Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacey Goodson.
Hi Stacey, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I studied at Grand Valley State University to obtain my Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice, thinking I wanted to be a police officer. One of my professors recommended I volunteer with a program called CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), and this recommendation changed the trajectory of my career. After volunteering with CASA and being involved in the child welfare system, I applied for a job in child welfare and have worked in the system ever since. On my first day on the job, as a Licensing worker, there was a kid in our office that we could not find a placement for. I knew I was going to be a foster parent so that it would provide more options of places for kids to stay. After fostering teens for a couple of years and working in child welfare for about five years, I started doing trainings. I started with the pre service trainings that foster parents are required by the State of Michigan to take, and carried on to facilitating other trainings. After doing this for a few years, I decided to start a business to do training and consulting, and to write a book about my journey. I have had the opportunity to do almost 1,000 trainings, locally, and nationally, ranging on topics from trauma and cross racial parenting to self care and anti racism. I have become a well known expert in the child welfare world on trauma and how it affects the behaviors of children in foster care.
Here is my “About Me” on my website: https://amoyantrainingandconsulting.wordpress.com/about/
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has most certainly not been a smooth road. Navigating a career, owning and operating a business while fostering teenagers provides challenges many cannot imagine. In addition, I decided to do my business full time in early 2022 and it was going well. I was reaching all of my goals and life was good. Then in December of 2023, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The journey facing this challenge, in addition to running a business proved very challenging. Some of the treatments I was undergoing to fight the cancer, affected my brain giving me tremendous brain fog, and this made it nearly impossible for me to (effectively) facilitate trainings. I took some time to focus on my health, and minimized the amount of trainings I was doing, but never stopped entirely and my business kept me motivated to take the best care of not only my physical health, but my mental health as well.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Amoyan Training and Consulting, LLC?
Amoyan Training and Consulting was created to provide training opportunities for foster and adoptive parents. Amoyan means “strong and powerful woman,” and that is certainly what running a business has proved me needing to be. Amoyan specializes and is known for facilitating trauma trainings specifically around teenagers, and the behaviors that are often exhibited as a result of trauma, giving caregivers a new perspective on behavior management methods that are relationship based. In addition to trauma trainings, we do trainings about cross racial parenting, self care, grief and loss, and many other topics relevant for those working with youth that have experienced trauma. As a direct support to caregivers, Amoyan does behavior consultations, providing education and understanding about behaviors and insight to new behavior management methods that are relationship based. Outside of the child welfare world, Amoyan has done many trainings surrounding anti racism work and equity, conflict strategies, trauma and resilience, and self care. Recently, we have started stepping into the realm of talking about perspective and how this can help keep us motivated and inspired. This training and/or keynote is based on the experience as a breast cancer survivor. What sets Amoyan apart from others is the professional, educational and lived experience that is brought to the trainings and keynote speeches. I am most proud of the publishing of the book, “Triple Threat: Teenagers, Talking and Trauma” and selling over 1,000 copies. Brand wise, I am proud of the reputation of our brand and the recognition of Amoyan as an agency that provides trauma informed care and trainings. We recently received our federal certification as Woman Owned Small Business, and are very proud of this accomplishment.
I want readers to know that while we specialize in working with foster, adoptive parents and child welfare staff, we love to work with parents and the general public, outside of the child welfare system as well. We not only have exciting and informational trainings, we offer engaging keynotes for groups, conferences, etc and we provide knowledgeable individualized behavior consultations for caregivers as well.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Amoyan would love to work with child welfare agencies to bring education and support to the youth and families they are working with. In addition, we would love to collaborate with agencies outside of child welfare to bring informational workshops to their staff as well. People can support Amoyan Training by “liking” us on Facebook, providing referrals for our services, and visiting our website www.amoyantrainingandconsulting.com
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amoyantrainingandconsulting.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amoyantrainingandconsulting
