Calendar
Parenting is challenging, particularly when you are parenting a child from a hard place. TBRI® Correcting Principles will provide an in-depth look at strategies for correcting behaviors. This multi-disciplinary training is designed to give caregivers, volunteers, and professionals who serve children and families the knowledge and practical skills they need to bring hope and healing.
This multi-disciplinary training is designed to give caregivers, volunteers, and professionals who serve children and families the knowledge and practical skills they need to bring hope and healing. This live, online training has 4 video-conferencing modules, giving participants the opportunity learn in an interactive environment.
Details
Developed in coordination with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), this webinar will help child welfare agencies and partners strengthen prevention and response efforts related to human trafficking and children missing from care. The event will also reinforce federal statutory requirements, particularly for data collection.
Key focus points:
- Recent data, emerging trends, and promising practices related to children missing from care;
- Cross-sector approaches and partnerships that support improved outcomes; and
- Federal statutory requirements related to identifying, reporting, training, and collecting data on children missing from care.
CWLA is pleased to present a virtual training opportunity for social work and human service professionals that provides participants with a research-informed, reflective look at how identity and adverse life experiences interact to shape families within child welfare systems. Although identity categories are socially constructed, their influence on laws, policies, and relationships has enduring effects that contribute to uneven outcomes across service settings.
Participants will examine how life circumstances linked to structurally based experiences can persist across generations and institutions, and how historical and structural factors affect children and families. A framework grounded in trauma awareness and responsive practice will guide discussion and practical strategies for fostering healing and resilience.
TRAINER:
Deborah Wilson Gadsden, LSW, MSW, MHS, CWLA Director, EIB & Permanency Standards Project
This webinar will explain the concept of a Caregiver Will, a tool to ensure every parent of a minor child can designate chosen guardians in case they become unable to care for their child either temporarily or permanently. Based on longstanding Supreme Court recognition of parental rights to raise and care for children, this tool is grounded in legal precedent and state and federal statutory authority in family law and child welfare law. The Caregiver Will emphasizes how important it is for parents to be able to exercise their constitutionally protected rights when it comes to defining their own family’s village and determining what community support and collective efforts may best meet their family’s needs and rights in the face of unexpected events.
ABA Resolution 610: Caregiver Wills: https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/directories/policy/annual-2025/610-annual-2025.pdf
REGISTER HERE
Join the CARE Community Classroom Webinar Series! Presented by the Louisiana Childhood Adversity Resilience Education (LA CARE) Network, this monthly webinar series explores trauma-informed care, childhood adversity, and practical resilience-building strategies.
The Louisiana Childhood Adversity Resilience Education (LA CARE) Network, housed within the Louisiana Department of Health, Office of Public Health, Bureau of Family Health, trains professionals and community members alike to become certified educators on four core trauma-informed modules. Certified volunteer CARE Network Educators deliver these no-cost presentations within their communities and at various local organizations. From January to October, you have the opportunity to watch presentations live via Zoom. Each webinar will introduce the foundations of trauma-informed practice and show you how to apply these insights in your daily life – whether at home, at work, or in your community!
Throughout the year, the CARE Community Classroom series will rotate through all four core modules, giving you a well-rounded understanding of how to foster resilience and support healing in children who have experienced adversity and/or trauma. Below are the dates for each module
Children with disabilities experience unique vulnerabilities that increase their risk of abuse, neglect, and exploitation. We will explore the intersection of disability and abuse through an advocacy and prevention lens. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of why children with disabilities are at higher risk, how abuse may present differently, and the critical role of advocates, caregivers, professionals, and systems in recognizing and responding to concerns. The session will also highlight practical strategies, legal protections, and community resources that support prevention, early intervention, and the empowerment of children with disabilities and their families.
Lawyers have increasingly turned to generative AI as a powerful productivity tool, but using AI introduces ethical risks. AI can help many attorneys produce work product better and faster, but only when used effectively, ethically, and within the Rules of Professional Conduct. You have probably heard about attorneys getting in serious trouble for filing AI-generated documents that are riddled with errors, but there are other significant risks. In coming years, the legal profession will become increasingly reliant on generative AI, and even attorneys who do not use it will need to be aware of its impact.
We will discuss the dangers, pitfalls, hazards, and benefits of AI within the child welfare arena, with a special emphasis on the Louisiana Rules of Professional Conduct.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
- To identify ethical challenges in the utilization of AI in child welfare cases
- To discuss how AI is pushing the legal profession
- To confront anxieties related to the prevalence of generative AI
- To identify ethically sound ways of implementing AI in a professional legal practice
Rebecca May-Ricks, JD, CWLS, Director, Mental Health Advocacy Service/Child Advocacy Program
Ms. May-Ricks is the Director of the Mental Health Advocacy Service/Child Advocacy Program. She represents children in abuse and neglect cases and/or mental health cases, while supervising other attorneys who do the same. She is a member of the Pelican Center Training Faculty, the Court Improvement Program’s CARE team, the CQI Committee, the Louisiana Bar Association’s Children Law Committee, and numerous other policy organizations, committees, subcommittees, and workgroups related to children and the law. Ms. May-Ricks is a Board-Certified Child Welfare Law Specialist by the National Association of Counsel for Children and serves as the NACC State Coordinator for Louisiana.
