Request for Proposals - Due June 29th

The National Federation of Families’ annual conferences have earned a reputation for learning that can be practically applied. Consistent with that aim, the presentations or poster session you propose should highlight promising and effective practices, should emphasize workable solutions and describe replicable approaches.

In addition, the National Federation’s annual conference takes pride in offering learning content that is accessible to a broad audience. Conference participation is pluralistic by design, recognizing that our national family movement must constantly embrace the full diversity of families, additional and new kinds of partners to be effective. Prospective presenters will help us build a balanced conference agenda that offers actionable orientation to new partners, and special skills, approaches and techniques that can expand the capacities of already highly experienced participants. (Some presenters might propose to offer related presentations, one of each type.) In particular we aim to build a conference program that applies Expanding Excellence Equations in four different dimensions:

We seek proposals to help welcome new families, professionals and stakeholders to the many vital building blocks of Excellence that have been identified, developed and refined since the National Federation first committed to our mission 23 years ago. Prospective conference faculty are encouraged to offer instructive sessions about:

• Advocating for effective mental health services and supports across the full spectrum from prevention and early intervention to treatment, ongoing support and aftercare
• What family-driven, youth-guided and culturally responsive principles look like in practice
• How to use highly individualized, strength-based, coordinated/integrated team-based approaches (e.g. “Wraparound”) to support children and youth with complex needs and their families
• Family peer support, Parent Support Providers, and PSP Certification
• Family, youth and professional collaboration and partnership to upgrade programs and expand excellent approaches to improve outcomes for more and more children and families, and
• Demonstrating that mental health is essential to overall health, and overcoming factors that discourage families from accessing excellent services and supports

We also invite presentations that reflect the state of the art in positive practices, and share promising innovations in services and supports:

• Keeping our children well at home (intensive in-home family services, wraparound supports, crisis prevention and stabilization)
• Confronting substance abuse and polypharmacy issues
• Surviving, and thriving despite, high-risk situations (trauma, disproportionalities/Cradle to Prison Pipeline, LGBTQ)
• Cultural adaptations to ensure good “fit” for evidence-supported practices, and
• Expanding positive innovations from research, to pilot, to scale.

In addition, our planners intend to feature learning sessions designed to teach critical structural and management cornerstones upon which sustainability, strengthening and expansion of excellent approaches must depend, including:

• Building healthy organizations
• Developing a vibrant board of directors
• Attracting members, partners, and committed allies,
• Creating and executing your business plan
• Options for funding, and how to marry an organization’s identity and financing
• Grant writing, block grants and other public opportunities
• Should you become a service provider?
• Non-financial dimensions of sustainability and expansion
• Institutionalizing and memorializing what works
• Building family-driven, youth-guided Continuous Quality Improvement [CQI] processes.

Prospective conference faculty are also encouraged to propose learning sessions to support the growth of an effective and ever-expanding force of youth and families, addressing:

• How to encourage young people to manage their needs and care, and to assertively shape their support to best fit their uniqueness and their whole-life objectives
• Navigating “the system” – tips on advocacy
• Self-care for young people, and self-care for caregivers
• Building an effective youth movement and an ever-more influential family movement to provide stimulus, advocacy support and manpower to expand excellence:
• Nurturing emerging leaders
• Communication as key (social media, community strategies)
• Getting down to business – creating business and financing plans that work
• Supporting youth in special circumstances (military families, foster care, etc.)
• How to survive being young in the 21st century (e.g. bullying, wellness, from trauma to triumph, sexual identity).