public speaking. Given the personal nature of the experiences that many speakers – particularly parents - will be sharing, you should ensure that they are comfortable speaking in front of an audience. You may want to ask if they have any previous public speaking experience (if they’ve ever acted in a school or community play or something similar) as this can be a way to gauge their comfort level.

• For parent speakers in particular: will they be comfortable sharing personal details of their reunification in a very public setting? The event will be a positive experience that recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of parents, but you should prepare speakers for the fact that reporters will be invited to attend, and that their experience will be shared in a press release and other venues. They should take into consideration that sharing their story affects them, their children, and others as well. If they have not shared their experiences with many people before, once they participate in the event their experiences will be known to friends, neighbors, work colleagues and others. This is something to raise with the speakers who will be sharing their personal experiences, as it can be easy to forget.  

• Are they a good speaker? Can they project their voice and speak clearly and not too quickly? Do they make regular eye contact? Are the comfortable either reading or referring to prepared remarks or speaking from general talking points? For the Q&A period, will they be comfortable answering questions “on the fly?”

• Do their experiences help to reinforce the broader messages that you want to convey? The purpose of the Family Reunification Day Event is to celebrate the accomplishments of parents who have overcome challenges and completed their case plans in order to reunify with their children. It is also to recognize the community partners that help parents obtain the support and services they need in order to succeed: substance abuse and mental health providers; drug courts and judges; foster parents and others. The speakers that you select should be able to talk about the difference that one or more of these partners or programs made in helping them to succeed and reunify.

Additionally, the event and the experiences that parents share should serve to inspire and encourage parents who are currently going through the recovery process, so think about selecting parents whose experiences (and their ability to speak about them) can serve both purposes: 1.) Describing the impact that particular programs and services have had on their lives and their ability to reunify with their children, and 2.) Talking about their experiences in a way that will motivate parents who are now going through the recovery process. 

When Assembling Your Speaker Lineup, Consider the Following:

• Don’t have too many – or too few – speakers. If you have an event that lasts an hour, you can probably have a maximum of 5 speakers. If you have too many speakers, it is hard to keep the overall event messages front and center, and if you have too few, the audience tends to get restless. Having 4 or 5 speakers, each of whom speak for about 8 minutes, along with a question and answer period at the end of the event, works well.

• Assemble a good mix of speakers. Have both men and women, and speakers of different ages, races and ethnicities. Keep in mind that the event is about families that have reunified and that the audience is going to be most interested in hearing directly from these parents. Additionally, think about including others who can contribute to telling this story – for example, a young person who was successfully reunified with their parent (either have them speak alongside their parent, or have them speak by themselves). Or a foster parent who worked to help a birth parent reunify with their child/children and can talk about how they did this. And you will likely want to have a service provider (or more than one) speak. They can address the role that services and supports play in helping reunify families, provide data, and reference the experiences of parents and families they have worked with who have successfully reunified.

• Introduce your speakers to one another before the event. You can achieve this either with in-person meeting or via conference call. All of your speakers should have the opportunity to meet one another and to exchange basic information before the event. This helps to establish a comfort level among speakers, and helps them to see where they fit in terms of the larger event. You can either have one “bigger” meeting, where you introduce everyone and also address logistic information (confirming the event time and location, reviewing speaker order, any other information that needs to be provided); or have two meetings, one that serves more as a “get to know you” and one that deals strictly with event logistics.

It is also a good idea to ask each of your speakers to arrive early for the event (between 30 and 45 minutes) to ensure that they are there for the start of the event, and so that you can meet with them and review the event lineup, timing, and any last minute details, and answer any final questions they may have.

• Make sure there are no surprises. Once you have assembled your event speakers, and you begin the process of crafting brief bios for each, working on draft remarks, the press release, op-ed and other materials, you will want to establish a process for sharing this information with the speakers in advance, so they have the chance to review it and make any changes. This is particularly important for the bios, the press release if they are being quoted, and the op-ed if they are authoring or co-authoring the piece. Make certain that they are not seeing all the materials for the first time at the actual event – share everything in advance so that they are a true part of the process.

