The 28th International Families & Fathers Conference · Los Angeles · April 11–15, 2027

What Happens When the Stage Belongs to More Than One Voice?

For 27 years, the International Families & Fathers Conference has brought people together to learn, lead, connect and strengthen families. In 2027, a new chapter begins. Rather than building the heart of the conference around a traditional keynote model, HOPE Talks will create a continuous exchange of real stories, bold ideas, lived wisdom, professional insight and possibilities for change.

The goal is not simply to hear something inspiring.
The goal is to leave seeing something differently—and ready to do something with it.

Fifteen Minutes Can Change the Conversation.

The most memorable conference moments are rarely remembered because someone filled a stage for an hour. They are remembered because one idea connected with the right person at the right moment. A story creates recognition. A question challenges an assumption. Research suddenly becomes human. Lived experience becomes wisdom. And inspiration becomes a reason to move.

01 · CONNECT

Make the Idea Human

HOPE Talks connect ideas to real people, real experiences and real communities so that information becomes something audiences can see, feel and remember.

02 · CHALLENGE

Shift the Conversation

The right fifteen minutes can challenge an assumption, introduce another perspective or give language to something people have experienced but have never been able to name.

03 · INSPIRE

Restore Possibility

Inspiration matters when it reminds people that circumstances, systems, relationships and even personal stories are capable of changing.

04 · MOVE

Turn Insight Into Action

Every HOPE Talk is designed to leave something behind: a question, an idea, a practice, a perspective or a reason to take the next meaningful step.

Coming to the HOPE 2027 Stage

Different Generations. Different Journeys. Different Parts of the World. One Shared Stage.

The voices selected for HOPE 2027 do not come from one profession, one generation, one community or one definition of expertise. Across four mornings, the stage will move between lived experience and professional practice, personal transformation and research, family and leadership, challenge and possibility.

A New Generation of Voice One of the youngest voices stepping onto the HOPE stage is an 11th-grade student from Central California—bringing a perspective that cannot be replicated by someone speaking about young people instead of hearing directly from them.

International Perspectives HOPE Talks will reach beyond the United States, bringing international voices and experiences into a conference built around families, fathers, human connection and shared learning.

Lived Experience Some messages are carried through professional credentials. Others are earned through adversity, parenting, healing, relationships, service, rebuilding and the courage to begin again.

Practice & Professional Wisdom Educators, practitioners, behavioral-health professionals, family-serving leaders and community builders will translate experience and knowledge into ideas people can carry home.

Research With a Human Face Evidence matters. HOPE Talks create space for research and professional insight to become accessible, relevant and connected to the people whose lives the work is intended to strengthen.

Stories That Become Bridges A story can connect generations, professions and communities. The stage becomes a bridge between what one person has learned and what another person may need next.

This is intentional. HOPE 2027 is creating a stage broad enough for an 11th-grade student, seasoned professionals, parents, researchers, practitioners, community leaders and international voices to contribute to the same conversation. Expertise has many forms. Wisdom has many origins. HOPE grows when we make room to hear them.

We Are Not Building a Stage Around Celebrity.
We Are Building It Around Contribution.

HOPE Talks are not sales presentations and they are not fifteen-minute commercials. They are moments of contribution. Each presenter has one opportunity to bring forward an idea, experience, lesson or truth that can create value for someone else.

Then that moment sunsets. Another voice rises. Another perspective enters the room. Across the morning, individual messages become a collective experience—one voice building upon another without competing for the spotlight.

Real stories. Bold ideas. Lasting change.
This is the next generation of HOPE.

Monday · April 12 · HOPE Talks Presenter lineup and morning program coming soon.

Tuesday · April 13 · HOPE Talks Presenter lineup and morning program coming soon.

Wednesday · April 14 · HOPE Talks Presenter lineup and morning program coming soon.

Thursday · April 15 · HOPE Talks Presenter lineup and morning program coming soon.

