A Personal Update from Dr. Shamblin

Hello Friends, 
The Summer has been a busy one for me. I stay at home with 4 children most of the time, so summer means I am in full-time mom mode. I do work some evenings and weekends so I am still active as a Pediatrician. This summer I had the privilege of doing a few foster parent continuing education workshops with the Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children. I was also surprised and honored to be appointed by our governor to the Board of Directors or the Oklahoma Healthcare Authority. Everyone asks me what the Healthcare Authority does, and I answer that they are basically in charge of all Medicaid money that the state spends through itself and 4 other agencies. The money that our state spends is matched by federal money, which requires us to be sure we are following all of the federal regulations on top of state laws. So far, I've done a lot of reviewing agency rules before we pass them to be sure they are clear and necessary. I enjoy the work and it is a volunteer position.
This summer, my husband and I also went through The HALO Project with our 6 year old daughter. This amazing program is based on TBRI principles. It provides 10 weeks of training and support to both parents while the children get to learn new skills in self regulation, and other skills needed by children from hard places, with a buddy working one-on-one. It is a great program because it provides so much help in a short period of time. It is also great because both parents are involved. I know from experience that one parent can have all the knowledge, but it will not work until both parents use it with consistency and support of each other. For more information on this see http://www.haloprojectokc.org/.
So I've been a little slow at getting updates out over the summer. Things are starting to pick up, though, with showings of the Resilience Film, which I sometimes get to serve on a discussion panel afterwards, conferences, and another foster parent training coming up. I hope to do a training with my church's children's workers soon and am developing that. I also plan to go back through all new research that has come out in the last few months for updated information I can share. Stay tuned! 

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