Conference Workshop Schedule

• Build trust and shared ownership with families and other educators through meaningful documentation.
• Center children’s voices and perspectives in everyday interactions.
• Shift assessment from compliance-driven processes to systems that strengthen community and professional practice

Since 2022, the RAPID-California Project has surveyed over 11,000 families with children under 6 years old on topics such as parent well-being, child well-being, material hardship, healthcare, and child care, in addition to a wide range of other topics specific to policies and issues affecting families and young children in California. This presentation will discuss key findings including: Parent and child well-being, experiences of material hardship and ability to meet basic needs, housing and food security, access and use of public benefits, use of, preferences for, and access to child care, and the forms of support most helping families.

We will facilitate a discussion on the role that community partners play in using real-time data and parent voices to drive policies, programs, and system change, and allow participants to react to these findings. Participants will discuss the implications of RAPID-CA data for their work, how they can leverage RAPID-CA data to inform policy, advocacy, and programmatic priorities, and learn how to bring this project to their community.

In this interactive workshop, participants will explore a practical and empowering model for fostering staff wellness within early childhood education environments. Grounded in a staff-led, coordinator-supported approach, this model invites educators to reflect on their own wellness practices while creating meaningful, low-cost opportunities for connection, reflection, and renewal.
Participants will explore examples and scenarios that illustrate how wellness initiatives can be developed around teacher voice, voluntary participation, and leadership from within the staff community. The session emphasizes that staff wellness is not a luxury but an essential element that supports educator wellbeing, professional sustainability, and positive learning environments for children.
Through discussion, planning activities, and guided reflection, attendees will gain practical tools and strategies to begin developing site-based wellness practices that can be implemented in their own programs with limited resources and meaningful impact.

This workshop is geared for an intermediate audience as audience members should have a developed interest and familiarity with the NAEYC equity principles. In this workshop, I share my research in developing critical race criteria for selecting children’s books about race and racism which embody anti-racist principles. The workshop will provide an overview of the NAEYC equity principles, and how they connect to anti-racist principles established through recent research. After sharing this with workshop attendees, I will introduce the criteria for selecting high quality children's literature that embodies holistic anti-racist principles I developed. Next, I will share literature examples for attendees to explore and discuss in small groups. We will then come back together to explore the implications of this work so attendees can locate high quality anti-racist children's literature to share with children in their own practice. My workshop is based upon my research study, recently published in an open access and high quality academic journal focused on childhood.

This workshop will focus on our journey developing a mentorship program that aims to cultivate a culture of learning and grow leaders at our organization. Research shows that mentorship in the workplace can support retention, grow leaders, and improve employee satisfaction, but how can a program director overcome the logistical challenges of implementing a mentorship program while also maintaining ratios? Starting small with a low-stakes, low-lift, and low-cost mentorship program is possible with the right structures in place. We will share our framework for mentorship, the structure of our program, our matching process, and our learnings from year one. We will also share the grows, the glows, and all the things in between with the hope that our story and learnings will inspire leaders to start, improve, or reflect on their own mentorship programs. At the end of the session, participants will have time to complete a readiness worksheet to see where their organization lands in terms of readiness to launch a mentorship program and debrief the results in small groups where they can thought-partner and discuss actionable next steps with peers.

Running a childcare program requires more than just meeting meal requirements, it requires systems that work in real-life settings. This session takes a practical approach to CACFP by connecting meal planning with the day-to-day realities of operating a home or center-based program.

Participants will learn how to simplify meal planning, build sustainable menu cycles, and understand meal components in a way that is easy to implement. Beyond nutrition, this session highlights how organization, consistency, and simple systems can reduce stress, support compliance, and create smoother daily operations.

This interactive session is designed to help providers move from feeling overwhelmed to feeling confident, not just in what they serve, but in how they run their program overall.

Vivian Weinstein was an innovator, teacher, activist, mentor who changed possibilities for families with young children during a 50-year career in Los Angeles. This 23-minute documentary illustrates what one person can do over a lifetime working across sectors with a multi-generational approach to supporting children, strengthening families, building partnerships and changing systems. Discussants Jacquelyn McCroskey and Michael Olenick, who were taught and mentored by Vivian, will talk about how Vivian inspired them and how they work to pass the lessons along to subsequent generations.

Although male teachers make a distinctive contribution to the early childhood education (ECE) workforce through enrichment, diverse interactions, and challenging gender stereotypes (Cameron et al., 1999; Brody, 2014; Sargent, 2005; Warin, 2017; Thrope et al., 2018), only 3.3% of early childhood educators are men (US Bureau, 2023). The present study explores Asian and Latino male teachers’ perceptions of their roles in ECE. We conducted three one-hour interviews with each of the 5 male teachers (3 Asian and 4 Latino participants). The thematic analysis reveals that these teachers face similar barriers, such as career stigmatization (e.g., sexism in the workplace), bias and discrimination within the profession (e.g., false accusations; perception of power), and gender stereotypes (e.g., ECE as a "woman's job", suppression of emotions). The analysis also reveals that these male teachers display aspiration and motivations, alongside the impact on their students, for more holistic , child-centered, and culturally responsive approaches. This workshop aims to engage participants in an activity aimed at identifying constructive strategies to create an inclusive environment for male and minority ECE professionals. The session is designed for educators, administrators, researchers, and stakeholders with an interest in advancing equity and diversity in ECE.

California’s Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) initiative is expanding access to early learning, placing principals at the forefront of implementation as Transitional Kindergarten (TK) became part of elementary schools. Yet many administrators might have had limited opportunities to build expertise in early childhood education, creating challenges for ensuring developmentally appropriate instruction. This workshop shares findings from a qualitative study on principals’ understanding of Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP), highlighting ways leaders can build leadership and teacher capacity, strengthen play-based learning, engage families, and address equity gaps. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies and a customized DAP Leadership Action Plan tailored to their school or district.

Los proveedores de cuidado infantil familiar descubrirán su papel fundamental como transmisores de cultura al explorar su propia cultura y prejuicios. Aprenderán cómo fomentar entornos verdaderamente inclusivos para que los niños y las familias construyan relaciones culturalmente receptivas y celebren la diversidad en la práctica cotidiana. Esta sesión ofrecerá estrategias prácticas para la sensibilidad cultural, ayudando a los cuidadores a conectarse con las familias de manera respetuosa y auténtica mientras honran la riqueza que cada cultura aporta al crecimiento y aprendizaje de un niño.

This session will showcase the Children’s Center at Caltech, a nonprofit organization that has been providing high-quality early education and care for children ages six months through five years since 1972. Using a constructivist, play-based approach, the CCC implements a STEM-based curriculum that nurtures children’s natural curiosity as a foundation for lifelong learning. Through this virtual tour, participants will see how thoughtfully designed classrooms, materials, and investigations support children in making meaning of their world.