2024 National
School-Based Health Care Conference
Call For Abstracts

Category 1: Preventive Care and Clinical Services 

This category’s abstracts will explore practices to address health and social needs among students, families, and staff. Abstracts must include tangible clinical skill-building techniques; practices tailored to in-person, telehealth, or hybrid care models; partnerships with families to improve student/family health; and partnerships within the community. We accept abstracts about the topics below, focusing on evidence-based, promising/emerging practices and culturally relevant and respectful approaches to care. We encourage presenters to consider co-presenting with youth and/or educational partners. 

Highly requested health topics from last year’s conference include:  

• Primary Care: reproductive and sexual health, preventive care/well-child visits, nutrition, physical activity, population health, and value-based care. 
• Behavioral Health: trauma-informed care, anxiety, depression, substance use, suicide, ADHD, and mental health-related conditions or experiences explicitly related to the LGBTQIA+ population. 
• Specialty Services: oral health, vision, diabetes, respiratory disease, dermatology, infectious diseases.

Category 2: Business Operations, Sustainability, and Quality Improvement 

This category’s abstracts will explore best practices and innovative approaches for sustainable business operations of SBHCs, especially those that engage their community and foster partnerships. We accept abstracts that identify strategies to develop the infrastructure for sustainable, comprehensive SBHC models (e.g., brick-and-mortar, telehealth, mobile) while addressing payer partnerships that maximize utilization, productivity, reimbursement, and return on investment. Real-world factors impacting operational success and sustainability, including accessibility, consent, enrollment processes, and innovations supporting special populations (e.g., rural areas, schools with small enrollment, etc.) and examples of leveraging novel technologies and using quality improvement data to make systematic changes. 

Abstracts should provide comprehensive learning opportunities for various experience levels while providing tools to apply to participants’ daily work. We encourage a diverse group of presenters, including youth, educational institutions, community partners, and rising stars, to subject matter experts. 

Category 3: Policy and Partnerships 

This category’s abstracts will explore how SBHC advocates can partner with local, state, and federal community stakeholders to advance policies that support SBHCs. We accept abstracts featuring campaigns that engage young people, parents/guardians, and families as equitable partners in advocacy and policy processes. We encourage presenters to co-present with youth, parents/guardians, and/or educational partners. 

Category 4: Innovations 

This category’s abstracts will explore innovations within school-based health settings besides those related to clinical skills, business operations, and policy. We accept abstracts that describe evidence-based innovations with outcomes impacting individuals, organizations, communities, or systems and detailing the role of communities and partnerships in program planning, implementation, outcomes, and dissemination. Abstracts can highlight successful or unsuccessful innovations, including promising practices or lessons learned from implementing new processes.  

Category 5: ‘Be the Change’ Youth Training Program (for youth participants only) 

This category’s abstracts will explore youth-led and partnered strategies that inspire students to participate successfully and lead efforts in school-based health settings, such as health campaigns, program planning, outreach and promotion, policy and advocacy, and peer-led education and support groups. Abstracts must include young people as lead or co-lead presenters and have a youth audience in mind. 

NOTE: Workshops must be interactive and implement various learning strategies besides traditional lecture-discussion, such as learning games, live demonstrations, practice of new skills and techniques, small group exercises, role-playing, case scenarios, action planning, and sharing small group findings with larger groups.  

The 2024 conference will offer the following presentation formats: 

Pre-conference (Sunday, June 30) 
Time frame: 180 minutes 

Maximum number of presenters: three, plus one moderator* 

Workshop I (Single) 
Time frame: 75 minutes 
Maximum number of presenters: two, no moderator 

Workshop II (Double) 
Time frame: 150 minutes 
Maximum number of presenters: three, plus one moderator* 

Panel  
Time frame: 75 minutes 
Maximum number of presenters: three, plus one moderator* 

Poster 
Time frame: TBD (in-person presentation during poster session) 

Maximum number of presenters: one

* The moderator may be an additional person responsible for assisting the presenters, facilitating Q&A, and keeping the session on time. 

Workshop proposals and poster abstracts will be reviewed for content and measurable objectives. Submission of an abstract does not guarantee participation in the conference program. The abstract review committee reserves the right to assign accepted abstracts to categories other than those selected during the abstract submission. 

The Abstract Review Committee will review all abstracts to determine if they meet the following criteria: 

• the content is relevant to the theme and the conference attendees.
• the presentation style is conducive to young adult and adult learning and includes interaction whenever possible.
• the presenters are qualified to teach this content based on their real-world experience and expertise.
• the objective is clearly defined.

The peer review process will include a technical and programmatic evaluation of all abstracts by a panel of professionals considered topic-area experts. The applications are read and scored using the criteria rubric found in the abstracts instruction.