• Establish a “comfort zone” for speakers, especially parents and youth. The event is designed to celebrate the accomplishments of parents who have reunified with their children, but in telling the story of how they achieved this success, parents will also have to talk about experiences and incidents that are deeply personal. When you are working with parents to craft their remarks and draft their bios, make certain that they know that their comfort and ease in sharing details is of primary importance. If they do not wish to share their children’s names, for example, they do not have to. Or, if there are particular parts of their story that they are uncomfortable discussing, work with them to find a way to phrase them in a way that makes them comfortable or leave them out if they can be left out easily (unless they are critical elements of their experiences).

This is true not just for their remarks during the event, but for the Q&A period and for any media interviews that they may do. If they are not comfortable answering certain questions, let them know that they can simply respond that way. Or, if they are asked a question that they do not know the answer to, it is perfectly okay to say that they don’t know. To ensure that parents – and all speakers – are comfortable answering questions, you may want to prepare them by putting together a list of sample questions they may be asked, and working with them on responses. 

Creating Event Speaker Bios and Working with Speakers on Remarks for Family Reunification Day Event

Once you have identified your speakers for Family Reunification Day, here is some general guidance on how to craft speaker bios and work with each speaker to draft even remarks. This guidance is designed specifically with parents and those speakers who will be sharing personal experiences in mind, but can be applied to all speakers.

Creating Speaker Bios

The press packets for the Family Reunification Day event should include a one or two page document that contains brief bios for each of the speakers. This document will provide event attendees – particularly media - with basic information about each speaker.

• Each brief bio can be anywhere between a paragraph and half a page in length. Be consistent in terms of length – don’t write a three sentence bio for one speaker, and a page for another. Generally, two or three paragraphs per speaker will suffice.

• Each bio should include basic information:  name, where they live, and their profession. For parent speakers, you will additionally want to provide information on how many children they have and perhaps their names and ages as well (if parents are comfortable sharing that information), in addition to how long they have been reunified for, and how long they were separated.

• The best bios also include at least one speaker quote. This helps communicate information in the words and voice of each individual. It also helps create a more readable document – it is more interesting to read a bio that consists of more than just a series of facts or experiences strung together, but is infused with the individual’s voice.

Guidance for Speaker “Interviews”

In choosing your speakers, you will likely be having one or more conversations with each. These conversations can – and should – serve as the starting point for drafting speaker bios and identifying key points for event remarks.

• When taking notes during these conversations, it helps to write what it said pretty much verbatim. If you, and they, are comfortable, tape record and transcribe the conversation. This can be incredibly helpful in identifying compelling quotes, and helping to determine how to best work with the speaker to relate their experiences. It is also much more helpful in identifying any gaps – questions that you did not ask or areas that you still need clarification on – than just writing down brief answers to each question. 

• Start your initial conversation with each speaker by obtaining basic information: name, where they live, what they do for a living. For those speakers who will be sharing their personal experiences at the event, ask them questions about these experiences.

For parents, ask how many children they have, how long they have been reunified, and how it feels to be back with their children. Ask them to describe the process of reunifying. It can help to start “backwards” – with the most recent events and information first, because that is what most people vividly recall. Working backwards, you can ask them in greater detail about what the recovery process was like, when their children were removed, and the challenges they experienced in working towards reunification.

From your extensive call notes and /or call transcript, you should be able to craft a compelling brief bio and identify the key points/experiences that you think would be most helpful to have the speaker address in their remarks.

Here are some examples of brief speaker bios:

• Baltimore, Maryland resident Kelly Smithson is the proud mother of three high school age girls: sixteen year old Ellen, fourteen year old Amanda, and Cindy, who is the youngest at thirteen. “They are the most important people in my life,” Kelly says. “Not a day goes by that they don’t amaze me.” Seven years ago, Kelly became addicted to meth, and after being arrested, her daughters were removed from her care and placed with a foster family. “Losing my girls was a shock to the system,” Kelly recalls. “I knew things were getting worse, and that I was not always there for them as my addiction got stronger. But not having them there – knowing that they might never be there again – wasn’t something I ever thought would happen.”

