Over the last 30+ years, the Network has brought together scholars, practitioners, students, and other stakeholders at their well-attended and impactful annual conferences. During the pandemic, we pivoted successfully to the virtual Forward Thinking Summit series to continue providing access to knowledge, values, and skills needed for leadership and management in social and health services. As we advance, we will switch between the location-based conference and the virtual summit to ensure our stakeholders can come together to learn, grow, and network.
Our annual conferences (earlier called Institutes) have successfully leaned into hot topics de jour for over 30 years. With a central focus on access and affordability, they have been instrumental in training early career, mid-level, and seasoned leaders in the multi-faceted profession that we embrace. It is also a fertile ground for doctoral students who are pursuing their research to connect with mentors and get a spark to ideate better solutions to complex problems.
Our conferences have been hosted by several universities on their campus, and at times leading non-profit agencies have supported our programs. Some of our partners have included:
We are always grateful for these partners stepping up to host us since it allows the network to keep operational costs low to benefit our conference participants.
If you would like to host our conference in the near future and are interested in learning more, we would love to hear from you! Please email info@socialworkmanager.org and we can connect!
During the pandemic, the Network had to pivot to offer much-needed support to agencies' learning and training needs. We launched the Forward Thinking Summit (FTS), which embraced the latest in technologies to deliver content and engage with participants. A unique feature of the summit is that apart from participating synchronously on the summit dates, participants had full access to all content, recorded and close-captioned, for a period of 3 months so they could continue to learn anytime-anywhere.
Thank you for your support and attendance at our 2024 Forward Thinking Summit! The summit was a huge success, with several interesting presentations by experts!!
We have begun plans for the 2025 Forward Thinking Summit that will be held in June 2025. Stay tuned!!
