Call for PRESENTATIONS 2012
Deadline extended to December 12, 2011!
Page Contents
Conference Goals
Who Should Respond
Workshop Track Descriptions
New Protocol
Submission Materials
Submission Deadline
Protecting Our Children, Ensuring Our Legacy
The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 was landmark legislation empowering American Indian and Alaska Native peoples to exert their sovereignty over their own tribal members. It is a powerful acknowledgment that “…[there] is no resource that is more vital to the continued existence and integrity of Indian tribes than their children…” (25 U.S.C. § 1901). Thirty-three years later, we are still fighting to ensure that our children receive the best possible protection, services, and resources.
There are thriving traditional and emerging new best practices in urban and rural Native communities that are meeting the needs of children and families across the continuum of services. No one understands the needs of their children better than the communities themselves, and they are creating their own solutions for the challenges they face. Native communities are building the capacity and empowering their own members to become better leaders and advocates at the local, state, regional, and national levels.
For 30 years, NICWA and our national, regional, and local partners have been advocating for and protecting the rights of Native children and communities. Our annual conference is our signature event, and this year we celebrate 30 years of partnership with Native programs and organizations and non-Native allies. To ensure the best services in Native communities and fulfill the promise of the Indian Child Welfare Act, grassroots community representatives, child welfare professionals, and tribal leaders must gather to share information, plan, support one another, and transform the systems and services that will meet the growing challenges facing Native communities. Join us in Scottsdale, Arizona, for NICWA’s 30th anniversary conference to protect our children, preserve our cultures, and ensure our legacy.
Conference Goals
To highlight successful strategies for developing effective services
To reveal the latest and most innovative child welfare and children’s mental health service delivery practices
To highlight tactics and strategies for financing and sustaining services that impact children
To showcase strategies for involving youth and families in developing services and policies that lead to systems change
To create peer-to-peer networks that will assist each other in the work toward permanency for all American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) families
To share the latest research on the well-being of AI/AN children and effective child welfare and children’s mental health services, practices, and policies.
Who Should Respond
All individuals who are committed to serving AI/AN children and their families are encouraged to respond: child welfare workers, directors, and staff from tribal, state, federal, and private programs; tribal leaders; substance abuse staff; health professionals; mental health and psychiatric professionals; law enforcement professionals; court and legal professionals; tribal and public school administrators; teachers, counselors, educators, and staff; grassroots community organizers; Court of Indian Offenses judges and attorneys; BIA and IHS social service staff; private providers; parents, guardians, elders, and extended family members; and other interested people committed to protecting AI/AN children and families.
Workshop Track Descriptions
Advocacy, Collaboration, ICWA Compliance, and Data and Research comprise the different workshop tracks we have created to meet the needs of our broadening national audience. Additionally, NICWA understands the critical role that tribal leadership plays in empowering communities to improve outcomes for their chidren and families. While preparing your workshop description, please consider how your presentation will address the vital role of tribal leadership.
Advocacy
Understanding the impact of national/state/local policy, strategies for influencing national/state/local policy, restorative justice approaches in child welfare, and the role of standard-setting organizations
Collaboration
Promising practices in building alliances (e.g., urban-tribal, tribal-state, tribal-county, and interagency collaborations; engaging youth in care; elders; tribal leaders; and community members)
ICWA Compliance
Promising practices for ICWA training, monitoring compliance, tribal CASA partnerships, innovative strategies for meeting placement preferences, and tracking active efforts
Data and Research
Current child welfare research, promising practices in information technology, gathering and utilizing data for program improvement, data and funding issues, and sharing data across systems
New Protocol Introduced for the NICWA Call for Presentations
Regarding workshops with content pertaining to historical trauma:
Workshops containing content related to historical trauma, while important, have proven to have a significant and immediate emotional and/or spiritual impact upon some conference attendees. Presenters leading workshops that deal with the issue of historical trauma should be prepared to provide an outline of a plan for responding to immediate emotional and/or spiritual needs, should they arise.
Regarding the presentation of tribal data:
Any proposed research workshop that includes data about a tribal community (whether the community is identified by name or not) should have secured tribal government approval to present the data in advance of submitting a workshop proposal. Any presenters submitting a workshop proposal that includes tribal community data should be prepared to substantiate this approval if they are called upon to do so.
Call for Presentations Application (MS Word)
Call for Presentations Application (PDF)
The deadline for the Call for Presentations has been extended! Proposals must now be postmarked, faxed, or e-mailed by December 12, 2011 in order to be considered as conference content.