Transforming Our Tomorrow: 2021 Virtual Conference
Registration is now open!
In this time of widespread change, we are acutely aware of the need for ongoing growth—for ourselves, our organizations, and our communities. The choices we make and actions we take today inform how we all will flourish in the days and years to come.
Join us for “Transforming Our Tomorrow: 2021 Prevent Child Abuse America Virtual Conference,” three days of learning and discovery, where we’ll continue to explore the needs of our communities and the impacts of our work.
We are excited to announce our keynote speakers:
Read more about our featured keynote speakers and the engaging presentations they have planned.
(Image of Nadine Burke Harris: © Christopher Michel)
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris is an award-winning physician, researcher and advocate dedicated to changing the way our society responds to one of the most serious, expensive and widespread public health crises of our time: childhood trauma. She was appointed as California’s first-ever Surgeon General by Governor Gavin Newsom in January 2019.
Dr. Burke Harris’ career has been dedicated to serving vulnerable communities and combating the root causes of health disparities. After completing her residency at Stanford, she founded a clinic in one of San Francisco’s most underserved communities, Bayview Hunters Point. It was there that Burke Harris observed that, despite the implementation of national best-practices for immunizations, asthma, obesity treatment and other preventive health measures, her patients still faced outsized risks for poor health, development and behavioral outcomes.
Drawing in research from the CDC and Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Burke Harris identified Adverse Childhood Experiences as a major risk factor affecting the health of her patients. In 2011, she founded the Center for Youth Wellness and subsequently grew the organization to be a national leader in the effort to advance pediatric medicine, raise public awareness, and transform the way society responds to children exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress. She also founded and led the Bay Area Research Consortium on Toxic Stress and Health, to advance scientific screening and treatment of toxic stress.
She currently serves as a government liaison for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ National Advisory Board for Screening and sat on the board of the Committee on Applying Neurobiological and Socio-behavioral Sciences From Prenatal Through Early Childhood Development: A Health Equity Approach for the National Academy of Medicine.
Her work has been profiled in best-selling books including “How Children Succeed” by Paul Tough and “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance as well as in Jamie Redford’s feature film, “Resilience”. It has also been featured on NPR, CNN and Fox News as well as in USA Today and the New York Times. Dr. Burke Harris’ TED Talk, “How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across the Lifetime” has been viewed more than 6 million times. Her book “The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity” was called “indispensable” by The New York Times.
Dr. Burke Harris is the recipient of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award presented by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Heinz Award for the Human Condition. She was named one of 2018’s Most Influential Women in Business by the San Francisco Business Times.
About her keynote:
From Hope to Reality: Building Healthier & More Trauma-Informed Communities
As we emerge from the one of the biggest traumas of our century, we have an opportunity to build back healthier at all levels of society. To enhance access to mental and behavioral health services for our children. To increase screening and treatment for Adverse Child Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress. To finally start treating our mental health as our health. Join California Surgeon General, Dr. Burke Harris, as she shares her vision for how collectively, we can transform tomorrow by fostering enriching communities and environments for our children and families.
Lisseth Rojas-Flores is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Department of Doctoral Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Rojas-Flores’ research centers on immigrant children’s well-being focusing on how trauma, community violence, and socio-structural adversity impacts the child and family unit. With funding from the Foundation for Child Development Young Scholars Program, Rojas-Flores examined the impact of immigration enforcement on Latino citizen—children’s psychological and academic well-being in the U.S. In an international context, she conducts collaborative research to examine the impact of community violence and trauma on adolescents, parents, and teachers living in El Salvador. As part of a multidisciplinary research team in Colombia, she examines the challenges caused by forced migration and trauma. She works to mobilize local religious communities to support people in internal displacement situations (IDPs) to recover and flourish. As a bilingual/bicultural licensed clinical psychologist, she strives to address the interrelationships between family, mental health, faith, and social justice.
