Thank you for your interest in presenting at the 10th annual Continuous Quality Improvement Conference for Child Welfare and Probation! Please note that all proposals are due Nov. 13, 2026.
If you're a returning presenter and/or already know what you'd like to present, feel free to jump ahead to our submission form. Additional details are provided below.
What You Need to Know as a Presenter
- 2027 Theme: Celebrating a Decade of CQI: Honoring the Past and Transforming the Future
- Location and Dates: Sacramento from April 13-15 2027.
- Audience: This conference will bring together child welfare and probation county teams, including social workers, probation officers, Tribal partners, case reviewers, CQI staff, analysts, agency leadership and those working to support their county's CQI system.
- Format: This 2.5-day, in-person event will feature plenary sessions, workshop blocks and daily county/agency brainstorming sessions.
- All workshops will be 75 minutes in duration. Workshop support will be provided before and during the event.
- Workshop proposals due: Nov. 13, 2026
Celebrating a Decade of CQI: Honoring the Past and Transforming the Future
The 10th Annual Statewide Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Conference is an opportunity to celebrate how CQI has evolved, learn from the work happening across our communities, and imagine what is possible in the years ahead. Reflecting on this year's theme, we invite proposals that share meaningful experiences, lessons learned, emerging practices, and bold ideas for the future of CQI across child welfare, probation, Tribal communities and partner systems.
Share Your CQI Story
As we mark this milestone, we invite counties, Tribes, agencies and their partners to share a CQI success, innovation, partnership or improvement effort from the past 10 years. Tell us where you started, what you tried, what you learned, what changed and how partnerships shaped the work and what comes next.
We also welcome stories about ideas, tools, strategies or connections from past CQI Conferences that you put into practice. What happened, and what did you learn?
CQI is about learning, not perfection. We encourage stories that include challenges, adaptations, unexpected findings and lessons that can strengthen others’ improvement efforts.
Help Us Imagine What Comes Next
Transforming the future also means exploring what CQI could become. We invite proposals that introduce new approaches, innovative ideas, emerging tools or different ways of thinking about improvement. Whether you are piloting something new, responding to a changing practice environment, using technology in new ways or reimagining how people and communities participate in CQI, we would love to hear about it.
Priority Areas for 2027
All CQI-related proposals are welcome. Based on feedback from our conference community, we are particularly interested in proposals that explore:
- CQI Across Systems and Emerging Practice Areas
- Tribal Leadership, Partnership and Indigenous CQI
- Youth, Family and Lived-Experience Engagement in CQI
- Leadership, Workforce and Organizational Culture
- Advanced CQI, Data and Implementation
Learn more about each priority area just below.
Learn More About 2027 Workshop Priority Areas
All CQI-related proposals are welcome. Based on feedback from our conference community, we are particularly interested in proposals that explore:
CQI Across Systems and Emerging Practice Areas
Examples of CQI in action across child welfare, probation, Tribal communities and partner systems. Topics may include prevention, kinship, family finding and engagement, immigration, restorative practices, cultural responsiveness, child trafficking, permanency, cross-system collaboration and other emerging areas of practice.
Tribal Leadership, Partnership, and Indigenous CQI
Approaches that honor Tribal sovereignty, culture, knowledge, priorities and self-determination while strengthening Tribal leadership and equitable partnership in CQI. Topics may include Indigenous CQI approaches, culturally grounded practices, Tribal-county partnerships and Tribal experiences using CQI to strengthen programs, practices and outcomes. Proposals led or co-led by Tribal leaders and professionals are especially encouraged.
Youth, Family, and Lived-Experience Engagement in CQI
Meaningful partnership with youth, families, people with lived expertise and frontline staff throughout the CQI process—from identifying challenges and making meaning of information to designing strategies and evaluating change. We especially welcome approaches that move beyond consultation toward co-design, shared decision-making and authentic partnership.
