2027 CALL FOR PROPOSALS
The 34th Annual Children's Law Institute (CLI)
is seeking proposals for in-person, skill-building workshops.
April 20-22, 2027 | Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town
Submissions due November 6, 2026
The Power of Community: Supporting New Mexico Families
This year's conference theme, The Power of Community: Supporting New Mexico Families, celebrates the unions that strengthen our child and family welfare and juvenile justice systems, while challenging us to deepen our collaboration, elevate voices, and build lasting connections across communities. Together, we can create a more responsive, equitable, and compassionate system that empowers the community, honors culture, and ensures every family can thrive. This year, the Children’s Law Institute will strengthen community relationships and inspire collective action.
Join us April 20-22, 2027 to learn from local and national experts, engage in meaningful connections with others, and to be inspired by our collective capacity of endurance. The Children’s Law Institute is a statewide, multidisciplinary conference that brings over 1,000 professionals together in a unique learning environment focused on improving the health, safety, and well-being of the children and families who are involved in, or who are at risk of becoming involved in, state or tribal child welfare or juvenile justice systems in New Mexico.
Criteria for Submission:
We are looking for 1.5 hour long in-person workshops (75 min presentation with the last 15 mins for Q & A) that relate to the professionals and volunteers who work in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, including social workers, service providers, advocates, educators, and legal professionals. Workshops can be geared toward one or more professions. We are seeking intermediate and advanced interactive presentations for experienced professionals and volunteers. Academic paper proposals are not likely to be accepted.
A full virtual day will no longer be offered during the same week as the CLI conference. Instead, CLI will host virtual workshops throughout the year to expand access and reach a broader audience. These sessions may mirror in-person presentations or provide introductory or deeper exploration of a topic. If you are interested in offering a virtual workshop, please let us know, and we will discuss options once your proposal has been accepted.
To Be Considered, Proposals Must:
- Be relevant to conference theme and attendees.
- Be able to present in-person in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- Use innovative and applicable knowledge that is solution-focused.
- Incorporate tools for skill-building and real-world application that can be applied to an attendee’s individual area of expertise.
- Include audience interaction and critical thinking.
- Include content related specifically to the cultures in New Mexico and the unique challenges we face, when appropriate.
- Provide examples of the resource(s) you will use during the workshop and share with participants (handouts, PowerPoint slides, additional resources etc.). We request that all presentations provide digital handouts or other visual aids to accompany the presentation.
- Priority will be given to proposals and presentations that incorporate data.
Workshop Tracks:
This year, we are seeking workshops that emphasize the skills essential to serving and supporting the youth and families of New Mexico who are navigating the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. We want to provide participants with practical tools and strategies that strengthen their ability to meet the needs of children, families, and communities. Workshops should reinforce the critical knowledge and competencies that ground our work and ensure we are building strong, resilient systems of care.
Click the plus sign + to learn about each track.
Legal Professional Training & Policy Updates
Workshops focused on legal education, emerging policy, and practical updates impacting child welfare, juvenile justice, and children’s court systems.
- Implementation of recent state and federal statutes:
- Eg: Families First Act, NM Fostering Connections Act, Kevin S. Settlement, SB 42, HB 5, and related
- NM practice and court reforms:
- Office of Family Representation and Advocacy- Multidisciplinary teams
- Family Time/Visitation
- NM Children’s Code, CYFD policy, and related legal training for non-attorneys working in the child welfare system.
- Juvenile Justice updates:
- Delinquency hearings and program updates
- Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary advocacy models
- Specialized legal training for attorneys: motions, trials, mediation advocacy, delinquency practice
- Judicial practice: courtroom management, accountability, interdisciplinary collaboration, child welfare and juvenile justice-specific training for newer judges
- Preventing trafficking: domestic child trafficking, a focus on runaway youth and youth experiencing homelessness, collaboration with other agencies around this topic, data collection and analysis, data sharing
- IFPA & ICWA for the legal professional
Workforce Development & Practice Solutions
Workshops featuring practical strategies, tools, and innovative approaches to strengthen the child welfare and juvenile justice workforce and improve practice.
- Updates on the Office of the Child Advocate
- Role-specific training for child protective services investigations, permanency, and placement workers, supervisors, resource foster parents, mediators, CASA Volunteers, SCAC Members, and others directly working in the child protective services system.
- Specialized training for Juvenile Justice Professionals, Family Services, advocates, educators, service providers, and others.
- Integration of Certified Peer Support programs and lived expertise into professional settings
- Data-driven practice: using data in case planning and court presentations
- Communication, supervision, case planning and related skills training
- Cross-disciplinary collaboration in adversarial or resource-limited contexts
Self-Care, Resilience, & Collective Wellness
Workshops focused on building personal resilience, preventing burnout, and fostering wellness and supportive workplace cultures.
- Addressing secondary trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout
- Organizational and collective wellness strategies
- Mindfulness, resilience, and sustainable self-care practices
- Grief processing and tools for long-term professional endurance
- Innovative approaches to creating supportive team and workplace cultures
- Trauma response to keep experts in the work
- Skills and strategies for supervisors, with a focus on community building, multidisciplinary collaboration, and de-escalation
Systems Change & Community Collaboration
Workshops highlighting cross-system collaboration, community-driven solutions, and strategies for creating meaningful and sustainable systems change.
- Administration for Children & Families’ - A Home for Every Child: New Mexico’s Program Improvement Plan (PIP) and other efforts to improve child safety, permanency, and well-being in the state
- Change readiness, supervisors' role in supporting organizations through change and transitions
- Policies and infrastructure that build family safety and resilience
- Awareness, prevention, and intervention training in: substance use, suicide, commercial sexual exploitation, and related
- Addressing disparities and impacts in NM communities
- Community Behavioral Health, Infant Mental Health, Evidence-Based Practice, and High-Fidelity Wraparound expansion efforts
- Restorative justice, prevention-based practices, alternatives to detention, and related Juvenile Justice system reform efforts
- Improving access to services
- Cross-sector partnerships and examples of innovation
- Leveraging funding to expand prevention and behavioral health services
- Updates from the Behavioral Health Reform and Investment Act (SB 3, 2025)
Lived Experience & Community Voice
Workshops led or co-led by those with direct experience in child welfare, juvenile justice, behavioral health, or children’s court systems.
- Best practices for authentically integrating lived experience into planning, training, and evaluation
- Youth-led and parent/caregiver-led sessions on system involvement and reform
- Partnering with families and youth as decision-makers, not just advisors
- Advocacy and leadership pathways for youth, parents, and caregivers
- Examples of family/youth voice shaping real policy and practice changes
- Parents/families with experience with reunification
- Centering dads’ lived experience and perspectives
Indian Child Welfare Act & Indian Family Protection Act
Workshops led or co-led by those with expertise and lived or professional experience navigating ICWA and IFPA, tribal child welfare, and the intersection of tribal sovereignty and child welfare systems.
- ICWA Court Expansion
- Collaboration with Indigenous communities and sovereign Tribal governments
- Indian Family Protection Act
- Active efforts
- Cultural connections
- Preferred placements
- Cultural compacts
- Informing the audience about all the tribes, Pueblos, and nations within New Mexico
- Training on the qualified expert witness (the role within the court environment, and providing training/process to become a qualified expert witness)
- Truth and reconciliation
Submissions due November 6, 2026
Know someone who would make a great speaker at the CLI? Nominate them to present today! Nominations due October 16, 2026
