WHAT TO EXPECT
The 2022 Annual Conference will be held virtually June 28-30, welcoming 3 keynote speakers, 10 workshops, identity-based affinity groups, and more. After registering, you’ll receive a confirmation email containing a link. This link, only released to those who have registered, leads to a menu of Zoom links, where the conference events will take place.
ABOUT
2022 marks our 10th year hosting this annual conference, inviting partners from all over the state to convene, network, and share ideas and best practices. There will be Continuing Education Units (CEUs) available from the National Association of Social Workers!
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Anyone who works with survivors of sexual violence or in the prevention field is encouraged to attend. This includes victim advocates, prevention educators, outreach staff, mental health professionals, campus professionals, medical providers, law enforcement, prosecutors, military command and advocacy, offender treatment professionals, school counselors, and other related roles.
2022 Conference Theme
Over the last two years, the conference theme Restoring Our Roots: Cultivating Community has focused on a return to the past to inform our future, to root ourselves in accountability, inclusion, and equity.
In 2022, we are propelling forward into the infinite possibilities that come with the ongoing intentional care given to our roots. This year’s conference theme, Growing Our Collective Future, allows us to cultivate radical imaginations to shape the world around us. While roots ground us, support us, nourish us, the stars allow us to imagine our interconnectedness to everyone– and everything.
“We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.” -Neil Gaiman
When we think of growing our collective future, we must use our imaginations because the systems currently in place will never allow for the eradication of sexual violence.
We must understand the connectedness of the limitations in order to imagine the connectedness of the solutions. It’s like looking up at the sky and not being able to see every star but imagining they exist or will come into existence because of the ones we do see.
“When you see people call themselves revolutionary always talking about destroying, destroying, destroying but never talking about building or creating, they’re not revolutionary. They do not understand the first thing about revolution. It’s creating.” -Kwame Ture
Growing our collective future means making space for what has existed, what currently exists, what’s forming, and what’s possible. It means cultivating radical imaginations to shape another kind of future – one that departs from the terrible cataclysm of violence, of hateful divisions, and suffering. If all oppression is connected, then so must be our liberation.
Let us look up to the sky and begin to imagine the world we would like to inhabit, and rise toward a collective constellation of change.
Accessibility
ASL interpreters as well as English captions will be provided for all portions of the conference. If you have other accessibility needs, please make this request in your registration or reach out to us at conference@oaesv.org. This could include Spanish interpretation, Spanish captions, or other needs. We are happy to provide what you need.
Funding for this conference is supported by Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Rape Prevention Education, by Grant No. ODH Project Number: 01860214VW0921 awarded to the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence by the Department of Health. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Ohio Department of Health.