23^rd Annual Conference

The Conference Planning Committee of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) invites submissions for presentations within all content areas of social work, social welfare services, and social policy.

The theme for the 2019 conference is "Ending Gender Based, Family and Community Violence." This theme expands one of our Grand Challenges, reflecting the importance of simultaneously addressing these interrelated social justice issues that adversely affect people all over the world, especially those most vulnerable and marginalized in our communities. Violence is often grounded in systemic oppression, fueled by gender and ethnic bias, and economic exploitation. Social work has historically been at the forefront of working to end all forms of violence with our founding mother Jane Adams receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 for her opposition to war. Social movements like #me too, Black Lives Matter, #never again, are underway creating increased visibility through activism and advocacy for the potential to powerfully impact policies and practices. It is imperative that during this resurgence of activism that we as social work researchers contribute to solving this broad and far reaching challenge of ending violence in our society by bringing innovative, high quality, evidence-based knowledge to this work.

The conference will focus on original research that has implications for practice or policy. Research abstracts are encouraged in all substantive areas, using scientifically sound qualitative and/or quantitative methodology. The research may take place in any country and at the micro, macro, or policy level. We recognize that this year’s conference theme is cross-cutting by population, problem and substantive areas, as well as methodological expertise and as a result, we encourage submissions across all Clusters as they pertain explicitly to innovations in research or related to the theme of the conference in the form of proposals for individual papers and poster presentations, symposia, roundtable discussions, and workshops. These may span various forms of research. Cluster areas are:

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Abstracts must be submitted in the following formats (see Author Submission Instructions document). Abstracts should be 500 words or less. References are not required, and if included count towards the 500 word limit. Image(s) and table(s) are not permitted in any abstract.

1. Oral paper presentation
2. Poster presentation
3. Symposium of three or more papers on the same topic to be presented in the same session
4. Roundtable
5. Workshop

Oral paper, poster, and symposium paper abstracts should be submitted in a structured format and include the following:

• Background and Purpose: description of the problem, study objectives, research question(s) and/or hypothesis (es).
• Methods: study design, including a description of participants and sampling methods, data collection procedures, measures, and appropriate analytic/ statistical approach.
• Results: specific results in summary form.
• Conclusions and Implications: description of the main outcome(s) of the study and implications for practice, policy, or further research.

When submitting a symposium, please submit an abstract (500 words or less) for each symposium paper, along with an overall abstract (500 words or less) for the symposium session that describes the symposium theme and its importance. Preference will be given to symposia that demonstrate cohesiveness across presentations. Symposia will be accepted or rejected in total, i.e., abstracts will not be accepted independently.

Roundtable and workshop session abstracts should:

• add to the current knowledge base in social work practice, policy, theory, and research methodology, and,
• offer clear meaningful implications for social work research, policy and practice.

When submitting a roundtable or a workshop session, please submit an abstract of 500 words or less that describes the content and how it will be addressed. For roundtables, describe the topics that will be addressed elaborating on viewpoints and perspectives to be discussed. The workshop session should offer training opportunities for methodology (study design, sampling, data collection, measurement, and analysis) and describe the pedagogical techniques.

Abstracts should not be based on research previously published elsewhere. Please note that only paper and poster abstracts reporting completed findings will be reviewed. We urge that studies with “findings pending” be submitted for future review after the study is complete. Peer reviews will be used to select submissions based upon technical merit and importance of findings. Please note that all abstracts are to be submitted online using the SSWR online abstract management system at http://secure.sswr.org/.

SSWR seeks to optimize as many people participating in the conference as possible. SSWR, therefore, limits the number of roles that participants can play in the 2019 conference. There is a limit of two (2) presenting-author abstract submissions per person. This limit applies to these presentation formats: oral papers, both individual papers and papers within an organized symposium, posters, and workshops. It does not apply to co-authorship. Participants may, however, perform additional roles such as chairing an organized symposium, leading a special interest group, serving as moderator for a session of grouped oral papers, and a panelist in a round table session.

PRESENTER/SPEAKER REQUIREMENTS
You DO NOT need to be a SSWR member to submit an abstract. However, if your abstract is accepted for presentation the presenter/speaker MUST be a current 2019 member and register for the conference. This requirement is applicable to oral paper and poster presenters, symposium organizers, symposium paper presenters and symposium discussants, and workshop and roundtable speakers. Co-authors are not expected to comply with this policy. Co-authors attending the conference, however, are required to register for the conference.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday, April 30, 2018, 11:59 pm, Pacific Time

We look forward to seeing you in San Fransisco!