October 1, 2020 Early Learning is No Small Matter Are you interested in exploring the most overlooked, underestimated, and powerful force for good in America today? Join Trying Together on Monday, October 12 for our online course “Early Learning is No Small Matter” to discuss the importance of early childhood education. About During this course, participants will view the documentary “No Small Matter” and learn how they can leverage the film for advocacy in their programs and communities. Opportunities to bring the film back to their community in support of early learning advocacy will be shared. Session Details Session Date: Monday, October 12, 2020 | 12:30 – 2:30 p.m. Instructors: Cristina Codario and Lindsey Ramsey Core Knowledge Area: Professional and Leadership CDA Content Area: Maintaining Professionalism Registration Deadline: Saturday, October 10, 2020 Registration To register, visit the course PD Registry page. Space is limited. Participants will receive the course Zoom link via email within 24 hours before the start date for the course. PQAS and Act 48 credit available. If you do not have a PD Registry account, please complete this online form to create one. If you are unable to create an account, please contact Jasmine Davis at jasmine@tryingtogether.org for more information. More Information For questions or more information, contact Jasmine Davis at jasmine@tryingtogether.org.
September 28, 2020 Early Childhood Education Summit Are you interested in engaging with early childhood thought-leaders and gaining knowledge through online professional development? Attend the Virtual Early Childhood Education (ECE) Summit from October 18 – 21, 2020. PQAS and Act 48 credit will be available. About The ECE Summit features 12 sessions, 60 workshops, and four online specialized networking opportunities that offer early learning professionals opportunities to learn, dialogue, and share information on a vast array of current topics to support their professional learning goals. This is a fully virtual event. Each day will feature a Keynote presentation and four tracks of workshop sessions. Opportunities to connect with peers will be available through live chat. Sessions will be recorded. Paid attendees will be able to view sessions after the Summit and earn PQAS and Act 48 credit. Featured Topics The Summit features a wide range of workshops, including, but not limited to, the following: Emotionally Safe Environments for Infants and Toddlers Yoga and Mindfulness for Preschoolers Trauma-Informed Assessment in Early Childhood Family Engagement Through a Strengths-Based Lens Designing Classrooms with the Brain in Mind Getting Little Hands on the Land Supporting Infant Teacher Degree Attainment Advocacy 201: Crafting and Sharing Your Message Managing Challenging Behavior Registration To register for the Conference, visit the event webpage. A Summit Schedule and workshop descriptions are available on the Early Childhood Education Summit website. View the schedule. More Information For more information, visit the Early Childhood Education Summit webpage or call 717.657.9000.
Health and Safety Trainings Available The Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) announced that COVID-19 Health and Safety System Supports Training Webinars are available on the Pennsylvania Key website. About Each webinar provides COVID-19 guidance on topics related to the early childhood field, including: CDC Guidance for Child Care Parent, Family and Community Engagement Implementation Considerations Re-Imagining ECE Environments Supporting the Social-Emotional Well-Being of ECE Professionals, Children, and Families Watch the Webinars To watch the webinars, visit the Pennsylvania Key website. The guidance provided in these videos has been based on evidence and information available at the time of publishing. Guidance will be reviewed as new information continues to emerge. To ensure you are implementing the most up-to-date guidance, visit the OCDEL or CDC website.
September 25, 2020 Honoring Each Person’s Experience to Support Mental Health Join Brazelton Touchpoints Center on October 19 for “Honoring Each Person’s Experience to Support Mental Health” to learn how to apply reflective practice and perspective-taking to your virtual work with children and families. About When working with families, especially within today’s current crises, it is important that everyone’s experience of a situation is heard and understood. This requires reflecting on all points of view: one’s own, the child’s, and that of their family members. In this webinar, participants will learn how to adapt and apply reflective practice and perspective-taking to their virtual work with children and families. This session is best suited for professionals who work with families of young children, including early care educators, family child care providers, mental health consultants, home visitors, pediatricians, early interventionists, and more. Registration To register and learn more, visit the event registration page. Space is limited. For questions, contact btcsitenetwork@childrens.harvard.edu.
September 22, 2020 Advocacy 201: Crafting and Sharing Your Message Are you interested in speaking with elected officials about the importance of early childhood? Join Trying Together on October 27 for our free virtual workshop, “Advocacy 201: Crafting and Sharing Your Message.” About Effective messaging helps advocates communicate key points to their audience that can potentially influence their level of support. This workshop is for Early Childhood Education professionals who have taken Trying Together’s Advocacy 101 course (or any other foundational advocacy training) and would like to take the next step in preparing to speak with elected officials. Course instructors will review early childhood research and effective messaging such as brain science, return on investment, impact on workforce and business community, and high-quality teaching. Attendees will leave the workshop with talking points for meeting with elected officials to advocate for early childhood. Session Details Session Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2020 | 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. Instructors: Cristina Codario, Emily Neff, and Lindsey Ramsey Core Knowledge Area: Professional and Leadership CDA Content Area: Maintaining Professionalism Registration Deadline: Sunday, October 25, 2020 Registration To register, visit the course PD Registry page. Space is limited. Participants will receive the course Zoom link via email within 24 hours before the start date for the course. PQAS and Act 48 credit available. If you do not have a PD Registry account, please complete this online form to create one. If you are unable to create an account, please contact pdregistry@pakeys.org for more information. More Information For questions or more information, contact Jasmine Davis at jasmine@tryingtogether.org.