Richard Pittman, JD, CWLS, Assistant Professor, LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center
Richard M. Pittman is a certified Child Welfare Law Specialist and has been involved in child welfare law and policy since 2006. He is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center, where he is tasked with preparing law students to enter the profession, and where he promotes public service. Prior to his appointment, he served as Deputy Public Defender and Director of Juvenile Defender Services in the Louisiana public defender system for 11 years. He is a co-reporter of the Children’s Code Committee of the Louisiana Law Institute, the Pelican Center Training and Education Committee, the CARE Committee, the Steering Committee of the ABA Parent Representation Project, and many others.
Aimee Self- Pittman, JD, MLIS, Associate Director of Instruction, Research, and Reference, Thurgood Marshall Law Library, University of Maryland
Aimee Self-Pittman is the Associate Director of Instruction, Research, and Reference at the Thurgood Marshall Law Library at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Before becoming a law librarian, she worked as a VAWA grant attorney for Legal Services Alabama, where she represented survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking in rural communities. She also served as library director at a small, rural public library in Alabama. Aimee teaches courses on legal research and law practice technology and is a collaborator on the Legal Profs AI Sandbox (https://sites.google.com/view/lwai/ home), a project focused on practical applications of generative AI in legal practice and education. She holds a BA from Centre College, a JD from the University of Alabama School of Law, and an MLIS from LSU.
The central theme guiding this conference is: what’s next? The question is no longer whether the child welfare system should change, but how—and what we will choose to build in its place? Across the country, people are doing good work—innovating, protecting, strengthening families, and partnering with communities. This year’s conference is about lifting up what works and asking how we carry that work forward in new and more sustainable ways. It’s about preparing for change, envisioning the future, and being bold enough to lead it. This is not a time for resignation. It’s a time for resolve. CWLA’s 2026 Conference will be a space for those ready to stand, build, and prevail. Join us in shaping what’s next.
CWLA’s 2026 National Conference, The Work Ahead: Practice, Policy, and Possibility, will be held April 20-22, 2026 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia.
Complete a separate online registration for each person attending the conference. All registrations must be paid in advance of the conference by check, credit card, or signed purchase order authorizing conference registration payment. Onsite registrations must be accompanied by a check or credit card.
Discounts: To receive discounted member registration rates, member agencies’ dues must be up to date.
All payments are due by April 1, 2026. Mail checks payable to Child Welfare League of America with a copy of your registration confirmation to CWLA, P.O. Box 715171, Philadelphia, PA 19171-5171. Purchase orders will be accepted for pre-registration, but your organization’s check must be received by CWLA on or before April 1, 2026, otherwise you will be required to provide another form of payment onsite. We encourage you to make sure payment has been received by CWLA prior to arriving at the conference to avoid an inconvenience onsite. Please submit documentation to your agency early enough to ensure that CWLA receives payment before the conference.
To be eligible for the Early Bird registration rate, your payment must be received within 30 days of ticket order.
Cancelation Policy
Written cancelations received by e-mail to CWLA2026@cwla.org on or before 5:00 pm ET on Friday, March 20, 2026, are entitled to a full refund, less a $75 processing fee. After March 20, 2026, no refunds will be given and no exceptions will be made. No-shows will be invoiced for payment of the full registration.
Substitutions: If you are not able to attend, you may send a substitute from your agency, but CWLA must be notified in advance by email at CWLA2026@cwla.org no later than Friday, April 10, 2026. After April 10, 2026 substitutions may not be honored.
Parenting is challenging, particularly when you are parenting a child from a hard place. TBRI® Connecting Principles will provide and in-depth look at connection and attachment and will give you strategies and skills for helping children and families heal. This multi-disciplinary training is designed to give caregivers, volunteers, and professionals who serve children and families the knowledge and practical skills they need to bring hope and healing.
This multi-disciplinary training is designed to give caregivers, volunteers, and professionals who serve children and families the knowledge and practical skills they need to bring hope and healing. This live, online training has 4 video-conferencing modules, giving participants the opportunity learn in an interactive environment.
TRAINER: Carrie Norris
Parenting is challenging, particularly when you are parenting a child from a hard place. TBRI® Connecting Principles will provide and in-depth look at connection and attachment and will give you strategies and skills for helping children and families heal. This multi-disciplinary training is designed to give caregivers, volunteers, and professionals who serve children and families the knowledge and practical skills they need to bring hope and healing.
This multi-disciplinary training is designed to give caregivers, volunteers, and professionals who serve children and families the knowledge and practical skills they need to bring hope and healing. This live, online training has 4 video-conferencing modules, giving participants the opportunity learn in an interactive environment.
TRAINER: Carrie Norris