Over 300 people are expected Friday and Saturday at Chadron State College for the school’s 24th annual Excellence in Early Childhood Conference…targeted at educators, child care givers, parents, and anyone else who cares for or about children.
This year’s theme is “United We Stand for Children … Yes, We Are Ready – Embracing Social and Emotional Development.”
Friday offers 3 free workshop sessions. Conference organizer and CSC professor Dr Kim Madsen says says participants will choose between one of two presentations running from 3:00 till 5:00.
Jessica La Chere, an early childhood trainer with the Nebraska Department of Education, will lead a session on Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scales, which will provide a basic understanding of what the rating scales are and how they’re used.
UNL extension educator Jackie Guzman’s session is titled Enhancing Emotional Literacy. Her goal is to increase the awareness of participants to the kinds of interactions between adults and young children that help increase the emotional competency of the children.
Friday evening offers another free 2-hour session at 6:30 that Madsen hopes parents will be able to attend. Scottsbluff psychologist Dr Mark Hald will offer a primer on the Circle of Security…a relationship-based program designed to give parents a “roadmap” to viewing the behavior of their children as communication and not just misbehavior.
There is a fee for Saturday’s daylong portion of the conference…which offers 4 sessions with college or continuing education credits
The featured speaker will be Holly Elissa Bruno…author, attorney, and online radio host who also teaches leadership courses. Bruno will offer 4 different sessions, broken up by lunch a pair of 15-minute “mini-session” with “I am moving, I am learning” activities.
Bruno’s first talk begin at 8 am and is titled Hats off to You: Everyday Miracle Workers in Children’s Lives. It urges Early Childhood professionals to stop and appreciate what they accomplish in the lives of the children they help.
At 10:20, she’ll talk about developing and using Emotional Intelligence – the ability to read people and their emotions since 65-to-90% of human emotion is communicated without words.
After lunch, Bruno will encourage participants to use humor and play to build their brains…basing her presentation on brain research that show fun and lightheartedness can chase the blues and restore enthusiasm.
She’s titled her final presentation at 2:30 “Fired Up or Burned Out: Your Power to Make a Difference,” and will offer tips on avoiding burnout from “caregivers syndrome” and rediscovering enthusiasm for a profession.