About the Conference
May 2, 2025 at the Sheraton Milwaukee Brookfield
WIAAP is hosting “Youth Canvas: Painting the Picture of Mental Wellness” on May 2 to address an arc of children and youth mental wellness, including the novel topic of youth mental health in the emergency medicine context.
The program will be dedicated to mental and behavioral health, focusing on what patient care looks like in a variety of settings and how they tie into the medical home. For the first time, we are expanding from primary care pediatricians and family physicians to a broad base of disciplines – EMS, mid-level clinicians, therapists, psychiatrists, and school health (nurses and counselors). Public health and legislative partners are encouraged to attend.
Didactic, interactive, panel, keynote and other sessions will provide educational and networking opportunities with peers with a goal of lifting up a systems of care approach, including the acknowledgment of reflective practice and secondary trauma. Central to programming will be the exploration of providing equitable, quality care for all children and families, and how to tie meaningfully into community resources that serve them.


Conference Sessions & Interactive Breakouts:
- Kids in the ER: Why, When, Where Next – and How to Help
- Growing through Primary and Vicarious Trauma: The Underlying Issues
- Lived Expertise: Faces of Patients
- EMS and the Hardest Call
- Universal Screening for Suicidality: Identifying Kids, Getting them Help
- Reducing Visits to the ER: Connecting After Care to Schools
- Family Based Therapies: Applications with Eating Disorder Patients
- Networks for Professionals: Vulnerabilities and Supports
Conference Speakers

Craig Becker, MSSW
UW Health Kids/American Family Children’s Hospital
Craig has been a pediatric social worker at UW Health Kids/American Family Children’s Hospital in the pediatric pulmonary center since July of 1993. Throughout his career he has mentored dozens of social work graduate students, taught graduate classes within the school of social work as well as interdisciplinary listed courses.

Michael Kim, MD, FAAP
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Michael Kim, MD, is a Pediatric Emergency Physician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, focusing on enhancing care for children in both emergency department and prehospital settings throughout Wisconsin. Dr. Kim serves as the Pediatric Medical Director for the EMS section within the Department of Medicine at UW-Madison.

Francisco “Paco” Bonnin
Madison Fire Dept CARES Unit
Paco Bonnin is a paramedic with 15 + years of experience encompassing ER, 911, critical care and flight environments. He was deployed in Afghanistan when COVID hit. Witnessing the struggles that isolation and uncertainty caused for patients prompted him to expand his understanding of mental health.

Kris McArdle, MSW
UW Health Kids/American Family Children’s Hospital
Kristin has worked as a pediatric social worker since 2007 at UW Health Kids-American Family Children’s Hospital and Clinics (AFCH). At the start of her career, she worked part-time supporting several pediatric specialty clinics at AFC and Waisman Center. In 2015 she transitioned to full time in the level IV NICU.

Purva Grover, MD, MBA, FACEP
Pediatric Emergency Department at Cleveland Clinic
Dr. Grover currently serves as the Chair of the Pediatric Emergency Department at Cleveland Clinic. She also serves as a member of the Board of Governors. As an Emergency medicine physician, she understands the unique aspects of pediatric care and enthusiastically represents that niche.

Lance Nelson, MD, MS, MA
Lurie Children’s Hospital
Lance Nelson is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern. He completed his Pediatric residency at The University of Iowa and Adolescent Medicine fellowship at Stanford University. He currently serves as the Medical Director for the Eating Disorder Program at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Lance’s clinical and research interests are health equity and access as well as the medical management of males with restrictive eating.

Linda Hall, MPA
Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health
The well-being of children has been a primary focus of Linda’s career in health and mental health policy. She has pursued this children’s well-being and increased support for families agenda at the National Governors’ Association, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Kids Forward, as Executive Director of the Wisconsin Association of Family & Children’s Agencies – an association for family-serving organizations, and as Interim Director for Community Partnerships – the Dane County wraparound program.

Elizabeth Wallis, MD, MSHP, FAAP
Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)
Dr. Elizabeth Wallis is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC. She heads the Division of Adolescent Medicine and has expertise in eating disorders, trauma and caring for youth in foster care.

Julie Incitti, MSW, APSW
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Julie Incitti is the school social work consultant at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Julie received her MSW from the University of Wisconsin – Madison before working as a school social worker in the public schools. Julie serves on the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board, the Wisconsin Taskforce on Children in Need, the WI Commission on Children, Families, and the Courts, and on the Midwest Council of School Social Workers.

Jennifer Zaspel, MD
Children’s Wisconsin/Medical College of Wisconsin
Jennifer Zaspel, MD is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, the Medical Director of Emergency Mental and Behavioral Health at Children’s Wisconsin (CW), and an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). She earned her medical degree from MCW in 2014. She completed her residency training in Psychiatry at MCW in 2017 and fellowship training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at MCW in 2019, after which she joined the faculty.
Free Community Event: Film Screening

Attend a Screening of the Award-Winning Documentary Portraits of Professional CAREgivers: Their Passion. Their Pain.
We are eager to invite community members throughout Wisconsin to join WIAAP for an exclusive and free screening of the award-winning documentary “Professional CAREgivers: Their Passion, Their Pain.” This hard-hitting documentary is based on interviews with nurses, social workers, clinical psychologists, doctors, firefighters, and first responders who rescue, assist, and help to heal the injured and traumatized—and who also tell their own remarkable and often painful stories.
The documentary takes us on a journey into a world the public rarely sees, depicting emotional costs experienced by professional care providers and probing the emotional consequences of professional public service.
Film Discussion and Live Q&A
The film asks the question: How are professional caregivers and first responders affected emotionally and physically? Who helps them? As viewers, we will discover that engaged, empathic caregiving can sometimes be an occupational hazard; we will explore the painful and human sides of these professions and vulnerable responses to trauma — Compassion Fatigue — also known as Secondary Traumatic Stress or Vicarious Trauma. The film also addresses high levels of career satisfaction and professional meaning that caregivers experience. Ultimately, the film provides ways to cope and recover from toxic stress in the workplace.
Stay and connect with professionals and peers to dive deeper into the needs of our caregivers throughout the medical health care spectrum.

Registration & Venue Information
Thursday, May 1, 2025
6:00–10:00 p.m.
Movie Tavern of Brookfield
175 S Moorland Rd.,
Brookfield, WI 53005
Screening attendees are not required to register for the full conference. However, if you would like to attend the conference, registration and payment are required by April 18, 2025. Spots are limited, register today.