FREE Thriving Family Summit

Navigating Holiday Stress Together: Support for Foster & Adoptive Families

Saturday, October 18, 2025 - 9am-3pm PT / 11am-5pm CT / 12pm-6pm ET

Earn up to 6 training hours

Meet our Speakers

Claudie Pomares

Read Claudie's Story

Claudie Pomares is the creator of Sensory Enrichment Therapy, a unique approach based on the neuroscience of Environmental Enrichment that stimulates brain plasticity to improve cognitive and emotional health. Driven by childhood experiences with close friends and family who suffered debilitating brain-related symptoms, Claudie has dedicated her career to helping vulnerable individuals with neurological conditions feel happy and confident. Her work empowers families with simple, family-centered, sensory-based activities that foster resilience and long-term cognitive growth.

Why the Holidays Are So Hard for Our Kids — and How to Help Their Brains

⭐How the brain processes holiday stress — and why overloaded sensory systems, low serotonin, and high cortisol make lights, crowds, and schedule changes feel threatening instead of fun

⭐What your child’s behavior is really telling you — and why logic and discipline don’t work when the brain feels unsafe

⭐How to strengthen the brain systems that support calm, flexibility, and connection — before the stress hits

⭐A 1-minute brain “reset” you can use in the moment to de-escalate an overwhelmed child

Cynthia Coufal

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Cynthia Coufal is a seasoned educator, teen anxiety coach, and the founder of The Anxiety Maze Navigator. With over 25 years of experience as a school counselor, Cynthia has a gift for helping teens and young adults understand and manage their anxiety while discovering their strengths and values. Through one-on-one coaching, she guides teens in navigating school, friendships, and the pressures of growing up with greater confidence and clarity.

Cynthia also supports parents through her ongoing membership community, Parenting Through The Maze, where she helps caregivers better understand their child’s experience, respond more effectively to anxiety, and create a home environment that encourages emotional growth and independence. Cynthia’s work bridges the gap between parents and teens, offering tools, encouragement, and practical strategies to families navigating anxiety together.

Practical Tools to Ease Your Teen’s Seasonal Anxiety

⭐Understand what’s really behind your teen’s holiday stress so you don’t feel confused or caught off guard.

⭐Gain a simple, practical tool to help your teen manage anxiety in the moment.

⭐Leave with confidence and strategies to make the holidays more peaceful for your whole family.

Amy Mollitor

Read Amy's Story

Amy is a Certified Professional Life Coach, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique aka Tapping) Master Practitioner, author, trainer, and speaker. She has a unique talent for combining authenticity, active listening, inspiration, and accountability in her work. Her mission is to support and empower women.

After experiencing burnout in her late 40s, Amy embarked on a journey to rediscover meaning, purpose, and joy in her life. The tools she acquired during this journey are now shared with others. Amy's dedication to helping people become their best selves extends into her personal life as well. She authored The Self Love Journal for Wildly Creative Women, a resource designed to remind women of their inherent strength and brilliance.

EFT Tapping for Foster & Adoptive Families – Finding Calm in the Holiday Chaos

⭐Learn how stress shows up in the body and why the holiday season can intensify overwhelm.

⭐Experience a guided EFT Tapping exercise to release holiday stress and create calm, even in chaotic moments.

⭐Walk away with simple, repeatable tapping strategies you can use with yourself—and even teach your kids—to bring more peace and connection to your home.

Jessica Simons

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Dr. Jessica Simons has been practicing as a Marriage and Family Therapist for over 14 years. Dr. Simons completed her master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Northcentral University, and her doctoral degree in family systems therapy and cybernetics from University of Louisiana at Monroe. She has built private practices in Texas and South Carolina and worked with expatriate and military clients in South Korea, Japan, and Germany. Currently Dr. Simons is licensed and practicing in Texas and Utah and runs The Compassion Center in St. George, UT. Dr. Simons is EMDR trained and uses compassion focused approaches and somatic work to shed shame and to eliminate negative self-beliefs, rewire the nervous system, and process emotions effectively, as well as help family and marital systems heal and create healthier, more compassionate patterns.

Dr. Simons spent 28 years moving around the world and supporting her husband in his military career. During that time, she raised seven amazing children—five biological and two children adopted in 2007 from Monrovia, Liberia at the ages of four and six. Today they are all grown and doing great things in life—including adding five grandchildren to the crazy clan!

RAIN for Children & Teens: Processing emotions with compassion, learning self-nurture and fostering secure attachment

⭐RAIN stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, & Nurture.

⭐RAIN is a model of emotional processing based around mindfulness, self-acceptance, and self-compassion.

⭐In addition to learning to implement RAIN with children and teens, caregivers will learn the process for themselves—as it is critical for caregivers to understand and sustain their own emotional regulation when helping children regulate.

⭐RAIN can help rewire the vagus nerve after trauma and attachment injuries to build secure attachments between children and caregivers.

Bonnie Johnston Butler

Read Bonnie's Story

Bonnie Johnston Butler is a certified life coach, speaker, and member of the ATTACh Board of Directors who empowers parents and professionals to transform overwhelm into clarity and conflict into connection. Drawing on her experience as a mother of four biological children, former foster parent to 17, and adoptive mom to a sibling group of six, Bonnie brings both professional expertise and lived wisdom to her work. As founder of Bonnie Butler Coaching, former co-president of Sleep in Heavenly Peace San Antonio, and organizer of biannual foster/adoptive parent-caregiver summits, she equips high-stress caregivers and leaders with practical strategies for emotional regulation, self-leadership, and resilience—helping them break free from self-sabotage, navigate complex dynamics, and step into their highest potential.

Navigating Holiday Stress with Kids from Hard Places

⭐Understand the unique holiday stressors children face.

⭐Create a safe “holiday sanctuary” at home using practical tools to bring peace and connection.

⭐Leave with simple, effective strategies to move through the season with greater resilience, clarity, and grace.

Sharon Dunlevy

Read Sharon's Story

Sharon Dunlevy (Duhn-lehvy) is a passionate advocate for the educational success of children in foster care. With a mission to bring systemic change to policies and practices affecting foster youth, she equips foster parents with the knowledge and tools to navigate educational laws, ensuring these children have the support they need to graduate and succeed beyond the system.

Her work extends beyond training. She is an influencer in the foster care space, using her voice to raise awareness and drive meaningful change. As a dynamic speaker, Sharon has taken the stage in multiple speech competitions and professional conferences, demonstrating her ability to engage, inspire, and mobilize audiences. Her writing has appeared in blogs, educational publications, and advocacy platforms, where she shares practical guidance, stories of impact, and insights that challenge systems and uplift foster families. Through her written and spoken work, Sharon continues to lead a growing movement to improve outcomes for children in care.

Working with Bio-Families/Co-Parenting During the Holidays

⭐Identify common challenges and stressors in co-parenting during the holidays.

⭐Discover strategies for successful co-parenting.

⭐Create a plan to make children feel loved, safe, and included no matter what happens.