Deepen Your Knowledge & Expand Your Network at the Annual Southern Conference

Join us March 21, 2025 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Collinsville, Illinois for this exciting professional development and networking event. The Annual Southern Conference offers an unparalleled opportunity to network with your peers, engage with experts in the field, and explore counseling best practices. Immerse yourself in thought-provoking presentations and enriching discussions designed to enhance your skills and empower you to better serve your clients. Register now to secure your spot and invest in your professional journey at the 2025 Southern Conference.

Exhibitor and Sponsorship Options Available HERE

Conference Schedule

This conference will have 15 breakout sessions to choose from!

7:00AM – Registration, Coffee, Networking/Exhibitors

7:50AM – Welcome Message & Announcements

8:00AM to 9:00AM – Keynote - Mia Roldan, LCSW, LCDC

9:15AM to 10:15AM – Workshop Session 1 (60 minutes)

10:25AM to 11:55AM – Workshop Session 2 (90 minutes)

12:00PM – 1:00 PM – LUNCH (provided), Poster Sessions, Exhibitors

1:15PM to 2:15PM – Workshop Session 3 (60 minutes)

2:30PM to 3:30PM – Workshop Session 4 (60 minutes)

3:40PM to 4:30PM – Workshop 5 - Main Ballroom

Total 6.5 CEs

Mia Roldan LCSW, LCDC is a practicing psychotherapist in an academic support agency in Austin. Her work focuses on supporting students who may have problems with anxiety, depression, ADHD, eating disorders, grief and loss, and gender diverse issues. She also works with parents for family therapy and parent coaching. Mia is also a bereavement counselor with Hospice Austin. She received her Elementary and ESL Teaching Certificate at Dominican University of California, and she also holds a K-12 Special Education Teaching Certificate in Texas. She earned her Master’s Degree in Social Work with a clinical concentration from The University of Texas at Austin. Mia started her career as a Special Education teacher in Austin for 13 years. She has worked as a clinical social worker in various medical settings (an ER, ICU and Adolescent Medicine Clinic), as well as a school-based mental health counselor in rural county schools. Mia also served as the Coordinator of school-based bereavement services for an Austin grief and loss agency. Mia has written three books: “Voices of Strength: Sons and Daughters of Suicide Speak Out”, “Navigating Grief: A Guided Journal: Prompts and Exercises for Reflection and Healing” and “How I Feel: Grief Journal for Kids: Guided Prompts to Explore Your Feelings and Find Peace”.Mia is married and lives in Austin, Tx with her two sons.

Keynote Presentation: "(Re) Connect to, (Re) Align with, and (Re) State your Why"

Many of us in the helping profession could voice with a level of certainty that we are tired - whether that means just overwhelmed or completely burned out. We have been asked to bear witness to a Herculean amount of pain, grief, loss and worry in the last five years. Depending on how long you have been practicing, your stamina and outlook may also have been affected by the countless mass shootings int he last two plus decades, and the effects of technology in the form of the internet,smart phones and now artificial intelligence. How do we stay grounded and present for our clients when we ourselves are likely experiencing some of the very same feelings and thoughts they are? In this presentation, we will examine grief and despair and then hope and healing within our profession and our personal lives. We will take a broader view of our purpose as “healers” through a lens of the commonality that has tied humans together time and time again.

1. Participants will distinguish between what we experience internally that could be harmful (self-criticism) vs. helpful (acceptance).
2. Participants will recognize where the traps are in our profession, how they limit and disempower us, and understand various action steps to take.
3. Participants will examine the duality of the light and the dark, and understand how this dialectic of life - these opposing forces - are the foundation for what guides our lives.
4. Participants will be able to state one or more aspects of their Why - why they got into the work they are doing, and why they want to continue to do that work.

 Katie Grant, LCPC, CCTP-II, EMDR Certified Therapist^TM and EMDR Approved Consultant^TM

Closing Presentation: "Grief and the Four Elements"

This one-hour presentation will guide the attendees through a regulation exercise from EMDR therapy and talk about how this can apply to grief. Attendees will have the opportunity to experience the exercise twice, as well as using art materials provided to create representations that express their thoughts, feelings, and sensations. This will be experiential group work that assists attendees in calming and closing the activation that was likely opened up by the material they had been exposed to regarding grief. It will also be an introduction into some of the more gentle parts of EMDR therapy (as opposed to “memory reprocessing” which most people without personal training or experience think of as the whole of EMDR therapy).

1. Attendees will learn a method of regulation to use with themselves and their clients (the Four Elements)
2. Attendees will gain understanding of EMDR Therapy as including a resource-strengthening phase
3. Attendees will learn creative ways to relate to experiential components of grief (thoughts, feelings, sensations, and images)

ICA workshops and trainings provide for CEs (clock hours) through Counseling Education Licensure with IDFPR. The Illinois Counseling Association has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 2014. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified.  The Illinois Counseling Association is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. This program is recognized as providing CE Clock Hours for: psychologists under IDFPR license # 268.00065, LPC/LCPC and LSW/LCSW under IDFPR license #159.001342, and LMFT IDFPR license # 168.000228. PDs are provided through ISBE #651089585510000.