Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Renaissance Columbus Westerville Polaris
409 Altair Parkway Westerville, OH 43082
We’re excited to announce a new chapter in our event programming, the launch of the 2025 Symposium.
This year, in place of our traditional Fall Conference, we’re turning our focus to a timely and essential theme—Enhancing Our System of Care: Addressing Key Issues in Children's Services.
Please Note: No Exhibitor Opportunities for the Symposium. Click to learn more.
Admission Costs (Deadline to register is September 29)
Alliance *Member Admission: $250
Enhancing Our System of Care:
Addressing Key Issues in Children's Services
*If you select the Alliance Member Admission, you will be required to enter the agency name under the registrant details. View Ohio Children's Alliance Member Agency Directory >
Government Admission: $275
General Admission: $300
Who Should Attend?
This event is for decision-makers, system advocates, and professionals committed to improving outcomes for children and families. The Symposium brings together those working to challenge the status quo and drive meaningful system change.
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Decision-makers shaping strategy, policy, and funding
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System advocates working to influence and improve services
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Children’s system professionals delivering care and support
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Nonprofit leaders driving programs and innovation
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System-change advocates advancing equity and reform
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System challengers questioning the status quo
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Frustrated reformers seeking real, lasting solutions through collaboration and action
Be part of a powerful network of leaders, innovators, and reformers across child welfare, behavioral health, and youth services—united in driving collaboration and lasting change for Ohio’s children and families.
Keynotes - Voices of Impact
The Power of Three: Building Enduring Partnerships with Clients, Funders, and Staff
Overview: The future of child- and family-serving agencies depends on their ability to build and sustain three essential partnerships: with clients, with funders, and—most critically—with staff. Drawing on national research and hundreds of interviews with direct care professionals, this session will explore how aligning an agency’s mission, strategy, and culture can foster authentic staff engagement and retention.
Participants will examine the key drivers of job satisfaction—including onboarding, supervision, team-building, and appreciation—and learn how to minimize common dissatisfiers such as burnout, unrealistic expectations, and lack of communication. This session offers a practical roadmap for leaders committed to creating a workplace where staff feel valued, supported, and inspired to stay.
Closing Keynote Presentation
Lisette Burton, J.D.
Chief Policy & Practice Advisor, Association of Children's Residential & Community Services (ACRC)
Lisette joined ACRC in 2020 after serving on the board of directors as the Public Policy Committee Chair for several years. In addition to leading ACRC’s advocacy efforts, Lisette builds coalitions and strategic partnerships and she utilizes her experience and skills to provide expert-level guidance, policy analysis, practice support, facilitation, strategic planning, and consultation services to ACRC’s membership and non-member systems, agencies, and associations.
Previously, Lisette was the Vice President of National Advocacy and Public Policy for the national nonprofit Boys Town, where she advocated for effective federal and state policies related to child welfare, juvenile justice, education, and health. Lisette’s foundational experiences are in direct care, and she joined Boys Town in 2007 as a Family Teacher caring for girls in foster care and boys committed to the juvenile justice system in a family-style, community-based, therapeutic residential program.
Prior to Boys Town, Lisette worked in North Carolina as a program director at a therapeutic residential wilderness program and later as a community organizer focused on quality early childhood education and parental involvement in schools.
Lisette serves on several national policy committees, coalitions, and working groups. She is a mayoral appointee to the Washington, DC Juvenile Justice Advisory Group and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma.
Lisette regularly facilitates conversations and shares policy and practice insight and expertise with local, state, national, and international audiences.Lisette received her B.S. in Science from the Eberly College of Science at Penn State University. She earned her J.D. at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, where she was a Leadership Scholar and Schweitzer Fellow, a pro bono law clerk representing children with special needs, a student attorney at the National Association of the Deaf, and a legislative intern with the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