HOPE 2027 · Featured HOPE Talk Speaker

Featured HOPE Talk Speaker

Dr. Katie Hurley, DSW, LCSW

Vice President of Community Initiatives

The Jed Foundation

The Jed Foundation · HOPE Talk Presentation

The Emotional Lives of Boys and Men

Dr. Hurley explores how expectations of masculinity, emotional stoicism, and barriers to help-seeking influence the mental health of boys and young men. Drawing on clinical experience and youth mental health research, she highlights the importance of belonging, empathy, emotional expression, and supportive relationships in building resilience and improving well-being.

About Dr. Katie Hurley

Dr. Katie Hurley (she/her) is Vice President of Community Initiatives at The Jed Foundation. A child and adolescent psychotherapist and youth mental health expert, she is committed to improving youth mental health through clinical practice, community programming, and education.

Dr. Hurley speaks nationwide to parents, educators, and community organizations about promoting belonging, empathy, and help-seeking. She is the author of six books on youth mental health, including Breaking the Boy Code: The New Playbook for Raising Resilient Boys and the award-winning No More Mean Girls, and has contributed to outlets such as The Washington Post, CNN, and NBC NewsThink.

She continues to practice in the South Bay area of Los Angeles and serves as an Adjunct Professor for the MSW program at Simmons University.

Dr. Hurley earned her BA from Boston College, her MSW from the University of Pennsylvania, and her Doctorate of Social Work from Simmons University. She lives in El Segundo, California, and Groton Long Point, Connecticut.

Why Register Now?

This Is Not Simply the 28th Version of What Came Before.

For more than three decades, the International Families & Fathers Conference has brought people together around families, fathers, professional development and community impact. In 2027, we are not simply repeating that history. We are building on it.

HOPE 2027 introduces a different rhythm to the conference experience: inspiration connected to application, lived experience alongside professional expertise, emerging voices beside seasoned leaders, and ideas intentionally designed to travel beyond the conference.

Four Nuggets for Why Being There Now Has Value

Why Now Nugget 01

Be There at the Beginning

HOPE Talks begin a new chapter in 2027. Future conferences can build upon this experience, but there will only be one year when this new tradition begins.

Why Now Nugget 02

Discover the Voice You Didn't Know You Needed

The value is not only in hearing the people you already know. It is discovering an unexpected voice, idea or perspective that challenges how you think, lead, serve or live.

Why Now Nugget 03

Move From Inspiration to Application

HOPE Talks create the spark. Workshops, specialty learning, conversations and relationships create opportunities to go deeper. The value is not simply what you hear—it is what you can do with it.

Why Now Nugget 04

Protect the Value of Your Investment

Registering earlier gives you the opportunity to secure the strongest available registration value while beginning to plan intentionally for the conference experience you want to create.

The Value Proposition

You Are Not Registering to Occupy a Seat.

You are reserving your place in an experience designed to move something forward—in you, in your work, in your family, in your organization, or in the community you serve.

Years from now, there can be another HOPE Talk, another presenter, another conference and another generation of Nuggets of HOPE.

But there will only be one first year.

HOPE Talks begin in 2027. Be there at the beginning.

Register Early · Plan Intentionally · Save

Registering now is also a practical decision. Current registration pricing provides an opportunity to commit to HOPE 2027 at an earlier value while giving you more time to plan your learning pathway, travel and complete conference experience.

Come for the learning. Come for the relationships. Come for the unexpected idea that may change what happens next.

Dr. James C. Rodríguez, MSW, President and Chief Executive Officer, Fathers and Families Coalition of America

The Vision of HOPE 2027

Hope Is Not a Passive Wish.
Hope Is a Functional Force.

In 1996, we did not begin with a strategic plan. We began with a heartbeat. The Fathers and Families Coalition of America grew from a grassroots collective in Arizona grounded in one enduring truth: families matter.

Over the years, we built programs, developed resources, strengthened professionals and helped move communities forward. But experience taught us something equally important: programs matter, services matter and resources matter—but none of them are enough on their own.

The machinery can be strong.
But without hope, momentum fades.
Hope is the fuel.

