33rd Annual Family Retreat & Educational Symposium
CHILDCARE INFORMATION
Childcare will be provided during the hours of the Educational Symposium and the age breakdown is as follows:
Ages 0-5: Lakeshore A (1st Floor) | Ages 6-12: Lakeshore B (1st Floor) | Ages 13+: Lakeshore C (1st Floor)
| TIME | Session #1 | Session #2 | Session #3 |
| 9:00am – 9:50am | CCA Parents Location: Nicollet Ballroom A “MED-EL – We’ve Got You Covered: Innovative Solutions for Overcoming Hearing Loss as a Barrier” Kevin M. Vukovich, M.S., Director of Bone Conduction Systems | CCA Parents & Adults Location: Nicollet Ballroom BC Working as a Team: Choosing, Advocating, & Working with Your Craniofacial Team Martha McGrory, CRNP, ANP, Gillette Children’s Hospital | CCA Parents & Adults Location: Nicollet Ballroom D “Speech Therapy: Language and Speaking and Feeding, Oh My!” Family Chatterbox: Kasey Wade, M.A. CCC-SLP and Tricia Armstrong, M.A. CCC-SLP |
| 10:00am – 10:50am | CCA Parents Location: Nicollet Ballroom A Orthodontia: Options for a Lifetime of Success Dr. Cheryl Anderson-Cermin, Gillette Children’s Hospital | CCA Teens (13 and up) Location: Nicollet Ballroom BC ConnectMed International “Kick Back!” Rita Albert, JD & Cashel Gaffey, MSW | *10:00am – 11:30am NOTE: 90 MINUTE SESSION! CCA Kids and Sibling, ages 6-12 Location: Nicollet Ballroom D Sing Me a Story Workshop: Come write a story and submit it for professional songwriters to turn it into a song! Austin Atteberry |
| 11:00am – 11:50am | CCA Parents, Adults, Etc. Location: Nicollet Ballroom A “Make Insurance Cover It: Advocacy for ELSA and ALLY Acts” Erica Klauber, MBA, CCA’s Executive Director | CCA Parents, Adults, Etc. Location: Nicollet Ballroom BC “Distraction Osteogensis: Making Moves” Dr. Jo Barta, Gillette Children’s Hospital | — |
| 12:00pm – 1:20pm | Lunch Break (lunch is on your own) | Lunch Break (lunch is on your own) | Lunch Break (lunch is on your own) |
| 1:30pm – 2:20pm | All Family Members Location: Nicollet Ballroom BCD KEYNOTE SPEAKER “Cleft is My Superpower, What’s Yours?” Iva Ballou | — | — |
| 2:30pm – 3:50pm | CCA Siblings Ages 13 and up Location: Nicollet Ballroom A Owning Your Emotions: SibShop Panel Facilitated Panel Discussion with Q&A Moderator: Jono Lancaster Panel Members: Jessica Bock, Joseph Hernandez, Oliver Lund and Amelia Sanborn | CCA Parents (Parent Panel) Location: Nicollet Ballroom BCD Being the Emotional Pace Setter for Your Family: Workshop, Panel Experiences, Short Q&A Moderator: Erica Klauber, MBA, Executive Director Panel Members: Greg Daniels, Kevin Irvine & Karen Tamley, Andrew & Kristy Lund and Paige Peterson | — |
| 4:00pm – 4:50pm | CCA Parents Parents Mixer Location: Lobby Bar | — | — |
Speaker Bios:
Director of Bone Conduction Systems
MED-EL Corporation
Kevin has been working in the field of cochlear implants for over 25 years and is currently the Director of Bone Conduction Systems for the United States at MED-EL. Prior to joining MED-EL in 2011, Kevin has been responsible for various clinical, technical, and sales support functions within the cochlear implant industry and was a clinical audiologist at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, TN. Kevin received his
bachelor’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Towson State University and his master’s degree in Audiology from University of Southern Mississippi. His passion for making a difference in the lives of those living with hearing loss is attributed to his own maximum conductive hearing loss. Kevin was bilaterally implanted with MED-EL’s BONEBRIDGE in March 2019.
Disclosures:
Financial: Kevin M. Vukovich is an employee of MED-EL Corporation.
Non-financial: Kevin M. Vukovich has no non-financial relationships to disclose.
