Agenda/Featured Speakers
 
 Conference Agenda

Click here to view the conference program, which provides a sneak peek of the interactive workshops, inspiring keynote speakers, and activities we have planned for the event.

Monday, June 22 – Pre-Conference Institutes 
  • Institute #1: Now More than Ever: TBRI® in the Midst of the Community-Wide Trauma of COVID-19 with Kimberly Jones and Ally Matteson, from the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development, Texas Christian University. 
    • Building on the 2019 institutes, this training will focus on trauma and the connecting principle of TBRI.
  • Institute #2 : Strengths-Based Clinical Supervision with Jack Nowicki, LCSW- S.
    • This workshop will equip social work supervisors with practical techniques for conducting advanced clinical supervisions. Learn collaboration, strengths-based approaches, and other best practices when working with supervisees.
  • Institute #3: Equity, Inclusion, and Cultural Humility: Together We Can Achieve It! with Mia Williams of Melanin Marketing
    • Join trainer Mia Williams of Melanin Marketing to help enhance your understanding of equity, inclusion, and cultural humility and how to incorporate these principles into your work.
Thursday, June 25 – Full Conference
  • 9:00 a.m.- 10:15 a.m.: Welcome + Keynote
  • 10:15 a.m. – 10:35 a.m.: Short Break/ Exhibit Hall
  • 10:35 a.m. – 11:35 a.m.: Workshops
  • 11:35 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.: Lunch on Your Own
  • 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.: Workshops
  • 2:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.: Short Break
  • 2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.: Keynote
  • 3:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.: Adjourn
  • 3:15 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.: Networking Event (Optional)
Friday, June 26 – Full Conference
  • 9:00 a.m.- 10:00 a.m.: Workshops
  • 10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.: Short Break/ Exhibit Hall
  • 10:30 a.m. – 11:35 a.m.: Keynote + Performance
  • 11:35 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.: Long Break
  • 12:35 p.m. – 12:55 p.m.: Performance
  • 12:55 p.m. – 1:05 p.m.: Short Break
  • 1:05 p.m. – 2:35 p.m.: Long Workshop
  • 2:35 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.: Adjourn/ Short Break
  • 2:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.:  Long Workshop Part 2 (Optional) 

 

Featured Speakers

 

Featured Thursday Morning Keynote: Lynda Frost, JD, PhD

Lynda Frost runs Lynfro Consulting, which is committed to helping foundations, nonprofits, and other agencies maximize their impact through clarifying mission-consistent goals, implementing effective programs, and optimizing internal operations. Lynda’s skills have been honed through 25+ years in the nonprofit sector working to improve health, human services, education, and criminal justice outcomes for vulnerable communities. She is passionate about using Liberating Structures to design fair and effective processes to reach each client’s goals and is recognized for facilitating effective in-person and virtual meetings that inspire participants and deliver results. Prior to founding Lynfro Consulting, Lynda worked for 14 years at the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health and is an experienced administrator and attorney with expertise in human rights, juvenile and criminal justice, special education, and mediation.

Featured Thursday Morning Keynote: Nakia Winfield, MSW

Nakia Winfield is a political social worker & antiracist trainer who uses an interdisciplinary lens to examine power dynamics across social systems.  Her research in leadership development and complexity theory made her fall in love with Liberating Structures when she discovered it 2 years ago as a Mental Health Policy Fellow for the National Association of Social Workers (NASW-TX) and has been using it in space creation and business strategy work ever since.

In addition to social work, Nakia has served as a co-chair of NASW’s Race Equity Accountability and Leadership committee, a Resource Trainer for the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, a Human Resource Generalist at Apple, and a Policy Analyst in the Texas Legislature for House Rep. Coleman among other roles.

Featured Thursday Afternoon Keynote: Judge Steve Teske

Judge Steven C. Teske is the Chief Judge of the Juvenile Court of Clayton County, GA. He was appointed juvenile court judge in 1999 and also serves as a Superior Court Judge by designation.  Teske has testified before Congress on four occasions and several state legislatures on detention reform and zero tolerance policies in schools.