Dr. James C. Rodríguez, MSW
President & Chief Executive Officer
Fathers and Families Coalition of America

The Physics of Progress

From the Individual Heart to Global Impact

HOPE 2027 is built around a simple belief: meaningful systems change ultimately begins with people. Strengthen the individual. Strengthen the relationships surrounding that individual. Strengthen families. And those strengthened families carry new possibilities into organizations, neighborhoods and communities.

Micro

Strengthen the Person

Hope begins internally—with identity, purpose, healing, resilience, knowledge and the belief that movement is possible.

Meso

Strengthen Relationships & Families

Individual growth moves outward into parenting, partnerships, family systems, teams and the relationships where belonging becomes real.

Macro

Strengthen Communities & Systems

Healthy people and families influence schools, organizations, neighborhoods, institutions and the systems that shape opportunity.

The Architecture of HOPE

The Workshop Provides the Tools.
The HOPE Talk Provides the Spark.

Both matter. HOPE Workshops create space for deeper learning, application and professional development. HOPE Talks create fifteen intentional minutes to move hearts, shift thinking and ignite possibility. One helps us understand how. The other reminds us why.

The Three I's

Inspiration. Influence. Impact.

Inspiration

The spark that shifts a mindset, restores possibility and helps someone imagine what could come next.

Influence

The credibility of character, lived experience and expertise that gives an idea the power to move others toward action.

Impact

The change that continues after the applause—the idea, relationship, decision or action that outlives the moment.

Radical Generosity & Belonging

There Is Still a Seat at the Table.

At the Fathers and Families Coalition of America, we do not simply host sessions. We build bridges of destiny. HOPE is grounded in generosity, inclusion, reciprocity and belonging—the understanding that meaningful change happens when people have opportunities not only to learn from one another, but to truly encounter one another.

We envision a room where an international researcher can sit beside a parent from Los Angeles; where an experienced executive can learn from a young person; where practitioners, educators, fathers, mothers, advocates, authors and community leaders can contribute from different places in life without one voice diminishing another.

Your title may open a door. Your experience may create wisdom. But it is what we contribute to one another that creates community.

Honoring Those Who Move the Needle

Recognition Rooted in Service, Not Status

HOPE also creates space to recognize people whose work reflects what this conference stands for. Not simply achievement—but contribution. Not simply position—but service. Not simply visibility—but the ability to strengthen people, families and communities.

HOPE 2027 Recognition

Champions for Healthy Families

Recognizing individuals whose commitment, service and sustained contribution help children, fathers and families become stronger, healthier and more hopeful.

HOPE 2027 Recognition

Vision, Leadership & Service in Community

Honoring those whose vision sees possibility, whose leadership creates pathways for others and whose service leaves communities stronger than they found them.

Vision Gives Us Direction.
Leadership Creates Movement.
Service Gives the Movement Meaning.

HOPE 2027 is being built as a place where voices are heard, experiences are honored, relationships are strengthened and ideas are translated into action. We will celebrate excellence, but we will also celebrate generosity. We will honor leadership, but we will never lose sight of service.

Because ultimately, hope is not what we say.
Hope is what we help make possible for someone else.

Dr. James C. Rodríguez, MSW
President & Chief Executive Officer
Fathers and Families Coalition of America

HOPE 2027 · HOPE 2028 · Building What Comes Next

The Program Is Moving Forward.
The Door to Possibility Is Not Closed.

The primary proposal and selection cycle for HOPE 2027 has moved forward, and our conference program is taking shape. But at Fathers and Families Coalition of America, we have learned something across nearly three decades of convening people: timing matters—and so does leaving room for possibility.

There is still a seat at the table.

The question is not whether you belong.
The question may simply be when and how you join us.

Excellence · Growth · Possibility

We Strive for Excellence.
We Have Never Claimed Perfection.

For 28 years, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Fathers and Families Coalition of America has expected this conference to pursue excellence—not perfection. Those are not the same thing. Excellence requires preparation, accountability, reflection and the willingness to continue improving.

