Kosciusko County will host the Indiana Vital Records Association 2008 fall conference Aug. 28-29 at the Ramada Complex, Warsaw.
Vital records keep track of live births, fetal deaths, marriages, divorces and adoptions. These events are recorded by each state and shared with the federal government.Vital records clerks in each county record and keep track of changes for each person in their county.
Linda Gottschalk is a vital records registrar in Kosciusko County and the vice president and president-elect of the IVRA. She is in charge of programming for the IVRA conference.
Gottschalk said the IVRA is an organization which helps vital records personnel around the state communicate, collaborate and cooperate their efforts. She said IVRA's function has become increasingly important since it formed nine years ago because of accelerated changes in technology and the standards set by the federal government. Recently, IVRA helped coordinate an effort to put all Indiana birth certificates on the same form and same fraud-resistant paper. Gottschalk said 91 of Indiana's 92 counties adopted the new form.
"We're not an island anymore," Gottschalk said. "It's not a time to be isolated from state events or from county to county."
The IVRA conference will provide training opportunities as well as information from speakers from around the country.
One of the highlighted speakers is Michael Board, of New Orleans Passport Services. Board will speak to the conference on passport fraud.
Another speaker, Rajesh Virkar, is the branch chief of the Data Acquisition and Evaluation Branch in the Division of Vital Statistics within the National Center for Health Statistics. Vital records are one of the major research tools for the control of epidemics and also provide important information for several state and federal health and welfare initiatives. Virkar will speak on the future of vital records.
Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Judith Monroe also will address the conference.
The keynote speaker for the conference will be Anne Ryder, television journalist, writer and inspirational speaker.
Gottschalk said the conference will give those in attendance some exposure to Kosciusko County. Conference goers will have a chance visit the Village at Winona and Wagon Wheel Theater.
