The Families Learning Conference is heading to Charlotte, North Carolina, November 2-5, 2025!
NCFL’s annual conference is laser-focused on delivering learning content to support educators and others to engage families in family learning, with an emphasis on innovative practices.
We are seeking family learning professionals to present best practices, strategies, and resources to use in classroom and community settings to help families succeed in accomplishing their learning and career goals. Proposals should reflect highly interactive and engaging presentations that include strategies and/or materials that attendees can use right away in their classrooms or programs.
This Call for Proposals closes 11:59 pm PDT Friday, April 18.
Preview the application by clicking here.
February 24, 2025: Application opens
April 18, 2025: Application closes
June 13, 2025: Applicants notified of application status
July 2025: Presenters notified of date/time for presentation
September 15, 2025: Presenters must be registered for Conference
October 10, 2025: Hotel room block expires
October 24, 2025: Deadline to upload digital presentation materials for Conference mobile app
November 2-5, 2025: Conference event dates
Lead presenters receive:
Upon acceptance, lead presenters agree:
Your proposal has the best chance of being selected if you:
Priority will be given to presentations that address one or more of the following topics:
While education solutions for families are many, this conference and the selected presentations focus on education solutions that involve all members of the family and help to build thriving communities. Presentations must focus on multigenerational learning strategies, best practices, or innovations, or family learning research, evaluation, or policy. To maximize your chance of selection to present, please submit a proposal that meets one of our focused content strands:
Family Literacy
The four-component Family Literacy model includes children’s education, adult education, parent education, and interactive parent-child literacy and learning activities (Parent and Child Together [PACT] Time®). Presentations in this strand may include such topics as: opportunities for all learners; adult English as a second language (ESL) classes; high school equivalency preparation; literacy education; adults supporting children’s education; career and college readiness; building strong technology skills that support education and work goals; goal setting for participants; multigenerational instructional strategies; curricular implementation; collaboration among early childhood and adult education; language and literacy strategies for multilingual families; innovative early childhood practices; assessments supporting instruction; learners with disabilities; dual-language learners; recruiting and retaining families for programming; community partnerships that align with families learning; and new innovations in family literacy services.
Family Engagement
Family engagement programming includes learning opportunities, events, activities, and strategies that are focused on developing oral language and literacy skills, achieving developmental milestones, and supporting children’s learning outcomes. Presentations in this strand should reflect strong family engagement efforts that are designed in partnership with schools, districts, and community-based organizations, and are aimed at building dual capacity of families and educators. Suggested topics include building relationships with families, increasing positive communication, supporting at-home learning, involving families in decision-making, co-designing family engagement with families, engaging families that are second language learners, and supporting hard-to-reach families. Proposals that target innovative classroom practices and instructional strategies related to literacy, STEAM, inquiry-based learning, integration of technology, and social-emotional learning will also be considered.
Family Leadership
Family leadership programs are designed to support parenting adults and caregivers with knowledge and skills by providing tools and learning opportunities to become engaged advocates for themselves, their children, their families, and communities. NCFL welcomes the submission of proposals that feature informative practices for family leaders. Suggested topics for this strand include co-design, advocacy, language inclusive practices, community outreach planning, power and asset mapping, and strategies for parents and caregivers to engage other parents and caregivers, schools, and community organizations.
Research and Evaluation
Sessions that focus on current topics of educational research have long been an integral part of NCFL’s national conference. NCFL welcomes the submissions of proposals that feature the implementation and impact of research-based program studies and evaluations of family programs, particularly programs that focus on multigenerational education. Other suggested topics include insights on the challenges associated with doing research and evaluation with families who are furthest from opportunity; approaching evaluation co-design with families to ensure we are elevating their voices and lived experiences; and conveying quantitative data as well as qualitative data to tell the story of impact and outcomes.
Policy and Impact
Successful and sustainable family learning systems (family literacy, family engagement, and family leadership) are built on creative and innovative uses of supportive policies and strong, long-lasting partnerships. This requires combining effective communication of program successes with compelling impact data and family stories that reinforce the benefits they provide to families and more broadly, communities. Suggested topics within this strand include examples of how family learning programs have blended funding streams to provide services; how stakeholders have advocated for family-friendly policy at the local, state, and federal levels; activating parenting adults’ leadership skills to support their child’s learning activating parenting adults’ leadership skills to support their child’s learning; how data can tell convincing stories; and innovative ways to showcase programs.
Attendees come to the Families Learning Conference for:
The deadline to apply is Friday, April 18, 2025