Save The Date: 2027 Illinois CASA Annual State Conference
CASA Staff and Board Member Day
Date: Wednesday, April 7th
Conference Day
Date: Thursday, April 8th
Conference Day is open to everyone who serves children and families, including CASA staff, Board members, CASA volunteers, Court personnel and service providers from across Illinois.
Hosted at the Bloomington-Normal Marriott Hotel and Convention Center
Registration, agenda, and brochure coming soon.
Call for Presenters
About the 2027 Illinois CASA Conference
Illinois CASA is seeking proposals for workshop presentations for its annual conference. The conference will take place in Bloomington-Normal, IL, from April 7-8, 2027, at the Bloomington-Normal Marriott Hotel and Conference Center.
The Illinois CASA Conference brings together CASA staff, volunteers, board members, and child welfare partners to provide and encourage innovative ideas and strategies that will empower the CASA community to provide the highest quality advocacy for children and families navigating the child welfare system.
About the workshop sessions
We welcome proposals from CASA and child welfare professionals, subject-matter experts, consultants, trainers, community partners, and individuals with relevant professional or lived experience to share with our audience. We are looking for engaging presentations that provide practical, actionable tools, and experiential learning for volunteers and staff advocating for foster children and their families. Presenters should be prepared to engage a diverse audience across roles and experience levels.
Benefits of presenting at Illinois CASA
- Showcase your knowledge and leadership to a statewide and nationwide audience of CASA professionals and partners.
- Expand your professional visibility and strengthen your reputation as a subject matter expert.
- Network with key leaders and decision-makers in child advocacy from across Illinois and beyond.
- Support the mission of Illinois CASA by helping strengthen advocacy for children and families.
- Contribute to meaningful professional development for volunteers and staff serving children in the child welfare system.
- Be part of a highly respected conference focused on real-world impact, collaboration, and best practices.
Wokshop content
Workshops should be relevant for CASA staff and volunteers and those working in child welfare and be centered around one or more of the following areas of focus. Please note the examples under each area of focus are not exhaustive, and we encourage submissions that explore other relevant topics within the area of focus.
CASA Core Practice and Child Advocacy
- Understanding the role of CASA within the child welfare and court systems (scope, limits, collaboration with CPS, SSCCs, attorneys and providers).
- Writing effective court reports: factual documentation, clear recommendations, cultural context and judicial expectations.
- Child development across ages (infants, school-age, teens, older youth) and understanding advocacy goals, visitation, etc.
- Trauma and resilience and how trauma shows up in behavior and relationships.
- Working with older youth, extended foster care, and successful transition to adulthood (housing, college, work, permanency).
- Specialized advocacy for LGBTQ+ youth, and youth with disabilities.
- Supporting children and families impacted by poverty, substance use, domestic violence, and mental health.
- Building trust with families, strength-based language, and engaging parents respectfully.
- Panel of youth and parents with lived experience (what helped, what harmed, and what they wish CASA knew).
- The importance of frequent communication and connection with the child.
- Why documenting is crucial to advocacy.
Recruitment, Outreach and Community Engagement
- Data-informed recruitment, reading your county's child welfare data to identify gaps.
- Telling the CASA story without desperation but with a sense of urgency, ethical use of images and stories.
- Digital and grassroots strategies, social media campaigns, faith community partnerships, corporate and small business outreach, and university pipelines.
- Expanding the volunteer pool, successful strategies for reaching audiences from different backgrounds and supports that improve access.
- Converting interest to commitment (info sessions, interview process, pre-service training, etc.).
- Engaging the board as ambassadors, tools for board-led recruitment in personal and professional networks.
- Successful strategies for Urban, Rural and multi-county recruitment and community engagement.
Volunteer Supervision, Support and Retention
- Best practices in advocate supervision, case staffing, safety planning, documentation review, coaching and evaluation.
- Understanding the parallel process for supervising volunteers, debriefing difficult hearing or outcomes, ethical dilemmas, secondary trauma and the impact on retention.
- Using Optima for documentation, data tracking, and communication.
- Recognition, feedback loops, peer mentorship, leadership opportunities, exit interview and evaluations.
- Designing meaningful in-service training that motivates, inspires and leads to professional development.
- Onboarding: How to retain volunteers and set them up for success.
Leadership, Governance, and Sustainability
- Strategic planning for local CASA programs, aligning mission, community needs, and growth targets (children served, expanding the volunteer pool, quality advocacy).
- Funding and sustainability, grant writing, private fundraising, and building a development plan.
- Board governance roles and responsibilities, fiduciary duties, and effective board-staff partnerships.
- Risk management and legal/ethical compliance (standards, confidentiality, boundaries, conflict of interest).
Timeline
- December 1, 2026: Application deadline
- December 23, 2026: Presenter Agreements, Bios and Headshots due
- January 7, 2027: Workshop selections announced
- March 18, 2027: Final presentation slides due
Please apply to be a presenter at this year's conference using the button below.
With questions, please contact karen@illinoiscasa.org
