PCSAO Annual Conference

September 21-23, 2016

buried treasure:
Polishing Our Skills to Help Children and Families Shine

CALL FOR PRESENTERS

Public Children Services Association of Ohio (PCSAO) will hold its annual conference on September 21-23, 2016 in Columbus. The theme of the conference is “Buried Treasure: Polishing Our Skills to Help Children and Families Shine”. The conference will focus on efforts to highlight collective knowledge and best practice in child welfare to cultivate the safety of our children and strengthen their families.

The conference draws nearly 500 participants each year, and is an outstanding opportunity for you to make a valuable contribution to the advancement of child protection practices in Ohio. We invite you to submit a proposal to present at the 2016 PCSAO Conference. The workshops will be organized by the following tracks:

  1. Director/Administrator Track
    Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
  2. Understanding federal, state, and local funding sources for child welfare
  3. CQI and improvement of child welfare
  4. Child welfare workforce development and succession planning
  5. Community engagement strategies for positive public relations
  6. Strategic planning for child welfare agencies
  7. Emotional intelligence skills and child welfare leadership
  8. Child welfare legislations and legislative updates
  9. Roles of leaders and the impacts of performance measurements in child welfare
  1. Supervisor and Manager Track
    Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
  2. Ethics for supervision and management issues
  3. Critical thinking and effective decision making skills
  4. Developing effective work teams; understand culture and diversity issues in teams
  5. Conflict management strategies
  6. Strategies for managing high-profile and crisis situations
  7. Effective communication skills
  8. Promoting staff safety and well-being
  9. How to manage staff from every generation
  10. Time and stress management – burnout, secondary trauma, and post-traumatic stress syndrome
  11. Strategies to help middle managers succeed and increase performance
  12. Issues related to making the transition to supervisor
  13. Caseworker Track
    Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
  14. Client relationship and ethical boundaries for caseworkers
  15. Motivational interviewing techniques
  16. Building child welfare response to child trafficking – identifying, reporting and determining services to victims of trafficking
  17. Best practice for working with LGBTQ youth and families – a guide to case management for caseworkers
  18. Promoting normalcy for children and youth in foster care – how to put normalcy into practice
  19. Health and mental health care issues for children and youth in foster care
  20. Addressing secondary traumatic stress among caseworkers and providing strategies to reduce stress and burnout
  21. Strategies to develop skills in the practice of family engagement and family group decision making
  22. Best practice for working with parents who struggle with substance abuse, domestic violence and mental health
  23. Addressing the currentopioid epidemic in child welfare and providing best practice for working with children and families of drug users
  24. Child sexual abuse – effective strategies for assessment, intervention and prevention
  25. Strategies for ensuring the safety and permanency of children in kinship care
  26. Strategic planning in recruiting and supporting foster and adoptive families
  27. Strategies for growing and sustaining parent engagement
  28. Practical tools for social worker safety and situational awareness
  29. Effective tools for working with potentially violent clients
  30. Legal Track
    Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
  31. Legal ethics and professionalism in child welfare cases
  32. Legal issues related to normalcy for children and youth in foster care
  33. Examing the legal rights of LGBTQ youth in child welfare system
  34. Child welfare case law updates – major legislations concerned with child protection
  35. Confidentiality in court proceedings
  36. How to improve child welfare/court collaboration
  37. How to successfully preparing caseworkers for trials and testimonies
  38. Legal right of children and youth in foster care and responsibilities of the child welfare workers

The workshop committee will strive to select a variety of quality proposals based on content, evidence-based practice, relevance to child welfare, and benefit to attendees. The conference is dedicated to the training and education of child welfare professionals, and workshop proposals should be in this spirit. The committee will not consider any workshop proposals submitted to advertise or promote a product, service or organization. PCSAO values original work; submitted materials will be used only for review by the committee during the Call for Presenters selection process, and for no other purpose. Please complete the Workshop Outline Proposal, and submit it by e-mail .

Required Information

Please complete ALL fields in the Workshop Outline Proposal. Proposed presentations will be evaluatedbased on the content, evidence-based practice, relevance to child welfare and benefit to attendees. Proposal submission topics cannot be changed after the review and selection process.Some key considerations as you prepare your proposal: include as much detail as possible about the presentation in your workshop outline, be clear about your agenda and describe attendee takeaways. The presentation hour can go quickly, we strongly encourage you to get right to the practical information. Be dynamic!

