Who we're looking for

Diverse group of speakers - We welcome presentations from first-time presenters, from research experts, and from everyone in between. Whatever your background and experience, we prefer hearing about new approaches and strategies. We especially welcome presentations from underrepresented groups within the school psychology community.

Mix of roles and perspectives - Presentations from practitioners, researchers, publishers, and other experts are all valuable to our attendees.

Diverse audience - Likewise, we love the diversity of our community, and we encourage all presenters to attend the presentations of others.

What we're looking for 

Standards Based - Presentations should align with NASP and APA training standards, as well as support at least one of the five NC School Psychology Professional Standards.

Diverse topics - The focus of NCSPA is to support school psychologists, but since school psychologists have a wide range of responsibilities as they implement comprehensive services, we actively seek presentations that address a wide range of related subjects, at various levels of expertise. Perspectives from other fields are welcome, as are topics from adjacent fields!

• Impact of Covid-19 - reestablishing core, mental Health post COVID, legal issues related to the pandemic, telehealth practices
• MTSS - especially within a secondary setting
• Providing comprehensive services in these times of stress
• School Mental Health - Solution focused therapy, resiliency, keeping the data, crisis response, etc. 
• Social Emotional Learning - assessment, interventions, etc.
• Social Justice - supporting gender diverse students, assessments from the lens of equity, report writing, creating action plans, etc.
• Specific Learning Disability - managing the complexities of eligibility
• Specific Populations: Working with students with emotional disabilities, intensive behaviors, autism, brain injury, students in foster care, etc. 

Practicality and positivity - We prefer presentations backed by experience and experimentation to talks about theory. Don't tell us why you don't like something – tell us how you overcame the problems it was causing.

Audience awareness - When crafting presentations proposals, remember that you'll be learning with a mix of levels of expertise and skill sets. Your presentation doesn't have to be relevant to everyone, but it should be relevant to most people and shouldn't make too many assumptions about what people already know. If you are making those assumptions about what your audience knows, it helps everyone if you state them up front explicitly.

Session Length - We're going to try something new this year! We are going to do 2 hour sessions to maximize learning and minimize fidgets! 

Submitting a Proposal 

Submission deadline - June 1, 2022

• Before starting the proposal it is useful to have the following information available.
• For the lead presenter, you will need the following: name, title, organization, address, phone number, email address, bio and resume/CV (upload file only).
• If there will be co-presenters, you will need their names and email addresses
• For each session, be prepared to submit a session abstract, learning objectives, and three resources from professional literature.
• You will also be asked to identify which standards (NC, NASP, and APA) are addressed via your session.
• If applying to present more than one session you will need to complete a second registration using a different email address
• This is a new registration system for us, so we honestly don't know if it'll save your work as you go along, so try to do it all in one sitting if possible. 

Selection Process

Each presentation proposal will be reviewed and evaluated by members of the NCSPA Fall Conference Committee and Professional Learning Committee to determine selection. Proposals will be reviewed for:

• Alignment to NC Professional Standards for School Psychologists as well as NASP and APA standards
• Presence of instructional objectives related to the standards
• An instructional level that is geared toward credentialed professionals in school psychology and is intended to enhance their professional knowledge and/or skills
• Expertise and training of the instructor(s)
• Compliance with NASP and APA Principles for Professional Ethics.

Notification - All applicants will be notified regarding the status of their presentation proposal no later than June 30, 2021.