Connecting early childhood development and schools

With the ever decreasing boundaries between schools and early childhood development programs this is a timely Pan Canadian Summit.

January 29th – 30th, 2009 Montreal Québec

Connecting Early Child Development and Schools

Building Alliances for Children: Information – Inspiration – Interaction

Why attend this Summit?

This issue is important to school leaders because…..

• 25% of children do not succeed in school

• We can change the life trajectories of these children and ensure a more positive schooling experience by focusing resources on the years before they start school

• Epigenetics is teaching us that critical pathways of brain development are established in the first three years of a child’s life.

As a school leader you can play a critical role in your community by ……

• Helping to locate vulnerable families through existing school networks

• Engaging in community based networks that focus on building seamless and appropriate early child development services

• Revitalizing empty school spaces as places that can “incubate” community early child development activities

• Finding and mobilizing community assets for early child development

What topics will the Pan-Canadian Summit cover?

• Expert research on the science of early child development and brain research

• Dialogue on the prevalent issues faced by the early child development community nationally and internationally

• Exciting stories from provincial leaders who are implementing inventive school-based programs for families

• Opportunities for discussion and networking between school system professionals

• An invitation to participate in building a long-term plan for a national network where school systems support early child development

KeynoteSpeakers

John Bennett

Co-author of Starting Strong II, Early Childhood Education and Care,Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

Dr. Clyde Hertzman

President of the Council for Early Child Development and Founding Director of Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP)

Penny Milton

CEO of the Canadian Education Association

(CEA)

Dr. J. Fraser Mustard

Founder of the Council for Early Child Development (CECD)