The Governor has appointed him to the Children and Youth Coordinating Council, Governor’s Office for Children and Families, DJJ Judicial Advisory Council, JDAI Statewide Steering Committee, Georgia Commission on Family Violence, and the Georgia Criminal Justice Reform Commission. He served two terms on the Federal Advisory Committee for Juvenile Justice and is the National Chair of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice. He is a member of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and has served on the Board of Directors. He is past president of the Georgia Council of Juvenile Court Judges and the Clayton County Bar Association.

He has written several articles on juvenile justice reform, including his model on school justice partnerships published in the Juvenile and Family Law Journal, Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, Juvenile Justice and Family Today, Family Court Review, and the Georgia Bar Journal.  His book, Reform Juvenile Justice Now, is a collection of essays on juvenile justice issues.

Judge Teske is the 2018 recipient of the Juvenile Law Center Leadership Prize Award. He has received numerous awards and recognitions including Romae T. Powell Award from the Juvenile Court Association of Georgia, Clayton County NAACP Community Service Award, Howard K. Ables Award from the Georgia Juvenile Services Association, 2013 Alumni Award of the College of Arts and Sciences, Georgia State University, Distinguished Alumni Award of Clayton State University, and the Outstanding Leadership Award the Georgia Association of Homes and Services for Children.

He is a Toll Fellow of the Council of State Governments and received his J.D., M.A., and B.I.S. degrees from Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. Judge Teske is an adjunct law professor at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, GA.

Featured Friday Keynote: Monique W. Morris, Ed.D

Monique W. Morris, Ed.D. is an award-winning author and social justice scholar with three decades of experience in the areas of education, civil rights, juvenile and social justice.  Dr. Morris is the author of the forthcoming book, Sing A Rhythm, Dance A Blues (The New Press, 2019), which explores a pedagogy to counter the criminalization of Black and Brown girls in schools. She is also the author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (The New Press, 2016), Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-First Century (The New Press, 2014), Too Beautiful for Words (MWM Books, 2012), and worked with Kemba Smith on her book, Poster Child: The Kemba Smith Story (IBJ Book Publishing, 2011). Dr. Morris has written dozens of articles, book chapters, and other publications on social justice issues and lectured widely on research, policies, and practices associated with improving juvenile justice, educational, and socioeconomic conditions for Black girls, women, and their families. Dr. Morris was a 2018 TED Women speaker and is an executive producer and writer for a documentary film exploring how exclusionary discipline impacts Black girls in the United States.

Dr. Morris is the Founder and President of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute (NBWJI), an organization that works to interrupt school-to-confinement pathways for girls, reduce the barriers to employment for formerly incarcerated women, and increase the capacity of organizations working to reduce sexual assault and domestic violence in African American communities. She served as an adjunct associate professor for Saint Mary’s College of California between 2013-2018 and has taught at the University of San Francisco and California State University, Sacramento. Dr. Morris is a 2012 Soros Justice Fellow, the former Vice President for Economic Programs, Advocacy and Research at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the former Director of Research for the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at the UC Berkeley Law School. She has also worked in partnership with and served as a consultant for federal, state and county agencies, national academic and research institutions, and communities throughout the nation to develop comprehensive approaches and training curricula to eliminate racial/ethnic and gender disparities in justice and educational systems. Her work in this area has informed the development and implementation of improved culturally competent and gender-responsive continua of services for youth.

Dr. Morris’ work has been profiled by MSNBC, CSPAN2, The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, and PBS, among other national and local print, radio, and television media. Her research intersects race, gender, education and justice to explore the ways in which Black communities, and other communities of color, are uniquely affected by social policies. She also frequently lectures on the life and legacy of the artist Prince.

Featured Performance: Meta-Four Houston

Meta-Four Houston is the face of the youth poetry slam scene, representing Houston to the world at the international Brave New Voices festival. Each year hundreds of teens from across Houston come together at the Space City Slam Series, vying for a spot on the Meta-Four team. This opportunity transforms lives, builds community, elevates writing, and takes the voices of youth to powerful heights. Meta-Four is comprised of Joyane Eriom, Calvin King, Madison Petaway, and Norah Rami.

Featured Performance: Christopher “YungChris” Thomas

Christopher Thomas has visited 24 countries around the world as a dance teacher, choreographer, and performer. Thomas spent a year in Bangkok, Thailand training local pop stars and performing at events throughout Southeast Asia before he moved back to Houston in 2011 to start his own dance company, Sonkiss’d Dance Theater. Thomas’ students have gone on to work and tour with major artists, including Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.