Leadership, Workforce and Organizational Culture
How leadership, supervision, workplace relationships and organizational culture create the conditions for learning and continuous improvement. Topics may include relational and trauma-informed leadership, psychological safety, workforce well-being and retention, organizational change, learning cultures and engaging frontline staff in improvement.
Advanced CQI, Data, and Implementation
Advanced applications of CQI methods and practices that move from identifying opportunities for improvement to implementing, evaluating, adapting and sustaining change. Topics may include implementation science, data utilization, visualization and storytelling, human-centered data practices, strategy development, evaluation, artificial intelligence and emerging technology and translating findings into meaningful action.
Have an Idea? We Want to Hear It.
These priorities are intended to spark ideas, not limit them. We welcome successes, emerging practices, lessons learned, works in progress and honest reflections that can help advance continuous quality improvement, organizational learning and system improvement across our statewide community.
Questions or need support developing your proposal? We’re happy to help you think through an idea or answer questions as you prepare your submission. Please contact us at [email protected].
Workshop Threads and Topics
During the 2027 conference, workshop threads will be built around the "Cycle of CQI Fundamentals" to help conference attendees consider their CQI needs and select workshops that would most support their learning and regional system improvement. We welcome your innovative, creative ideas and examples for utilizing CQI processes to improve practice in both child welfare and probation. We are especially looking for proposals that may fit within the following threads:
- Ongoing Collaboration and Ownership
- Organizational Commitment and Leadership
- Data Collection, Analysis and Reporting
- Strategic Priorities
- Improvement and Taking Action
In addition, we encourage workshops that focus on Tribal engagement in CQI, as well as CQI in Probation.
Ready to Submit?
You can also browse general information about each thread and/or topic below:
- Ongoing Collaboration and Ownership
- This foundational thread gets at the heart of “what is CQI” – specifically moving from a place where data reports may be generated without purpose to one where analytic insights are acted upon and systems improve. This thread also includes workshops that focus on the values of your agency, how to develop and evaluate evidence about whether those values are supported and thriving in your organization, and how to authentically engage and collaborate with stakeholders.
- Organizational Commitment & Leadership
- This leadership thread includes workshops that focus on building a positive data culture in your agency. A positive data culture is one that is open to feedback and one where data are used early and often to learn about system performance issues (at all levels) instead of punishing particular individuals. Topics within this thread may range from creating psychological safety within organizations, how to imbue data at key decision points, and finding ways to ensure adequate resources, time, and space to conduct CQI.
- Data Collection, Analysis, & Reporting
- This technical thread contains a number of skill-building workshops that will help you more effectively identify data needs, as well as procure, analyze, and present data to support CQI in your agency.
- Strategic Priorities
- Strategic priorities are the outcomes and performance measures that define and describe organizational goals. In California, a number of federal and state policies guide the selection of system improvement targets for child welfare. This thread includes workshops that focus on such state and federal policies, as well as individual agency processes that support the identification and tracking of strategic priorities, and ensuring staff at all levels clearly understand agency priorities (e.g., Line of Sight).
- Improvement and Taking Action
- Once an agency has identified their system improvement priorities, it must then implement reforms and strategies to achieve its goals. This thread focuses on using intentional methods like the CQI Cycle of Improvement (i.e., Plan-Do-Study-Act) to monitor progress toward goal achievement and inform decision-making and includes workshops that address program implementation, fidelity tracking, quality improvement planning, and scaling from pilots to full-scale system change.
We also welcome workshops that involve multi-systems collaboration!
All Ideas Welcome
What's it like at the CQI Statewide Conference?
Learn more about last year's event!
If you have a conference workshop idea and would like to collaborate with staff from other counties, agencies, or the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), please let us know and we can help connect you! Have you started a project but haven’t finished it yet? That is okay, we want to hear what is working well and lessons learned through any stage of the implementation/CQI process. Proposals do not have to be well-defined, so please submit a proposal if you have an idea. Once you submit your proposal form, we will follow up with you to help solidify your ideas, connect you to resources and answer questions.
Questions?
If you are new to workshop presenting or have any questions, please call (530) 757-8725 or email [email protected].