CONFERENCE OVERVIEW

Celebrating Our Legacy: The Gateway to New Village Leadership in Child Welfare
From its inception, the Black Administrators in Child Welfare Inc has existed to become a strong voice and a powerful force for African American children and their families in the child welfare system. Like most Black organizations, BACW was born out of the Civil Rights Movement and we stand today on the backs of our legendary founding members. In 2007 our conference theme, Celebrating our Legacy: The Gateway to New Village Leadership in Child Welfare will focus on remembering the lessons of our founders as we prepare new leaders in child welfare to serve African American children and families.

The village children continue to be vulnerable, disproportionately represented and face grave treatment disparities. There is perhaps no more difficult enterprise than making appropriate policy and practice decisions to improve the quality of life for families and children in the child abuse and neglect system. Despite the inherent difficulty of child welfare leadership, there is a growing body of evidence that we can do a better job of strengthening and preserving families, protecting the most vulnerable children, and expeditiously moving children towards permanence. Fostering a new vision and nurturing new talented village leaders is the key to changing the course for a significant proportion of children of color who are underserved or poorly served by the child welfare system and other human service agencies. It is incumbent upon seasoned child welfare administrators to develop a new generation of leaders to continue the rich legacy of serving our people.

  I. Building Partnerships
  II. Child Welfare Financing
  III. Legislation and Policy Issues
  IV. From the Classroom to the Workplace
  V. Promising Practices
  VI. The Media
  VII. Using Data and Statistics