Nova Scotia College of Social Workers
Annual Conference

Building Connections & Activating Hope

Online
May 2, 2025

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“Critical hope...refers to hopeful action that is based on the critical analysis of a situation and the recognition that wishing alone is not sufficient to make change. It involves an understanding of the forces that produce injustice and an imagining of what the world without these forces, and without the injustice, might look like.”

— From Race and Well-Being: The Lives, Hopes and Activism of African Canadians by James, C., Este, D., Thomas Bernard, W. Benjamin, A., Lloyd, B., and Turner, T. 2010

**What does it mean for us to build connections & activate hope as social workers?**

Each year we hear from our members the importance and value of opportunities for social workers to connect, learn from each other, and build relationships. For our conference this year, we are trying something a little bit different, and invite our members to a free virtual mini-conference focused on building relational connections.

Our 2025 conference will provide opportunities to build and deepen connections with other social workers across the province while considering how we might activate a sense of hope for the challenges and existential issues we and service users are facing today. The mini-conference will be focused on highlighting, amplifying, and supporting Nova Scotian social workers through an intersectional, decolonial, and socially just lens.

We have decided to not host an in-person or online multi-day conference in 2025. However, 2026 will mark the 10 year anniversary of our transformation from a professional association to a regulatory college, and we look forward to recognizing that milestone with our social work community at an in-person conference that year.