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Reclaiming Black Childhood: Identifying and Disrupting the Cognitive Biases Behind the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Dates: July 10-11, 2026 | Location: Springfield, VA – Hotel Belvoir
12 CE Hours Total (6 hours each day)
Day 1 explores the cognitive biases that criminalize and institutionalize Black children through a keynote on the hidden architecture of bias, an interactive panel featuring play therapy professionals from schools to juvenile justice, and an expressive workshop on adultification bias.
After a day of deep learning, it's time to play! Join us for Grown Folks Recess, our Friday Night Party featuring game competitions, live DJ, delicious food, and beverages. Celebrate Black joy, build community, and recharge for Day 2.
Registration & Breakfast Buffet
Check-in, materials pickup, networking, and breakfast service
Welcome & Symposium Opening
Land acknowledgment, community agreements, and symposium overview
SESSION 1: Keynote Address
The Hidden Architecture of Harm: Mapping Cognitive Biases in the School-to-Prison Pipeline
This opening keynote introduces the cognitive biases that systematically criminalize Black children, traces their cumulative impact from preschool through juvenile justice, the benefits of play therapy across systems, and sets the stage for the symposium’s two-day journey from awareness to action.
Session Outline:
Session Focus:
Morning Break
Coffee, tea, light snacks, restroom break, and networking
SESSION 2: Interactive Panel Discussion
"Voices from the Continuum: Bias in Schools, Mental Health, Child Welfare, and Juvenile Justice"
Panel Composition:
This powerful panel brings together Registered Play Therapists and play therapy practitioners working at different points along the school-to-prison pipeline. Through guided discussion, experiential play therapy demonstration, and audience Q&A, panelists will share real examples of how cognitive biases manifest in play therapy referrals and clinical work, how biases compound as children move through systems, and concrete play therapy strategies for interrupting bias in clinical assessment, play therapy treatment planning, therapeutic play sessions, and multidisciplinary collaboration. Participants will learn how to apply play therapy principles to recognize and challenge biased narratives, use play-based assessment to reveal strengths overlooked by deficit-focused systems, and document play therapy sessions in ways that protect Black children from criminalization.
Discussion Timeline:
Panel Focus:
Lunch Break
75 minutes on your own. Restaurants available across the street at Springfield Mall.
SESSION 3: Interactive Expressive Arts Workshop
Reclaiming Girlhood: Play Therapy Interventions Addressing the Criminalization, Adultification, and Sexualization of Black Girls
This hands-on, expressive session guides participants through creative and play-based exploration of adultification bias and its devastating impact on Black girls across schools, child welfare, juvenile justice, play therapy practice, and community settings. Through experiential activities rooted in play therapy principles, participants will develop concrete, culturally affirming strategies to disrupt bias, honor Black girls’ developmental stages, and reclaim the girlhood that systemic harm has stolen.
Workshop Timeline:
Session Focus:
Day 1 Closing
Collect Day 1 evaluations and informal networking
6:00 PM - 10:00 PM | Permission to Play
A playful, nostalgic celebration that literally embodies the childhood experiences we want for Black children. Adults get to play, not as therapists, educators, parents, advocates, or community leaders, but simply as ourselves, free, joyful, uninhibited. We reclaim the recess, the games, the silliness that many Black children aren’t fully allowed to experience. This is childhood reclaimed, for us and for the Black children in our lives and communities.
Attire: Recess Ready – Sneakers encouraged, comfortable clothes, jerseys, 90s nostalgia welcome!
Friday Night Party Access: Included with full conference registration. Single Day registrants may purchase individual party tickets. Guest tickets also available for purchase.
Day 2 immerses participants in comprehensive bias-interruption training through the full-day workshop Stolen Childhoods: How Cognitive Biases Build the School-to-Prison Pipeline. This experiential session combines didactic teaching with hands-on practice: analyzing case scenarios, identifying bias in assessment and documentation, exploring bias mechanisms through LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and expressive activities, and creating personal action plans for immediate implementation.
Registration & Breakfast Buffet
Check-in and breakfast service
Welcome Back & Day 2 Opening
Reconnection, grounding, and preview of full-day workshop
SESSION 1: Full-Day Interactive Workshop
Stolen Childhoods: How Cognitive Biases Build the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Detailed Workshop Schedule:
This comprehensive full-day workshop provides in-depth training on cognitive biases that drive the criminalization and institutionalization of Black children. Through interactive learning, case discussions, and expressive activities, participants will gain concrete skills for recognizing and interrupting bias in assessment, documentation, treatment planning, play therapy practice, and systems collaboration.
Learning Focus:
Day 2 Closing & Symposium Conclusion
CE tracking forms collection, final evaluations, certificate information, and closing reflection.
We gather in Springfield on the ancestral lands of the Piscataway (Conoy) and Doeg peoples, and we honor the enslaved Africans and their descendants whose labor built this region. The criminalization of Black children we address this weekend is rooted in the same systems of colonial violence and slavery that harmed Indigenous and African peoples. As we gather to disrupt cognitive biases and protect Black childhood, we commit to honoring these truths through action: by disrupting oppressive systems, by centering Black voices, and by building practices and advocacy grounded in justice and healing.
Register now to secure your spot at this experiential learning experience.