Allies For Youth Connections
Empowering Hope through Authentic Connections
Conference on May 12-13th, 2025
Call for Proposals
Allies for Youth Connections Conference would like to invite you to review the Call for Proposals for the upcoming conference in May 2025. This year we are excited to explore “Empowering Hope through Authentic Connections”. We are looking for innovative ideas that build on best practice, and are evidence based in research and theory.
Program descriptions will not be the focus of the conference; rather we want to explore what is new and fits with the key messages outlined in our conference description below.
Allies for Youth Connections Conference
May 12-13, 2025
Fantasyland Hotel, Edmonton
Presentation Submissions
Submissions of presentations for the May 2025 conference are welcome from all organizations or individuals who care for, work with or are involved in working with our youth. Paper copies will be accepted although electronic submissions are preferred.
The deadline for submissions is Friday, December 12, 2025, at 4:30 p.m.
If you have any questions please e-mail us at A4YCCommittee@gmail.com.
2025 Conference Keynote Speakers
Allies 4 Youth Connections
Our Conference
The Allies 4 Youth Connections Conference will bring together service providers, researchers, experts, and the youth to focus on the growing population of young people (12+) with increasingly complex needs. This conference will specifically focus on youth homelessness, indigenous youth & social justice, ethnocultural youth & trauma, and the voice of youth. We keep in mind that all youth, deserve the opportunity to live their lives in a meaningful way, to feel safe, and experience a sense of inclusion and belonging.
This work with our youth incorporates the most recent research, literature and trends in areas such as trauma, attachment and brain development in children and youth; harm reduction; resilience; strength-based practice; collaborative, multi-disciplinary practice; trauma-informed intervention.
This Conferences theme is: Empowering Hope through Authentic Connections
Our population of youth:
“[Youth in high-risk circumstances] are ‘the disconnected.’ They rarely have family to rely on. They rarely have a healthy support network to help guide them. They live risk-filled lifestyles characterized by such things as drugs, sexual exploitation, violence, living on the streets and family breakdown. They typically have difficulty trusting adults and perceive they are alone in the world… They are not ‘at-risk’ youth; they are ‘high-risk youth.’ They are not heading in a bad direction or on a path of self-destruction; they are already there…They are hard to engage, slow to change, test frequently, and challenge one’s practice, ethics, and boundaries. Many youth have shared that they expect the relationship with their child welfare workers and service providers to be problematic. Despite this, we have come to believe all high-risk youth demonstrate resiliency, they have strengths, and they do want a sense of connection. Attempting to connect with the youth can be a risk-filled journey that requires patience, but the rewards are infinite.”
*Smyth, P., & Eaton-Erickson, A. (2009). Making the connection: Strategies for working with high-risk youth. In S. McKay, D. Fuchs, & I. Brown (Eds.), Passion for action in child and family services: Voices from the prairies (pp. 119-142). Regina SK: