Locating Training and
Networking Opportunities

In a time when budget cuts and travel restrictions are growing everywhere, obtaining training and providing outreach and training to related professionals is difficult. Nevertheless, such opportunities abound everywhere. It’s entirely possible that unbeknownst to you, a conference is being planned in your area that would provide an opportunity for you to present workshops to others, if not also to obtain additional training yourself.

What Adult Abuse Review does is monitor at least eight conference listings and numerous listserves to pick out the conferences that seem most relevant to our readers. However, there are literally hundreds of conference announcements we don’t republish. If you’d like to occasionally review these yourself to make sure we didn’t miss one that would exactly fill a need of yours, here are our current sources and some comments on their strengths and weaknesses. If you know of similar useful sites that are not listed here, please let us know!

Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse (MINCAVA) Events Calendar (www.mincava.umn.edu/Events/index.asp). MINCAVA’s calendar is indispensable for anyone working in a field related to domestic violence. This is a very comprehensive listing covering domestic violence, child abuse, and elder abuse conferences sponsored by health care, law enforcement, and other professional organizations as well as those sponsored by advocates and government agencies. Those looking for training for rural law enforcement agencies, about minority groups, and about batterers’ treatment programs are especially urged to monitor this compilation.

The Gerontological Society of America Conference Calendar (http://www.geron.org/geron/calendar.htm). This is the most comprehensive listing of aging-related conferences we’ve found. The chart highlights the date and location of conferences, and includes a very brief description of the event itself. The website usually includes at least one method of getting additional information on the event.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Calendar of Events (http://eventcalendar.ncjrs.org/). This listing is the one AAR checks for law enforcement-related conferences. It is a very extensive compilation that presents, in grid form, the event title, starting and ending dates, and city/state location. Clicking on the event title will give you a full page of data on the event, possibly including how many people are expected, what topics will be covered, and the audiences the conference is geared toward. This list is also searchable by sponsoring organization, classification (nothing specific to elder abuse or domestic violence), state/territory, and country. Unfortunately, event titles frequently use acronyms that users may not recognize, forcing users to spend more time trying to sort through the events than is optimal.

American Society on Aging (ASA) Event Calendar (www.asaging.org/calendar/). ASA’s listing focuses on aging-related training opportunities. A link within each listing takes you to a page with more details on the event. Traditionally a rather concise listing, this events calendar has recently been lengthening.

DND Press Disability Rights Calendar and Non-Advocacy Events Calendar (www.dndpress.com/calendar.htm/; www.dndpress.com/naevents.htm/). “Keep informed about what’s going on in the disability rights/advocacy arenas” through these two calendars. A chart gives dates, description, and location of the events, usually including a link to the sponsoring organization.

Business Publishers, Inc. (BPI) Aging Conferences Listings (www.bpinews.com/hr/pages/oarcalendar.htm). BPI issues the weekly Older Americans Report, which used to sometimes include conference listings. The website maintains the consolidated list and is available to the public.

National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) Upcoming Elder Abuse and Related Conferences (www.elderabusecenter.org/conference/index.html/). This site is in transition. Although both an Administration on Aging (AoA) representative and NCEA Director Sara Aravanis said the scope of the NCEA listing has not changed from what it’s been since 1998, Aravanis told AAR that NCEA does not expect to maintain as comprehensive of a listing as it used to. However, the listing has been growing almost daily. The AoA list of elder abuse conferences, which for several years had been based on the listing compiled by NCEA, appears, at press time, to have been discontinued.