Proposal Tips

Proposal Review

• Complete the electronic submission form by the deadline. Incomplete proposals may be disqualified.
• All proposals will be peer reviewed by the Conference and Education Committee.
• Presentations will be judged on appropriate topic/subject area, relevance to health and human services, presentation format and level, length, speaker qualifications and availability, and compensation requirements.
• Not all submissions will be accepted. Presenters will be notified by January 6, 2023 if their proposal has been accepted or not.
• If your proposal is selected, we request that you remain as flexible as possible regarding your session’s assigned day and time within the conference schedule. The final schedule will be set by early February 2023.
  

Learning Objectives

Provide three learning objectives for your presentation. Objectives should be observable and measurable outcomes written with action verbs. Be guided by the question, “What will your participants know or be able to do after attending your session?” Sample action verbs are: compile, create, plan, revise, analyze, design, select, utilize, apply, demonstrate, prepare, use, compute, discuss, explain, predict, assess, compare, rate, critique. List of additional action verbs: Bloom's Action Verbs

Presentation Proposal Example

Topic: Macro (Program Development and Evaluation, Grant Writing, Government and Non-profit Management, Research, Social Justice, Advocacy)

Title: Addressing the Disparities in Minnesota's Child Welfare System

Short Description (written for publication; audience: session reviewers and conference participants): Minnesota has been touted as one of the best places in the nation to live in terms of affordability, health, opportunity and wealth. At the same time, reports consistently emerge demonstrating that people of color experience significantly higher than average rates of poverty, lower high school graduation rates, low rates of home ownership, significant racial income gaps and higher involvement in the criminal justice system. In our child welfare system, American Indian and African American children have the highest rates of contact with the child protection system, are more likely to be assigned to a family investigation, have higher out of home placement rates and higher re-entry rates and are more likely to enter guardianship. As professionals who care deeply about children in Minnesota we have the desire to understand these disparities and work towards addressing them. Join us to learn about the disparities that overwhelmingly impact these two communities and discuss what we can do as passionate professionals to take the first steps toward change.

Long Description (written for session reviewers only, will not be published; provides the opportunity to provide additional information relevant to the topic and speakers): In this session I will be sharing data around child disparities in Minnesotan from various sources. I will then discuss the underlying causes of these disparities as a way to engage the audience in thinking about both short and long-term solutions. The discussion will focus on solutions at all levels of the system from interactions with clients, to structural and systemic barriers to equity for American Indian and African American children and their families. Both session speakers have been involved in advocacy work on this issue for the last 5 years. As one of MSSA's public policy priorities I think this is a great time to engage the larger conference audience on this topic. In addition to professional experience in this area, my co-presenter is a person of color with direct personal experience with the child welfare system and brings this positionality to the presentation as well. 

Objective 1: Explain the racial disparities for American Indian and African American children in Minnesota's welfare system.

Objective 2: Evaluate the steps identified in the presentation that will start to create change in the welfare system around racial disparities.

Objective 3: Apply steps that are relevant to the participants own professional role in the health and human services system.

Presentation Submission Resources

• Conference Session Descriptions That Whet the Appetite
• Crafting Better Conference Materials: Writing Session Descriptions
• Verbs for Writing Learner Centered Objectives