The Desmond P. Kelly, MD Nurturing Developing Minds Conference & Research and Implementation Symposium will be Thursday February 27, 2025 at Furman University’s Younts Conference Center in Greenville, SC.

“NDM” is a regional professional development conference which attracts a wide array of participants and provides an interactive learning opportunity for a broad, interconnected workforce. Our sessions center around young children (generally, prenatal to age 8), their families, and the systems which serve them.

We are soliciting proposals for sessions and/or posters around the following themes:
  • Autism, developmental disabilities, and neurodivergence*
  • Community innovations to support families and young children
  • Supporting child development in clinical or classroom environments
* Proposals in this track are welcome to focus on any age of the pediatric population. For other tracks, we request a general focus on prenatal to age 8.

The themes above should only be used for guidance in developing your submission. ICS takes a broad view of the field and we welcome presentations focused on novel or non-traditional approaches to this work.

Session Criteria:
  • This conference is strongly focused on inter-disciplinary collaboration. We invite participation from the field of child health, education, development, policy, and more.
  • Sessions will be 60 minutes long; please plan for at least 10 minutes of audience engagement.
  • All sessions should explicitly address equity and inclusion for all children.
  • We are particularly interested in research with immediate real-world implications in the worlds of pediatric health care, early care and education settings, and other fields working with children. Policy-focused research is also welcome.
  • If applying for poster sessions, posters should be sized 36” x 48.” You may indicate interest in your session proposal being considered for a poster session.
Proposals must be received no later via our online portal by 8pm ET on Friday October 10. You will receive a decision in late October.

For any questions, reach out to Megan Carolan.

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1. First presenter name:*

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2. First presenter email address:*

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3. First presenter professional title:*

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4. First presenter organization:*

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5. Second presenter name:

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17. Presentation Title:

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18. Please indicate which of these components will be addressed in this session. (Select all that apply) (Required.)

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19. In which of the conference tracks does your proposal best fit? Please feel free to select 1 or 2 , but not all 3. (Required.)

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20. Please indicate if you would like to be considered for a presentation, a poster, or both. The poster session will occur the evening of Thursday Feb. 27 around 5pm.

Consider this proposal for: (Required.)

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21. Please give a high-level description of your presentation, including the research question you consider, significant findings or conclusions, and structure of the 60-minute presentation. (word limit: 300.) (Required.)

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22. In the interest of using the full space, please feel free to reference any citations with a parenthetical number in your description; then copy/paste a works cited list here. Proposals will not be judged based on citations or works cited formatting.

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23. Please discuss how your session will center equity. We recognize that some sessions are focused specifically on a subsection of the population and do not apply to all children; in this case, be sure to discuss any implications regarding equitable access, adjustments for cultural relevance, and/or incorporating the lived experiences of those served. (word limit: 250) (Required.)

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24. Please indicate 3 learning objectives of your session. These should essentially complete the sentence, “At the end of this session, attendees can/will…” (word limit for each objective: 25) (Required.)

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