About her keynote:
Latinx Children’s Well-Being and Flourishing in A Time of Crisis: Moving Forward Amid Complex Challenges
Growing up in mixed-status households, where at least one family member has precarious legal status, compounds chronic risk and jeopardizes the health and wellbeing of over 17 million Latinx US-citizen children. Parents’ unauthorized legal status is a social determinant of health that drives inequities and health disparities for children. Decades of heightened immigration enforcement and a prolonged pandemic will continue to have long-standing economic, physical, psychological, and spiritual effects among immigrant families. As the end of the pandemic looms, we must not forget the impact that COVID-19 has had on children of immigrants–and take heed of calls for justice-oriented and multidisciplinary approaches to drive positive social change. Empowering black and brown Latinx children and their immigrant caregivers requires deep commitments to advocacy, trauma-informed care, structural change, and respect for the dignity and agency of their vibrant and connected communities. This presentation will discuss how to understand and navigate health inequities, needs, and strengths of Latinx immigrant communities to provide comprehensive, equity-driven, whole-child care to children growing up in mixed-status families.
Vu Le (“voo lay”) is a writer, speaker, and the former Executive Director of RVC, a nonprofit in Seattle that promotes social justice by developing leaders of color, strengthening organizations led by communities of color, and fostering collaboration between diverse communities.
Vu’s passion to make the world better, combined with a low score on the Law School Admission Test, drove him into the field of nonprofit work, where he learned that we should take the work seriously, but not ourselves. There’s tons of humor in the nonprofit world, and someone needs to document it. He is going to do that, with the hope that one day, a TV producer will see how cool and interesting our field is and make a show about nonprofit work, featuring attractive actors attending strategic planning meetings and filing 990 tax forms.
Known for his no-BS approach, irreverent sense of humor, and love of unicorns, Vu has been featured in dozens, if not hundreds, of his own blog posts at NonprofitAF.com.
About his Keynote:
A Bolder, Brighter Tomorrow: Unlocking Nonprofits and Philanthropy’s Full Potential to Create an Equitable World
The pandemic and society’s reckoning with systemic racism reveal just how critical nonprofit and philanthropy are to a thriving community. At the same time, we have many archaic and destructive philosophies and practices that get in our way. How do we move forward? How do we not perpetuate the very injustice we’re trying to fight? What does fundraising look like when it’s not centered on the comfort of donors? How do organizations relate to one another if we’re not mired in the Nonprofit Hunger Games? How do we put out the fires of inequity instead of just helping people burned by it? And how do we do all this while creating space for leadership by the communities most affected by injustice? Vu, author of NonprofitAF.com, will inspire, entertain, and probably enrage in this thought-provoking presentation.
Thriving Families, Safer Children Learning Track
To advance our collective learning across the 22 Thriving Families jurisdictions, we created a special conference “track” of presentations that address many of the critical issues facing child and family serving systems. While this track is particularly relevant to Thriving Families jurisdictions, all conference attendees are invited to attend these sessions.
- Economic and Concrete Supports as Core Child Welfare Strategy to Strengthen Families
- Race Equity: From Theory to Practice Deconstructing Structural Racism and Building Well-Being
- Framing Messages to Strengthen Families
- Race Equity: From Theory to Practice What Happens Before the Knock
- Race Equity: From Theory to Practice Operationalizing Anti-Racist Practice in Child Welfare
- All in For Kansas Kids: Using 1-800-Children and Aunt Bertha
- Collaborative Leadership: Effecting Community Change
- Family Resource Centers – Unity in Diversity
- Nurturing Fathers
- Building Power Through Caretaker and Family Voice Spaces
- The 90by30 Initiative Story: Mobilizing Community for Transformational Change
- The stories we tell ourselves: How social and behavior change communications can change norms around child abuse and neglect prevention
- Exploration and Cultivation of Partnering with Parents
- Foundational Authentic Youth Engagement Skills
- Prevention through Partnerships: It takes EVERYONE!
- Youth Engagement as an Equity Strategy
- See My Color, Acknowledge My Trauma, Change the Outcome
Meet Our Sponsors
Call for Proposals
Submissions are now closed. We have reviewed submitted proposals and notified representatives. If you have any questions, please contact us at conference2021@preventchildabuse.org.
Exhibitors & Sponsors
If you are interested in participating in this event as a sponsor, exhibitor, or by submitting documents for our virtual Resource Table: please reach out to conference2021@preventchildabuse.org.
