By Meredith Gardner
meredith.gardner@theindependent.com

That's where the Celebrate Parents workshops can help.

On Saturday, the Association for Child Abuse Prevention (ACAP) in Grand Island sponsored its second annual Celebrate Parents conference, a day filled with free seminars about parenting, child development and child care.

Topics were organized by age group and included attention issues, Internet safety, empowering fathers, active parenting, teenage substance abuse and nutrition issues, among others.

Presenters included a range of counselors, educators, physicians and other professionals from Grand Island and around the state.

"ACAP's primary focus has always been to prevent child abuse through education, and we feel like the more education parents have, the better they are able to care for their children," said Dori Bush, ACAP board member.

Attendees like parent and childcare provider Christy Watson, coordinator of the Central Community College child care center, said the conference was both informative and hassle-free.

"The fact that this was a free thing was phenomenal because there was no reason not to go," Watson said.

After attending workshops on attention issues and the affect of television on child development, Watson said she looked forward to passing the information along to the families she works with.

Sandra Garnette, director of St. Paul's Christian Preschool, said she, too, planned to share what she learned with her employees and family clients. The information provided in the sessions was invaluable, she said.

"It makes me understand parenting more and what parents go through," said Garnette, who has no children of her own.

The conference will also help her live up to her motto: "Give to the child the best you have, and the best shall come back to you," Garnette said. "Because there were the best of the best here today."

All of the presenters at Saturday's conference were volunteers, and the sessions were held at Central Community College. Celebrate Parents was funded through a Heartland United Way venture grant.

Even after thousands of Grand Island kindergarten through fifth-graders were sent home with flyers about the event, 16 people attended this year's conference. While ACAP had hoped for more people they planned for up to 80, and last year they had about 30 they weren't disheartened by Saturday's attendance, Bush said.

She credited her fellow board members with creating a well-organized event, and said ACAP may schedule next year's conference earlier in the year to prevent competing with nice weekend weather and high school sporting events.

They're also thinking about working with churches and other outside organizations to provide childcare, and they may shorten the conference to a half day.

"(The board members) are thrilled because they know that if you help one parent, that's more than you'd help if we didn't have the conference," Bush said. "And we definitely did that today."