Kelly’s case worked told her about Woodhaven Center, a rehabilitation center focused on providing intensive services to parents overcoming addiction. While at Woodhaven, Kelly met Donna Clarke, a counselor who helped provide constant encouragement and worked to help arrange regular, weekend visits with her children. “Donna and Woodhaven helped me through recovery, and helped keep me connected to my girls,” Kelly said. After six months, Kelly left Woodhaven, and four months later, regained custody of her children.

Today, Kelly works part-time as a pre-school assistant. She remains in contact with Donna, who she says helps her to recognize all that she has accomplished and encourage her to achieve even more. She has been reunified with her children for more than five years, and proudly reveals that all three girls are honor roll students and sing in the church choir.

• Robert Dungee is a senior at Hamlin College in Columbus, Ohio. A business major, Robert wants to return to his hometown of Akron, Ohio after graduation and open a restaurant. “I have a lot of dreams and goals, a lot I want to accomplish,” he says. “My father has always encouraged me to reach for the stars.”

At thirteen, Robert and his little sister Elisha went to live with their grandparents. Their father, James, had begun to suffer from serious depression and, as a result, lost his job and became unable to care for his children. “He told us that he wanted to get better and that he loved us very much, but things just kept getting worse,” Robert recalled. “Even though we were going to live with our grandparents, it hurt so much to be away from Dad.” Robert’s grandparents lived in the same town, so he and his sister were able to remain in the same school and keep the same friends. Their father, who was receiving in-patient mental health counseling at Lehigh Valley Center, was still a regular presence in their lives. “He saw our report cards, asked about our friends, and talked to us about how we were going to be together again soon,” Robert said.

After completing counseling and receiving job counseling, James started work with a local company, and, four months later, was reunified with his children. “It felt great to be a family again, together,” Robert said. While the pain of being separated from his father was terrible, he realizes that, during that time, his father received needed treatment. He is proud of all that his father has accomplished, and says, “I know my father is proud of me too.”

You can use any of the above as a template, or you can establish your own template based on the first brief bio that you draft. Remember to share the draft bio with each speaker for their review and revision before finalizing. Also remember to share the entire bio document with all speakers.

Crafting Speaker Remarks

Depending upon the comfort level and preferences of each of your speakers, you may want to work with them to: draft their remarks, put together general talking points, or identify key issues to address. You should give them as much or as little assistance as they would like or need with this process.

The extensive call notes (referenced in the section above) will be incredibly helpful in identifying key points for each speaker to touch upon. Each speaker should begin their remarks by introducing themselves with basic information: name, where they live, etc.

For parent speakers (or foster parents, young adults, or others who will be sharing personal experiences) you should emphasize that they should tell their story in a linear way, rather than jumping back and forth between the present and the past, which can be hard for an audience to follow. They can begin by talking about how long they have been reunified with their children, and provide a little bit of information about their children (names, ages, grades they are in).

But they should start “at the beginning” by talking about what led to their involvement with the child welfare system, what their recovery process was like, what services/programs it involved, and how they became reunified. It is important not just that they are able to relate “the facts” but to talk about what they felt during this process. What made them hopeful and what did they find hard? Who helped them to succeed and what obstacles were in their way?

Encourage them to talk about the programs and services – and people – that helped them, and how they helped. And now that they have succeeded, how do they feel? What does their life look like everyday? What advice do they have for parents currently going through the recovery process?

As mentioned in the previous sections, you will get the best sense of how to help each speaker identify the most important elements of their story, and the most powerful ones, by referring back to your call notes. You can then use these to work with speakers to draft their remarks, if they would like assistance with this process.

Timing & Practicing Event Remarks

• Depending upon how many speakers you have, each will have around 8 minutes to speak (this is for a program that contains 5 speakers). This is generally the equivalent of reading about a page and a half (double spaced) of text.

• Once each speaker has their remarks or talking points drafted, encourage them to practice. They can practice with you, or with friends or family members who can help to time them. They can also practice in front of the mirror, which will help remind them to make eye contact throughout their remarks. Let them know that it is okay for them go under (or slightly over) the 8 minute mark, but that is where they should aim (assuming you have 5 speakers).