Past Events

2010 Westchester Early Care and Education Conference Highlights!

On May 6th, over 200 child care professionals spent the day at the Westchester County Center attending educational workshops and presentations at The Child Care Council’s annual Westchester Early Care and Education Conference (formerly known as Consortium Day).  The keynote speaker was Susan Linn, EdD, co-founder and Director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and author of the acclaimed books, The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World, and Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood. Her wonderful address focused on “Fostering Creative Play and Self-Expression in a Commercialized World.”

Participants’ responses to the keynote were uniformly positive:

• “I’m going to look out for media saturation in my classroom.”
• “I learned that a commercial-free environment can lead to a more open and creative space.”
• “I learned about the importance of purchasing more toys that encourage creative play and creating more opportunities for children to engage in creative play.”
• “I learned that toys should be 90% child and 10% toy.”
• “I will take a look at our environment- what we have on our walls, books, toys, etc.”
• “I will share what I’ve learned today with my teaching staff and parents.”
• “I learned that children are highly affected by commercialism.”
• “I will be more aware of toys which enable/limit a child’s creativity and try to encourage independent thinking.”

For the first time, the conference featured  several tracks including Infant/Toddler, Early Childhood, Mental Health and School Age. Participants learned from a wide variety of workshops, including: “Limiting Commercialism in the Lives of Children: What is the Role of Early Childhood Educators?”,  “No Child Left Inside: The Importance of Providing Children an Experience with Nature”, “Environmentally Friendly Child Care Programs”, “Shaken Baby Syndrome: The Silent Epidemic”, “The Magic in Building Language with Infants and Toddlers”, “How Important Are You”, “The Do’s and Don’ts of Being a SAP (School Age Professional)”, “Puppets as Tools for Creative Play”, “Book-Making Bonanza!”, “Natural and Creative Routes to Successful Inclusion”, “Working with Parents to Inoculate Children Against Sexual Abuse”, “Let’s Pretend! Dramatic Play with Infants and Toddlers”, “The Impact of Domestic Violence on the Social and Emotional Well-Being of Young Children”, and “Working with Diverse Populations in School Age Programs.”

May 6th was also Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day.  As a result, representatives for the Westchester Department of Community Mental Health, The Guidance Center, Family Ties of Westchester, and Westchester Jewish Community Services distributed information at their vendor table and presented the workshops “How Important are You”, and “The Impact of Domestic Violence on the Social and Emotional Well-Being of Children” within the Mental Health track.

In addition, the Rally 4 Children walk from the County Center to the corner of Martine Ave. and Martin Luther King Blvd. took place immediately after the conference.  The rally was very successful and we would like to thank all parents, teachers, child care providers, business owners and all others who advocated for the needs of children and families in our community.

Thank you to everyone who helped make the WECE Conference a great success!