The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is pleased to announce that the 15th Annual Welfare Research and Evaluation Conference will be held May 30–June 1, 2012 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.

GOALS OF THE CONFERENCE

For more than a decade, the conference has been a leading forum for welfare and poverty researchers, State and local administrators, practitioners, program operators, and Federal officials and policymakers to discuss cutting-edge research on welfare and related programs and policies. The 2012 conference will provide another exciting opportunity to learn about the latest findings from evaluations of welfare and poverty programs and policies, discuss ways to incorporate findings into the design and implementation of programs, and develop strategies for future evaluations.

Conference presentations will feature both basic and applied research and will be addressed to both researchers and practitioners. The conference will emphasize recent findings in empirical research, particularly research based on rigorous, experimental designs, rather than descriptions of research in progress, although discussions of work in progress will not be excluded.

Video footage of sessions from the 2011 WREC can be accessed from the "2011 Agenda and Session Footage" page of this site and will also be posted on the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) YouTube Channel. A link to this channel will be provided once the footage is available.