Call for Presenters

Deadline for submissions... March 8, 2024.

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2024 Breakthrough to Excellence

The Texas Center for Child and Family Studies (the supporting organization of the Texas Alliance of Child and Family Services) invites experienced presenters to submit workshop proposals for our annual Texas Child Care Administrators Conference (TCCAC). This year’s conference is September 30 – October 2, at the Kalahari Resort in Round Rock, TX.  

About TCCAC 

The TCCAC is the premier child-welfare conference in Texas and theone-stop-shop training event of the year for over 1,500 professionals working in adoption, foster care, residential childcare, prevention, family preservation, and more. TCCAC consistently delivers the best of the best training, tools, and networking opportunities to child, youth, and family-serving professionals in Texas (and beyond)! 

Our Theme: Breakthrough to Excellence

For the 2024 conference, we are stretching and striving towards greatness! With unwavering dedication and perseverance, we are pursuing the very best for Texas children and families. In this pursuit, we champion each other, our communities, and the children, youth, and families we serve. Obstacles do not stop us; they propel us. Together, there is nothing we cannot achieve. The moment is ours. Let’s meet it and breakthrough to excellence.

Our Audience

Our Audience Most workshop attendees are seasoned professionals and include childcare administrators, case managers, clinicians, public agency personnel, and community service organization staff. Presentations that address a broad spectrum of administrative and clinical issues for experienced professionals at the program and systems-level are welcomed. Due to the large size of our conference, many workshops will have an audience of between 100-300 attendees, sometimes more.

Hybrid Event 

TCCAC is a hybrid event and includes workshops for both in-person and virtual audiences. All workshops are 90-minutes and will be delivered in-person, and some of these same workshops will be selected for inclusion in both the in-person and virtual program. Workshops also selected for inclusion in the virtual program will be pre-recorded between August 1 – August 15 and made available to virtual attendees via the conference website and app at the start of conference, September 30. If your workshop is selected for both programs, conference organizers will contact you to schedule a time to pre-record your workshop via Zoom. 

Selection Criteria

Proposals will be selected based on their relevance to the conference theme as described above, the guidelines below, and current issues in child, youth, and family wellbeing.

Proposals should be engaging and advance attendees’ knowledge and understanding of best practices and promising innovations in the field, building on skills and resources relevant to a diverse workforce servings kids and families across the child wellbeing continuum.

Experienced presenters with lived experience in the child welfare system are strongly encouraged to submit proposals.

Proposals that market/sell a product or program will not be considered.

Guidelines & Timeline

Proposals must be submitted through our online submission form by March 8, 2024.

We kindly request that presenters do their best to include all of the information we’ve requested when submitting a proposal (bio, headshot, A/V needs, etc.).

 Submitting a proposal does not guarantee acceptance.

Presenters are not paid for their participation.

Presenters will be notified of decisions by May 1, 2024, if their workshop has been accepted.

Workshop presenters also selected for inclusion in the virtual program will be contacted by conference organizers to schedule a time to pre-record their session via Zoom. Pre-recordings will occur between August 1 – August 15, 2024.

Continuing Education Credits

The Center will submit all workshop proposals selected for pre-approval to the Texas Health and Human Services Licensed Administrator Program for Child Care Licensing for Licensed Child Placing Agency Administrator (LCPAA) and Licensed Child Care Administrator (LCCA) continuing education training credits. We may also submit relevant workshops for pre-approval for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit hours for attorneys.

Deadline for proposals is March 8, 2024.

Help us make the 2024 Conference the best yet with your workshop proposal!

Please direct all workshop-related questions to conference@tacfs.org. 

Tips for a Compelling Workshop Proposal

  • Be suitable for a 90-minute session 
  • Be interactive rather than lecture-based only 
  • Cover practical application of topics discussed – attendees want useful takeaways and tools 
  • Demonstrate a basic understanding of Texas child welfare, including Community-Based Care 
  • Provide an opportunity for participants to go beyond the status quo and think in new ways that advance the field towards excellence 
  • Create opportunities to strengthen interconnectedness between participants, teams, and organizations in your session 
  • Include aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion/belonging
  • Originality 
  • Limiting presenters/panelists to no more than 3 
  • Identification of emerging best practices and techniques 
  • Incorporation of effective adult learning techniques 
  • Reflection of creative, promising work that responds to the needs of children, youth, families, and staff (model programs) 
Ideas for Sessions
Addressing Complex Trauma & Building Resilience
Adoption
Advancing Equity
Behavioral Health
Boards of Directors (recruitment, development, succession planning, etc.)
Child Development
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children/Anti-Trafficking
Complimentary Therapies
Community-Based Care
Data & Evaluation
Education Services
Effective Community-Based Interventions
Ethics
Fundraising
Integrating Youth & Family Voice
Leadership
Legal Aspects of Child Welfare
Mental Health
National Initiatives
Normalcy for Children & Youth
Organizational Leadership
Older Youth/Teens
Prevention/Early Intervention
Regulatory Issues
Siblings
Suicide Prevention/Intervention
Supporting Provider/Staff Wellbeing- Grief & Loss
Teaming Models
Transitional Programs for Youth
Trauma-Responsive Clinical Work
Working with Kin and Family
Workforce/Staff Retention
Youth & Family Engagement
Proposal Deadline is March 8