Breaking Down Barriers: Native American Conference on Special Education, September 16-17, Albuquerque:  The Education for Parent of Indian Children with Special Needs' Native American Conference on Special Education has reached parents from across Indian Country and Canada for almost 2 decades. The conference is designed to provide resources to families of infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities, developmental delays, and special healthcare needs. Parents are taught skills and provided with information that will aid them in advocating on their child's behalf, thus creating opportunities that will positively impact systems, policy, and delivery of services that promote equity and quality service. Tribal leaders and special education professionals will learn from their peers, constituents, students, parents, and other advocates in promoting equal education opportunities for students with special needs.  Find out more.

 

National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health 30^th Anniversary Conference, November 14-16, Phoenix, Arizona:  A full day Serving on Groups Train-the-Trainer and half day Leading by Convening workshop will be featured at this conference, along with an array of other useful workshops.  Find out more and register.

 

Executive Director's Guide to Financial Leadership:  This expert guide outlines essential steps for EDs: transforming your annual budget analysis, deciding whether or not income diversification is the way to go, achieving a robust reserve, and equipping your board for effective financial governance.  Access it here.

Succession Planning :  Teach Them How to Say Good-bye: Succession Planning for Remarkable Leaders   addresses the following topics: How do leaders ensure the vision, mission, and objectives for their programs have legs to guarantee that a principled legacy continues past their tenure in early childhood policy and practice? Starting succession planning well before a departure is on the horizon will help the transition to go smoothly when the day arrives.

Comparing Parents' and Teachers' Rank-Ordered Importance of Early School Readiness Characteristics :  In a study in the Early Childhood Education Journal, researchers examined which characteristics of early school readiness were deemed most and least important according to parents and teachers of 30-42 months old children. Researchers suggest that it is essential to understand what characteristics are most important to parents and teachers in order to be school ready. Findings indicate that teachers and parents agreed upon the relative importance of early school readiness components. For both groups, being healthy, happy, and socially skilled were generally ranked as more important than cognitive abilities in the preschool-aged child. Researchers suggest that children's success is facilitated when parents and teachers share beliefs on which skills children need to successfully transition into the classroom environment.  Read it.

Parent-Educator Communication Linked to More Frequent Home Learning Activities for Preschoolers :  In a new study released in Child & Youth Care Forum, researchers examined if parent perceptions of parent-educator communication regarding preschoolers' learning and development are related to the home literacy environment (HLE) and the home numeracy environment (HNE). The research was based on 262 participants from a statewide pre-kindergarten evaluation project aimed at providing early education programming to families with low incomes.  Researchers found that that perceptions of parent-educator communication were positively related to the HLE, HNE, and specific learning activities (i.e., naming written letters, identifying letter sounds, reading number books, completing number activity books, learning simple sums, naming written numbers). Researchers suggest that efforts to improve parent-educator communication in this domain may yield benefits for children's learning. They suggest that additional research is necessary to determine whether greater parent-educator communication regarding children's learning and development results in more frequent home learning activities during preschool.  Find out more.

"You Have a Status": A Case Study of Parent Leadership in a U.S. School Readiness Initiative :  In a new article in the International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy, researchers conducted a case study that examined an urban school readiness initiative in a northeast United States city that developed parent leadership as a key strategy for increasing the likelihood that all children enter kindergarten ready to succeed. Parent Leaders were primarily immigrant mothers who conducted outreach activities and child developmental screenings with low income, under-served, urban and immigrant families with young children. The researchers investigated what strategies Parent Leaders used to engage families and how their leadership influenced families, neighborhoods, and the Parent Leaders themselves.  The researchers report that Parent Leaders used highly relational strategies to engage families and that they also shifted community norms about parent leadership. Finally, they developed their own identities as leaders. Researchers suggest that their findings contribute to an increased understanding of how and why parent leadership matters for school readiness research, practice, and policy, particularly in immigrant and under-served communities.  Check it out.