ECE Advocacy 101 Are you interested in learning how to use your experience and knowledge to advocate for early childhood? Join Trying Together on October 6 for our free virtual workshop, “ECE Advocacy 101.” About The ECE Advocacy 101 workshop is designed to break down the Pennsylvania budget cycle. Participants will receive an overview of the Early Learning PA (ELPA) campaigns, how Early Childhood Education programs are impacted by the budget process, and ways professionals and families can use their experience and knowledge to advocate. Participants will leave with foundational knowledge of the Pennsylvania budget, ELPA campaigns, and various advocacy actions they participate in or lead. Session Details Session Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2020 | 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. Instructors: Cristina Codario, Emily Neff, and Lindsey Ramsey Core Knowledge Area: Professional and Leadership CDA Content Area: Maintaining Professionalism Registration Deadline: Sunday, October 4, 2020 Registration To register, visit the course PD Registry page. Space is limited. Participants will receive the course Zoom link via email within 24 hours before the start date for the course. PQAS and Act 48 credit available. If you do not have a PD Registry account, please complete this online form to create one. If you are unable to create an account, please contact Jasmine Davis at jasmine@tryingtogether.org for more information. More Information For questions or more information, contact Jasmine Davis at jasmine@tryingtogether.org.
September 18, 2020 The Emotional Development of Infants and Toddlers Are you interested in learning strategies to support infant and toddlers’ emotional development? Join Gryphon House on October 28 for their webinar, “Crying and Laughing: The Emotional Development of Infants and Toddlers.” About During this webinar, Donna Sasse Wittmer, Ph.D. will highlight ten keys that early childhood professionals can use to support infant and toddler emotional development and learning. When these keys are used, they are the foundation for helping children develop emotional competence. This webinar emphasizes the knowledge and skills that enable you to be a compassionate infant and toddler professional who provides the emotional nourishment that young children need and who supports children’s emotional well-being. This webinar is best suited for pre-k teachers and school leaders. Time for questions will be provided. Registration To register and learn more, visit the event webpage.
What We Can Learn from Children About Mindfulness Are you interested in gaining a deeper understanding of how to practice mindfulness together with young children? Join Gryphon House on October 14 for their webinar, “What We Can Learn from Children About Mindfulness to Transform Our Learning Environments.” About During this webinar, Dr. Elizabeth Joy Erwin, Professor of Education at Montclair State University, will discuss why we have so much to learn from children, especially the youngest ones; how to develop and maintain a culture of mindfulness; and simple mindfulness practices to engage in starting now. By discovering how to integrate simple ideas and practical strategies to calm the body and quiet the mind, educators can select the exact tools they want to ensure all children learn and thrive. This webinar is best suited for PreK-5 teachers, librarians, therapists, and school and district leaders. Time for questions will be provided. Registration To register and learn more, visit the event webpage.
September 11, 2020 NAEYC Annual Conference: Virtual To maintain the health and safety of its audience, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) will be hosting its 2020 Annual Conference virtually, with events taking place from November 8–10, 2020. About The NAEYC Annual Conference is the largest early childhood education conference in the world. Each year, thousands of teachers, program administrators, students, and researchers choose from hundreds of presentations and exhibits to explore the latest trends and research in the early childhood field. More information on professional development sessions and participating exhibitors will be available soon. Please continue to monitor the NAEYC website for future updates. Registration Registration for this event opens on Monday, September 14. To register and learn more, visit the NAEYC website.
September 9, 2020 Feelings Behind the Mask: Building Emotion Vocabulary Are you interested in learning strategies to expand children’s feeling and emotion vocabulary? Join Trying Together on September 30 for our online session, “Connections and Conversations: Feelings Behind the Mask: Building Emotion Vocabulary.” About Connections and Conversations Virtual Check-Ins are biweekly interactive sessions that highlight topics of interest to the field of early childhood education. Participants engage in virtual discussions with child development experts while interacting with early learning practitioners to share questions, experiences, and expertise about the highlighted topic. Sessions offer one hour of PQAS credit. Act 48 credit will not be provided. In this session, participants will learn about strategies to expand children’s feeling vocabulary in order to support their abilities to correctly perceive and respond to feelings in themselves and others. Identifying and expressing emotions are key skills in a child’s development. Children need a large and complex feeling vocabulary to make finer discriminations between feelings, to better communicate with others about their internal affective states, and to engage in discussions about their personal experiences with the world. Session Details Session Date: Wednesday, September 30 | 6 – 7 p.m Instructor: Nancy Loughead CKC: Curriculum and Learning Experiences CDA Subject Area: Social & Emotional Development Registration Deadline: Monday, September 28 Registration To register, visit the course PD Registry page. Space is limited. Participants will receive the course Zoom link via email within 24 hours before the start date for the course. For questions, contact Jasmine Davis at jasmine@tryingtogether.org. Session Rules and Guidelines These virtual discussions are designed to provide educators the opportunity to grow professionally and share knowledge on early childhood topics. During the meeting, participants should follow the guidelines below to ensure a successful virtual meeting for all participants. Please allow all participants a chance to speak. Listen respectfully and actively. Commit to learning about each other, not to debating the topic. Embrace differences of opinion as healthy and support each person’s authentic self-expression. Participants will be muted for the beginning portion of the session. Participants may use the “Raise Hand” feature in Zoom to request an opportunity to comment or ask a question. Individuals will be temporarily unmuted by the moderator. Participants may type a comment or question in the Chat or may send comments or questions directly to the moderator for them to share. To receive PQAS credit, you must complete an evaluation at the end of the session and include your PD Registry number. Have fun, make connections, and engage in the conversations! More Information For questions or more information, please contact Jasmine Davis at jasmine@tryingtogether.org.
