Abstract Submission Deadline: December 11, 2026
Child Welfare is pleased to announce a call for abstracts for a special issue focused on parenting in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. This special issue will bring together scholarship, practice wisdom, community knowledge, and lived experience to examine the strengths, challenges, and diverse realities of parenting within and across Tribal Nations and AI/AN communities.
The issue will center Indigenous perspectives and community-defined priorities while recognizing the diversity of AI/AN families, cultures, languages, geographic settings, and political contexts. Contributions may take many forms—including empirical studies, policy analyses, theoretical and reflective essays, practitioner narratives, community-based research, and accounts grounded in lived experience—and should speak to child welfare professionals, Tribal and urban Indian service providers, researchers, policy-makers, educators, and families.
The special issue aims to advance culturally grounded and strengths-based understandings of parenting; highlight the importance of kinship, community, cultural continuity, and Tribal sovereignty; and identify policies and practices that support the well-being of children, parents, extended family members, and communities.
Angelique Day, PhD, MSW, Professor, School of Social Work, University of Washington, and Linda Spears, President and CEO of the Child Welfare League of America, will serve as guest co-editors.
Context and Rationale
Parenting in AI/AN communities is shaped by enduring cultural strengths and by the legal, social, economic, and historical conditions affecting Tribal Nations and families. Extended family and kinship networks, clan and community relationships, cultural teachings, language, ceremony, land, and connection to Tribal identity may play central roles in caregiving and child well-being. At the same time, many families continue to navigate the effects of colonization, family separation, under-resourced services, geographic isolation, poverty, housing instability, substance use, and other structural conditions.
The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), Tribal child welfare systems, state–Tribal relationships, and community-led services are important contexts for understanding parenting and family preservation. Yet research and practice discussions do not always adequately reflect the knowledge of parents, grandparents, relatives, youth, Tribal leaders, cultural practitioners, and community organizations. This special issue seeks submissions that challenge deficit-based narratives and elevate Indigenous knowledge, family strengths, and locally grounded solutions.
Potential Topics
- Indigenous and culturally grounded models of parenting, caregiving, and child development
- The roles of grandparents, extended family, kinship networks, clans, and community in raising children
- Parenting across generations and the transmission of language, culture, ceremony, and identity
- Tribal child welfare systems, family preservation, reunification, and prevention services
- Implementation, interpretation, and impact of the Indian Child Welfare Act
- Tribal sovereignty and state–Tribal collaboration in supporting children and families
- Parent and family voice in policy development, service design, and child welfare decision-making
- Experiences of AI/AN parents involved with child welfare, including fathers and Two-Spirit/LGBTQ+ parents
- Urban Indian parenting and the experiences of families living away from Tribal communities
- Parenting in rural, remote, and geographically isolated communities
- Community-based participatory research, Indigenous methodologies, and data sovereignty
- Trauma-responsive, healing-centered, and culturally responsive services
- Substance use, behavioral health, disability, and parenting support in AI/AN communities
- Economic security, housing, education, health care, and other conditions affecting family well-being
- Workforce development and preparation of Tribal and non-Tribal child welfare professionals
- Promising programs, policy innovations, and lessons from Tribal Nations and communities
- Intersectionality, including gender, age, disability, sexuality, migration, and urban/rural location
- Ethical, respectful, and community-accountable approaches to research and dissemination
Proposed Publication Timeline
- Call for abstracts issued: November 3, 2026
- Abstract submission deadline: December 11, 2026
- Abstract decisions communicated: December 18, 2026
- First manuscript drafts due: March 1, 2027
- Peer reviews due to guest editors: March 22, 2027
- Decisions on manuscripts moving forward: April 12, 2027
- Revised manuscripts due: June 25, 2027
- Final acceptance notifications: July 9, 2027
- Permission forms due: July 16, 2027
- Anticipated publication: late August–early September 2027
Submission Guidelines
Please submit abstracts by December 11, 2026, to the guest co-editor, Angelique Day (dayangel@uw.edu), and Child Welfare managing editor, Rachel Adams (radams@cwla.org). Authors whose abstracts are accepted will receive full-manuscript guidelines and information about the peer-review process.
Abstracts should be no more than 750 words and clearly identify:
- The topic, research or practice question, and significance
- The community, population, or setting addressed
- Methods and data sources, when applicable
- Expected, preliminary, or established findings—or key practice insights
- Implications for families, communities, child welfare practice, policy, research, or workforce development
- How the submission centers Indigenous knowledge, community voice, cultural context, or Tribal sovereignty, as appropriate
Submissions may be authored by researchers, Tribal and community-based practitioners, parents, grandparents, youth, cultural practitioners, policy-makers, and other knowledge holders. Co-authored submissions and collaborations between academic and community partners are especially welcome. Authors should follow ethical and community-accountable practices, including appropriate Tribal permissions, consultation, data governance, and recognition of community ownership where relevant.
The editors especially encourage submissions from authors that include the following collaborators: AI/AN parents, grandparents, youth, Tribal and community-based practitioners, cultural knowledge holders, and others with lived experience. Diverse perspectives from Tribal Nations and AI/AN communities across geographic regions and service settings will be prioritized for this special issue.