  • Presenter Information: Provide name, agency, telephone, E-mail address and the presenter’s brief biography (75 words or less, written in third person as it should appear in the conference registration brochure).
  • Presenter’s Content Expertise: Please attach presenter’s resume.
  • Workshop Track: Please select a track for your proposal. This will help in identifying the intended audience.
  • Workshop Title: The title must be brief, appealing and clearly indicate the nature of the workshop (20 words or less).
  • Workshop Description: The description must be a short paragraph (150 words or less),as it should appear in the conference registration brochure,clearly and accurately describing the workshop.
  • Relevance to Child Welfare: Provide sufficient detail on how attendees will be able to apply what they learn in the workshop to their jobs and responsibilities.
  • Learning Objectives: Clearly explain the outcomes and benefits that attendees can expect to gain from attending the workshop.
  • Workshop Agenda: Provide clear details of the workshop content outline with time frames for each topic. Explain methods used to convey the content and promote learning and retention. The workshop agenda should fit exactly within the length of the workshop. For CEU purposes, the presenter must spend the amount of time on topics as indicated in the workshop agenda.
  • Reference List: Provide a complete list of all materials used to develop the workshop. (Please refrain from using copyright materials without proper permission.)
  • Length of Workshop: There will be no break time for two-hour workshops. There will be a 15-minute break for three-hour workshops.

Important notes

AV Information - Please note that presenters of all selected workshops are required to provide their own laptop and projector if they are planning to do a presentation with PowerPoint. Other AV equipment will be provided by PCSAO by request.

Complimentary Registration– Up to two presenters of each selected workshop will be eligible for complimentary a two-day conference registration.

Submission deadline – Please submit your proposal by e-mail to by April 30, 2016.

Confirmation– You will receive confirmation of your submission via e-mail. Formal notification of acceptance will be e-mailed by May 30, 2016.

Trainer resources– The Ohio Child Welfare Training Program (OCWTP) has useful information and resources for trainers available online at

Questions – Please contact Jeed Jitprasert, Conference Coordinator, at or 614-224-5802.

WORKSHOP OUTLINE PROPOSAL

All fields in the Workshop Outline Proposal must be completed.

Presenter Information / Name: Agency:
Tel: E-mail:
Presenter’s bio:
(75 words or less, written in third person as it should appear in the conference program) /
Presenter’s Content Expertise / Please attach presenter’s resume.
Workshop Track / ☐Director/Administrator Track
☐Supervisor/Manager Track
☐Caseworker Track
☐Legal Track
Workshop Title / The title must be appealing, brief and clearly indicate the nature of the workshop. /
Workshop Description / The description must be a short paragraph (150 words or less), clearly and accurately describing the workshop as it should appear in the conference registration brochure. /
Relevance to Child Welfare / You must provide sufficient details on how attendees will be able to apply what they learn in the workshop to their jobs and responsibilities. /
Learning Objectives / You much clearly explain the outcomes and benefits that attendees can expect to gain from attending the workshop. /
Workshop Agenda / You must provide clear details of the workshop content outline with time frames for each topic. Explain methods used to convey the content and promote learning and retention. The workshop agenda should fit exactly within the length of the workshop. For CEU purposes, our presenters is required to spend the amount of time on each topic as indicated in the workshop agenda. The presentation must be kept as the time schedule and cannot be ended before.
Reference List / Provide a complete list of all materials used to develop the workshop. (Please refrain from using copyright materials without proper permission.) /
Length of Workshop / Please select from the following options:
☐Two-hour workshop
☐Three-hour workshop
Acceptance of Terms / ☐“I understand that if I am selected to present, I will not be offered any financial compensation for my presentation but will receive a complimentary conference registration.”
☐“I understand that if I will do a presentation with PowerPoint, I must bring my own computer and projector.”
☐“I am not using copyrighted material or if I am doing so in accordance with the law, which includes obtaining permission from the copyright holder when required.”
Please sign your name.

FOR OFFICE USE ONLY:

Licensure Hours: / Click here to enter text. / Certificate Type: / Click here to enter text. /
Workshop #: / Click here to enter text. / Survey Type: / Click here to enter text. /
Reviewed by: / Click here to enter text. / DateReviewed: / Click here to enter text. /

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