Martha McGrory has been at Gillette Childrens for over 20 years. She is a pediatric Nurse practitioner with Gillette’s Craniofacial Plastic Surgery team and loves working with her pediatric population. She believes children are brave, mighty, and strong and they continue to remain her biggest heroes. She believes that partnering with children and their families to promote growth and development starts with listening. In her spare time she enjoys skiing, hiking and spending time with family
Kasey is a Speech-Language Pathologist who graduated from the University of Minnesota after completing her teaching degree in Spanish Education from Bethel University. Before starting Family Chatterbox, Kasey experienced many different clinical settings including hospitals, out-patient clinics, and schools. She has experience organizing summer social skills camps and has additional trainings in: Talk Tools, the PROMPT institute, SOS feeding, and It Takes Two To Talk Hanen Program. She became a Speech-Language Pathologist because she loves to talk and loves helping little ones find their own voice! Kasey often says “After doing therapy in the home and seeing so much progress, I don’t think I could ever go back to providing therapy any other way!”.
When she is not providing therapy, Kasey enjoys hanging out with family, going out to eat, and being outside in the sunshine! She is the oldest of seven children, and has many family events (graduations, sports, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) that she attends throughout the year with her extended family. Kasey’s favorite food is a cheeseburger, favorite color is pink, and her favorite animals are her two dogs Ivy and Brixen!
Dr Cheryl Anderson-Cermin has been at Gillette for over 22 years and was one of the first to implement the orthodontic services at Gillette. She believes in being “the Boss of Your Smile.” Her passion has always been working with families internationally to provide needed craniofacial services. That’s why she partners with Leap global missions to provide that care to kids! In her free time, she enjoys traveling with her husband. This soon to be first time grandmother also took a bike journey through northern Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia!
Erica has served CCA in the past as a Board member and volunteer. She brings her experience from the fields of higher education and business development to CCA to help continue the strong, 30-year legacy of empowering and giving hope to families affected by facial differences. Erica seeks to find new ways to connect our community and help make the world a kinder place.
Dr Barta has been a certified trained and fellow trained Craniofacial and plastics doctor at
Dr Barta is a self proclaimed “triple gopher” having completed her undergrad, Medical School, and residency training all at the University of Minnesota. She went on to pursue fellowship in Craniofacial & Pediatric Plastic Surgery at Seattle Children’s Hospital & University of Washington before being recruited back to the Twin Cities.
She is currently the division leader for the Craniofacial & Pediatric Plastic Surgery team at Gillette Children’s Hospital, St Paul, MN and a surgeon for the cleft and craniofacial team at the University of MN.
Dr Barta is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. She holds and academic position as adjunct, associate professor for the University of Minnesota Medical School. And is actively involved with many national and international societies for cleft and craniofacial care.
She enjoys running, volunteering on surgical trips, traveling and spending time with family.Gillette Children’s for over 7 years. Her Care in philosophy has always been “to provide my patients the quality of care that I would give my own family members.” She is part of several associations that include American cleft palate-craniofacial association and American Society of Maxillofacial Surgeon just to name a few. In her spare time, she enjoys running, adventure racing, traveling, and cooking.
Iva is the Community Development Manager for Smile Train, a speaker and facial difference advocate who uses her gifts to increase awareness and education for the facial difference community. Furthermore, Iva co-hosts the Love Meets Joy podcast, sharing her valuable insights, her cleft journey and all things cleft lip and palate with others. Through finding her RealSophisticatedJoy, she now empowers others to pivot from shame to confidence in their journey. Her journey is a shining example of how we can all conquer our fears and doubts and achieve our full potential.
Ariat Ongach has been working at Gillette for over 10 years. She specializes in craniofacial and plastics care for Gillette. She believes in providing wonderful care to all her patients and families. She advocates for patients and families and ensuring their healthcare journey is as seamless as possible. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, as well as cooking, and taking long walks.
Tricia is a Speech Language Pathologist who has been working with infants and children with speech, language and feeding difficulties since 1996. She graduated from the University of Minnesota Duluth in 1996 and in 1997 began her career at Children’s Minnesota. During her 23 years at Children’s, she worked with infants and children, both inpatients and outpatients, with a wide range of diagnoses, including cleft lips and palates, Pfieffer Syndrome, Treacher-Collins Syndrome, Pierre Robin Sequence and a variety of other genetic syndromes/differences. She especially enjoys working with medically complex children with gastrostomy tubes and tracheostomies. In 2020, Tricia chose to leave the hospital setting to join the Family Chatterbox team. This has been an exceptionally rewarding career change and she has found that the key to success is working with the child and their whole family in their homes.
When Tricia is not working, you will likely find her spending time with her husband, 19-year-old son Tommy, 18-year-old daughter Jillian and two dogs. She loves to craft and scrapbook as well as listen to true crime podcasts. Tricia’s favorite food is ice cream, her favorite color is blue and her favorite animals are her two dogs Penny and Annie.
