NAEHCY 21^st Annual Conference
Denver, CO
Marriott Denver City Center
November 14-17, 2009

The 21^st Annual NAEHCY Conference saw its largest attendance ever at the Denver Marriott City Center in November, 2009. Over 800 attendees enjoyed opportunities to interact with local homeless education liaisons, homeless services providers, advocates, educators, and many others from all over the country during the three and a half day professional development event. Over 75 concurrent sessions provided a range of perspectives, ideas, solutions, and hands on tools for implementing McKinney-Vento in districts and communities, as well as at the state level. Resources from those sessions, such as slide presentations and other handouts, are available for reference and download here. National representatives from homeless education, housing, early education, financial aid, and legal advocacy presented vital information about federal resources to support the access and success of the children, youth, and families served at the local level.

Conference Program

Download the 2009 conference program.

The conference program contains a schedule and description of all conference events, including concurrent sessions.

Conference Session Materials

Visit the 2009 conference session materials webpage to download preconference and concurrent session materials, including PowerPoint and handout files.

Keynote Speakers

Sandra Lopez, Clinical Associate Professor at the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston, spoke about honoring the mosaic, or the diverse makeup of the youth in our schools and communities. The mosaic recognizes the uniqueness of each individual and each culture, without the expectation that people from disparate cultures will blend and assimilate. When working with children, youth, and families in our communities, consider their individual strengths, experiences, and outlooks. This means that our schools and our programs must be able to accommodate a range of needs and offer a variety of services. As most liaisons will attest, there are no identical homeless families or unaccompanied homeless youth.

Chet Sisk, executive producer and host of the nationally syndicated television program Welcome To Life Part II on the Colours Television Network, has volunteered at a homeless shelter in Denver for many years because “transformation helps people become their best selves.” His instruction and coaching takes principles from quantum physics, chaos theory, Drake’s equation, and wisdom from other cultures to help people develop a new way of viewing their world and their place in it. People will continue to draw from their known solution base to deal with new problems and situations, unless they learn how to see differently. The bottom line, Sisk says, is that “there is more to your experience than you have known to date. We must develop the capacity to understand.” He also propounds the idea that the green movement must embrace a mission to support children, families, and communities because sustainability “must mean taking care of the least of us.” Likewise, homeless services can embrace these larger movements of green living, healthy eating, and global awareness.

William Potts-Datema, the final keynote speaker, is Chief of Program Development and Services at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health. He presented an interactive session on how health is academic, demonstrating through current research and data from around the country why health issues can and should be addressed in every discussion about academic and program planning. For children and youth who are developing into adolescents and adults, health risks lead directly to educational risks, based on their behavior, motivation, intellectual functioning, and engagement in school and with their peers.

Using data from the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, Mr. Potts-Datema showed a correlation between academic achievement and health behaviors. For instance, students who achieve mostly A’s wear their seatbelts more often, smoke less, and engage in more physical activity than other students who achieve lower grades. These habits follow students into adulthood and into future generations. The mission of our schools is building future adults who will be healthy and contributing members of our communities. By engaging students in other dimensions besides classroom work, such as physical activity and healthy food choices, schools may improve achievement as well as health behaviors.

Visit the Keynote Speakers page to learn more.
Download keynote session materials.