2025 International Virtual Conference: October 6-9, 2025.

Rural realities: Sharing experiences of challenge and hope in rural child welfare practice

October 6, 2025

presenters:

Sarah Tremblett, PhD student Wilfrid Laurier University, Friend of The CWTTC

Nancy Freymond, Founding Member of The CWTTC

Samantha Crocker, MSW Placement Student, Associate Member with The CWTTC

abstract: Child welfare in rural communities presents unique challenges often overlooked in mainstream policy and practice. Despite increased attention to systemic inequities, there is little focus on what it's like to navigate child protection in rural settings. Drawing upon our lived and professional experiences, we highlight the importance of relational knowledge, critical thinking, and creativity in meeting families where they are—often despite standardized frameworks that fail to reflect rural realities. We invite participants to reflect on how dominant service models might be reoriented to better support rural families. Together, we’ll explore strategies for navigating under-resourced systems, addressing urban-centric policies, and moving toward socially just and community-based practices

Speaking and witnessing child welfare truths

October 6, 2025

presenters:

Rhonda Andall, collective member with The CWTTC

Reiman Abakar, associate member with The CWTTC

Marilee Sherry, founding member of The CWTTC

abstract: Grounded in the belief that truth in systems of child welfare is a precursor to reparation, accountability, and reconciliation, we will dialogue together about the intentions, processes and outcomes of child welfare truth-telling and witnessing circles. Truth-telling and witnessing circles are designed to be safe enough spaces where people who are doing or supporting child welfare practices shatter silence by speaking authentically of their roles and responsibilities in causing harm and by bearing witness to the truths of others who are also complicit in harming. Sometimes, experiencing truth circles brings healing; often it brings fresh awareness and reclaimed voice.

Reframing neglect: Challenging the conflation of poverty and parental deficiency in child welfare

October 7, 2025

presenters:

Sarah Tremblett, PhD student Wilfrid Laurier University, Friend of The CWTTC

Nancy Freymond, Founding Member of The CWTTC

abstract: This workshop challenges the conflation of poverty with neglect in child welfare practice and policy. Drawing on critical scholarship and practice experience, we examine how neglect is socially constructed in ways that police poor families—particularly mothers—under the guise of protection. Through a genealogical lens, we expose the entanglement of neglect with moral judgment, surveillance, and settler-colonial ideals. This workshop aims to bring together like-minded participants from a multitude of backgrounds — academics, child welfare workers, policymakers, and people with lived experiences in the child welfare system— to collectively and collaboratively engage in dialogue that reimagines child welfare as a system that meaningfully addresses structural poverty.

Warrior mothers: Staying with the trouble, building solidarity and finding hope in difficult times

October 7, 2025

presenters:

Brooke Richardson, Assistant Professor in Child and Youth Studies, Mount Saint Vincent University, associate member with The CWTTC

Jeanette Vega-Brown, Executive Director, RISE

Mary Burton, Executive Director & Co-Founder, Zoongizi Ode Inc

Valerie Frost, Public Speaker, Trainer, and Advocate, Kentucky, United States

abstract: This keynote panel brings together four mothers who have transformed adversity into resilience and solidarity. They will share how they’ve built grassroots spaces when systems resisted, reframed hardship into purpose, and sustained hope in difficult times. Their conversation will explore the spectrum of advocacy and the power of collective strength to keep moving forward.