Building Family Strengths Conference + 2009 National Youth Summit

Implementing Reclaiming Futures means including families and youth in building service plans for individual teens -- and in improving services overall.  Need help doing it?
Consider attending the 2009 Building Family Strengths conference on June 23-25, 2009, in Portland, OR - you can even submit a proposal for a presentation, if you do so by this Friday, February 6, 2009.  

This year’s conference will feature the latest developments in two exciting areas:

• Youth empowerment and participation in designing, delivering, and evaluating services, supports, and systems
• Wraparound: practice, supervision, fidelity measurement, outcome studies, system support, and more

The conference, sponsored by the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children’s Mental Health (RTC), will also include presentations on recent developments and innovations in the fields of family support and children’s mental health.
What's more, the RTC will also host the 2009 National Youth Summit on June 22nd in Portland. About 40 mental health and systems-experienced youth and young adult leaders will gather to "uncover common shared experiences, gaps in youth-focused services, priorities and strategies for service and system change, and research and resource needs" and outline a call to action. 
Youth will be able to apply to go -- limited scholarships will be available. Go here for more details, and to take a survey to help decide topics for the summit.
Whatever we can do to improve youth and family voice in the mental health system, the alcohol and drug treatment system, the juvenile justice system -- and especially where those three intersect -- will not be wasted.

UPDATE: Miss the conference but want more information about families and the juvenile justice system? Check out this post with tips for engaging families in reform and advocacy.