Inspiring Change, Igniting Progress

CWLA’s 2025 Conference

Past Conferences

CWLA’s 2024 National Conference, Creating Meaningful Change, was held April 17-19, 2024, at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. This conference brought together solutions from all sectors of child welfare and its related systems, furthering the shift toward an integrated, accessible, culturally responsive services continuum that advances family and community well-being.

CWLA held a special virtual summit for urban and rural providers shared strategies for community collaboration. This summit provided an opportunity for urban providers to hear directly from national rural leaders about methods for working with local organizations, outside of child welfare, and how these lessons can be applied to their own communities.

CWLA’s 2023 National Conference, Stronger Together: Uniting to Advance Change, was held April 26-28, 2023, at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The conference highlighted successful strategies for bridging the divide between public and private sectors of child welfare and related systems and the families and communities they serve.

CWLA’s virtual conference, Moving Research to Practice, examined the practice implications of research collected in recent issues of the Child Welfare journal and other upcoming CWLA publications. These volumes focus on poverty, equity, neglect, sexual abuse, prenatal alcohol and other drug exposure, serving the Latino population, workforce issues, and social determinants of health. CWLA was be joined by the editors and authors of those publications, who shared their findings and suggested strategies for incorporating this research into service delivery.

 The Fierce Urgency of Now: Collective Action to Ensure Children and Families Flourish featured successful strategies, research, practices, advocacy, and actions that individuals, families, organizations, and communities are using to improve supports and services for the health and well-being of children, youth, and families. The conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, DC from April 27-29, 2022.

Lessons Learned from 2020: Reaching New Heights for Children and Families explored the numerous service enhancements and innovations that have been developed by child welfare and other allied fields in response to COVID-19 and the successful strategies and approaches that can be integrated into our service work moving forward as together, we strive to reach new heights for all children and families. The virtual conference was held May 4-6, 2021.

Advancing Racial Justice, Equity, and Inclusion for Children and Families brought together policy, research, and practice professionals from child- and family-serving systems, as well as youth, caregivers, and community partners, to advance more effective services and supports for children and families that improve outcomes and address racial inequities that persist, both within child welfare and within society at large.  The Virtual Summit was held online from October 6 – 8, 2020.

Sharing Ideas that Strengthen Families and Engage Communities to Promote Child Well-Being planned to bring together policy, research, and practice professionals from child- and family-serving systems in the United States and other countries, as well as youth, caregivers, and community partners, to share and advance more effective family supports and systems of care for children and families in the 21st century. The conference was scheduled for March 25–29, 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, but was canceled due to the pandemic.

This conference highlighted successful strategies and practices organizations and communities are using that can be leveraged to meet the challenges and opportunities of the Family First Prevention Services Act and help ensure that children and families flourish.  It featured evidence-informed/evidence-based programs, services, and practices which result in improved outcomes for children, youth, and families. The conference was held from April 9-13, 2019 at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington, DC.

This conference highlighted the resiliency in organizations, families, and communities in response to changing times, and featured evidence-informed/evidence-based programs and practices and related policies and tools that lead to the successful implementation of practices, services, and programs which result in improved outcomes for children, youth, and families. The conference was held on April 26-29, 2018 at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington, DC.

This conference featured evidence-informed/based programs and practices, and related policies and tools that lead to successful implementation of practices, services and programs, resulting in improved outcomes for children, youth and families—and that are most likely to generate positive attention in the public policy context. The conference was held on March 29-31, 2017.

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This conference focused on efforts to enhance cross-system collaboration for the benefit of children and families affected by Substance Use. The conference granted the opportunity to discuss and disseminate important information on trends in policy and practice in this field. The conference was held on August 1-3, 2016 at the Hyatt Regency, Orange County, California.

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CWLA members and partners joined us in Washington, DC to advocate on Capitol Hill for America’s children. The National Advocacy Summit was an opportunity to tell Congress that we need NEW investments in children and families to prevent child abuse, provide quality care, and ensure permanency and safety for all children. The summit was held on April 18-20, 2016 at the Hilton Garden Inn Washington, DC/U.S. Capitol.

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This conference was an extraordinary opportunity to learn from featured evidence-informed/based practices and real world solutions that demonstrate successful thinking in support of children, youth and families. Conference highlights included Hill Day, uniquely designed roundtable sessions, stimulating plenary sessions, panel discussions, an engaging exhibit hall and Gala Dinner. This year’s conference was held on April 27-29, 2015 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott, Arlington, VA.

National Kinship Care Conference

As kinship care continues to be a primary and valuable option for children who cannot live with their parents, emphasis on kinship care policy, practice, and research is necessary to continue to enhance services and supports for kinship caregivers and families. This conference highlighted our collective knowledge of best practice, policy, program and service development, and identified areas for further research. The conference was held on September 17-19, 2014 at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in New Orleans, LA.