The deadline for proposal submissions for the 24th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) has passed.

The Children’s Bureau (CB) is excited to announce that the 24th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) will be held April 1–3, 2025, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center outside Washington, D.C. All accepted presenters should be prepared to attend the conference in person.

The theme of the 24th NCCAN is Doing Things Differently: Believing in Communities, reflecting our belief that communities hold the answers in addressing challenges and promoting family well-being. The CB strongly encourages sessions that address work being done in communities and include speakers with lived experience in child welfare.

The CB is committed to making the 24th NCCAN action-oriented. Sessions will focus on innovative approaches or new contributions to knowledge, with specific details to inform and inspire participant thinking and planning.

One important factor that the CB considered when reviewing and selecting proposals is diversity with respect to:

• - Social identities (e.g., age, gender, race, ethnicity, ability status, sexual orientation)
• - Roles (e.g., practitioners, individuals with lived experience, community members, researchers)
• - Organizational affiliations

The CB seeks compelling and thought-provoking sessions that reflect diverse backgrounds, communities, and perspectives, including urban, suburban, and rural areas; racially and ethnically diverse populations; and action at the national, state, and local levels to support community-based efforts to promote child and family safety and well-being.

We expect that all NCCAN sessions will reflect the CB’s commitment to building equity in child welfare systems and increasing benefits to children of color, including families who have experienced multigenerational systemic interventions and disproportionate outcomes. We also strongly encourage the inclusion of parents and young adults with lived child welfare experience as partners and session presenters.

The following five areas will be featured at the conference:

This track will focus on strategies to address longstanding inequities within child welfare, including deepening our understanding of how race and equity issues feed into the over-identification of neglect; addressing inherent biases in the system, including those affecting LGBTQIA2S+ individuals and people with special needs; addressing the intersection between poverty and neglect; and building workforce capacity to recognize and address race equity issues, including internal bias.

This track explores new strategies for preventing children from coming into formal care, including new partnerships on the ground and new approaches to working in and with communities; efforts to address poverty; the importance of collaborating with other family-serving systems, such as education, health, housing, and childcare. Especially around neglect, legal supports for families, and support for LGBTQIA2S+ youth.

This track explores how to better support kinship care providers, including best practices for implementing federal regulations on separate licensing standards for relative or kinship foster family homes; building a support system that goes beyond navigation; supporting informal care providers; and managing complex family relationships within the context of kinship care.

This track explores new strategies to ensure youth leave care with the relationships, supports, and opportunities necessary to succeed in life. It includes youth voice in decision-making; mental health and well-being; strategies for relational permanence; and supports during transition.

This track explores strategies focused on the well-being of the child welfare workforce, including workplace and organizational culture; diversifying the workforce; recruitment and retention; understanding workforce trends; building staff capacity to advance equity and support underserved communities; and the impact of “the great resignation” on the workforce. There will also be a special focus on non-traditional workforce members, including peer workers and people with lived experience.

The deadline for proposal submissions has passed. Thank you to all who submitted their proposals.