Social Work Wildcat Conference Call for Presenters

You are invited to apply to present a session at the 5th Annual Social Work Wildcat Conference on April 17, 2026. The title of this year's conference is "Filling Your Cup: Reclaiming Self-Care, Boundaries, and Worthiness in Social Work." Our conference will be held in-person in Salina, KS.

Conference Overview

Social workers pour their hearts into helping others heal—but often at the expense of their own well-being. This year’s K-State Salina Social Work Conference invites practitioners, educators, and students to take an honest, hopeful look at what it means to refill our cups.

Through dialogue, interactive workshops, and reflective practice, we will explore how burnout, trauma exposure, and the culture of constant productivity undermine our capacity to care. Together, we’ll move beyond the myth of self-sacrifice to imagine systems that sustain us as whole people—where wellness is not a luxury but a professional responsibility.

Participants will leave with tangible strategies for boundary-setting, trauma stewardship, and workplace advocacy—and a renewed sense of worthiness, balance, and collective purpose. Strategies will be transferable to those we serve through teaching and modeling well-being.

Call for Presenters: Because We Cannot Pour from an Empty Cup

Kansas State University Salina invites social workers, therapists, counselors, educators, and community partners to share their expertise, research, and lived experience at our 2026 Social Work Conference.

We’re seeking dynamic, solution-oriented sessions that challenge hustle culture, honor the wisdom of rest, and re-envision what sustainable care for the caregiver can look like. Whether you’ve created agency-wide wellness programs, integrated mindfulness or movement into supervision, or re-framed burnout as a catalyst for systemic change—we want your voice in this conversation.

Help us co-create a culture of regeneration within the helping professions.

For best consideration, interested presenters are encouraged to submit your application by Friday, November 21, 2025. The final application deadline is Friday, December 19, 2025. All applicants will be contacted with the selection status by January 2026.

For questions about the conference or application to present, please email profed@k-state.edu.

Suggested workshop topics

Presenters are encouraged to submit proposals related to (but not limited to) the following themes:

• Recognizing and Reversing Burnout
  • Innovative strategies and evidence-based approaches for recovery and resilience.
• Therapy for the Therapist
  • Models of supervision, support, and healing for helping professionals.
• Boundaries as Ethical Practice
  • Re-framing boundaries as acts of integrity and self-respect.
• Advocating for Self-Care within Agencies
  • Organizational change and policy approaches that sustain staff.
• Trauma's Impact on the Helper
  • Understanding vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and post-traumatic growth.
• Dismantling Toxic Productivity
  • Challenging the systemic and cultural forces that glorify overwork.
• Authentic Self-Care Practices
  • Rooting care in values, embodiment, and and sustainability.
• Worthiness and the Helping Identity
  • Exploring perfectionism, belonging, and the right to rest.
• Mindfulness and Movement in Practice
  • Integrating embodied and creative approaches to healing and grounding
• Student and Early Career Perspectives
  • Insights, boundaries, and resilience from the next generation.

Join the movement!

Let's reclaim self-care - not as an indulgence, but as a radical act of professional integrity. When we are well, we serve well. Together, we can build a practice that fills the cup of the caregiver and, in turn, nourishes the communities we serve.

Questions

If you have any questions about presenting at our conference, please contact the K-State Salina Professional Education and Outreach office by emailing profed@k-state.edu.