Along the way, there have been extraordinary moments. There have also been mistakes, missed connections, ideas that arrived after a deadline, and people whose timing simply did not align with ours. That is part of building something human.

Excellence does not require us to pretend every opportunity arrived at exactly the right moment. It requires us to recognize possibility when it appears.

Building Beyond One Conference

HOPE 2027 Is Also Building the Foundation for 2028, 2029 & 2030.

HOPE 2027 represents both continuity and transition. In 2027, Fathers and Families Coalition of America will introduce a new leader with dedicated oversight of the International Families & Fathers Conference, to be announced by the President and Chief Executive Officer.

That next chapter will also be strengthened by the engagement of stakeholders, board members, presenters, partners and the people who continue to believe in what this gathering can become. Leadership may evolve. The conference will evolve. But the expectation of excellence, service, belonging and meaningful impact will remain.

That is why we are already thinking beyond Los Angeles in 2027. The ideas, relationships and voices we encounter now can help shape the 29th International Families & Fathers Conference in 2028—and the conferences that follow.

Have an Idea Worth Sharing?

You May Have Missed the Primary Window.
You Have Not Missed the Opportunity to Be Seen.

We will continue to receive workshop and HOPE Talk proposals. Submitting after the primary selection period does not guarantee placement in HOPE 2027. The current program is already being developed, and remaining opportunities may be limited.

But conferences are living experiences. Circumstances change. Openings can occur. A new idea may address an emerging need. And occasionally, a proposal may be so aligned, timely and compelling that it deserves another look.

We cannot promise you a stage.
We can promise that a meaningful idea is worth sharing.

One Submission · More Than One Horizon

Think 2027. Think 2028. Think Forward.

Horizon One

HOPE 2027

Late proposals may be reviewed if an appropriate program opportunity becomes available or if a submission presents exceptional alignment with an emerging conference need. No placement is guaranteed.

Horizon Two

HOPE 2028 & Beyond

The proposal pathway also helps FFCA discover voices, ideas and potential presenters as planning begins for the 29th International Families & Fathers Conference and future HOPE Talk experiences.

Your Seat May Look Different Than You Expected

There Is More Than One Way to Be Part of HOPE.

Maybe your seat is on the stage. Maybe it is in a workshop. Maybe you come first as an attendee and return next year as a presenter. Maybe you exhibit, volunteer, build a partnership, share your work as an author, or simply sit beside someone you would never have met anywhere else.

The seat matters. But what you bring to the table—and what you carry away from it—matters even more.

Attend

HOPE Talk

Workshop

Exhibit

Volunteer

If You Still Have Something to Share

Tell Us What You Would Bring to the Table.

The proposal form continues to provide two pathways: a traditional 60–75 minute HOPE Workshop focused on deeper learning and application, and a 15-minute HOPE Talk built around a focused idea, authentic voice and meaningful Nuggets of HOPE. You may also request consideration for both.

Please understand: keeping the proposal pathway available should not be interpreted as an open guarantee of a 2027 presenter position. HOPE 2027 selections are already well underway. Submissions received now may be considered for a genuine opening, an emerging program need, or future conference planning.

Open the Door

Come In. Find Your Seat. Bring Something With You.

Whether your next step is attending HOPE 2027, sharing an idea, exhibiting your work, volunteering your time, or beginning a conversation about a future conference, there is a pathway forward.

Attend HOPE 2027 Share a Workshop or HOPE Talk Proposal Explore Exhibiting

Considering a presenter pathway? Before submitting, please review the presenter requirements and registration expectations. Submission alone does not constitute acceptance.

Review Presenter-Only Registration & Requirements

The Invitation Is Bigger Than a Speaking Slot

Open the Door.
Come On In.
There Is a Seat at the Table.

Maybe that seat is waiting for you in Los Angeles in 2027. Maybe your idea becomes part of HOPE 2028. Maybe you first enter the room as an attendee and discover that next year, you are the person with something the room needs to hear.

Do not confuse a deadline with the end of possibility.

Sometimes the first step is simply opening the door.