2007 Assessment Workshop

Innovative Assessment Practices: Supporting Families and Community

This year we celebrated the fifth year of this pre-conference workshop, held as a “track day” prior to the annual conference of the Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia (ECEBC). Once again our efforts in organizing this event acknowledge the unique collaboration of parents, academics and professionals who work on behalf of young children in the public school, early childhood and health-related systems. This year, the Supported Child Development Program of BC joined in as a new partners that co-sponsored the workshop, together with The Early Childhood Educators of BC (ECEBC), The Infant Development Programs of BC (IDP), the Psychoeducational Resource and Training Centre (PRTC) at UBC, the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) and the CHILD Project, a five year interdisciplinary study of early child development.

We continue to work towards the sharing of the different lenses of the assessment of infants and young children. This year we aimed at the current, innovative assessment strategies and practices. We were thrilled to have Ms. Jacqueline Smit-Alex, Managing Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership, who presented the Opening Remarks by providing a succinct overview of HELP’s current research initiatives in early child development. Dr Thomas Boyce, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of British Columbia, Sunny Hill Health Centre and BC Leadership Chair in Child Development was this years’ first keynote speaker. Dr Boyce presented a thought-provoking session entitled “What do Monkeys and Kindergarteners” have in common that highlighted cutting-edge research findings on bio-behavioural research. Workshop presenters included parents, community project managers, professionals, therapists and clinicians working in early child assessment; paediatricians, scientists and university professors coming both from BC, and as guests from Alberta and California (US). Presenters shared their experiences and research on the different strategies, resources, and emerging practices used in the early identification and assessment of at-risk infants and children. Dr Adele Diamond, Canada Research Chair & Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, in the Department of Psychiatry, UBC, and at BC Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, presented the afternoon keynote’s session on advances in neuro-cognitive science and the implications for children in their preschool years.

The event concluded with a short presentation from Dr Kimberly Schonert-Reichl (UBC) and 2007 Killam Teaching Award recipient. Dr Schonert-Reichl stressed on the importance of academic and community partnerships for research, and how research is made possible by the early childhood education programs staff support. Tony Hoyland (ECEBC) and Lynell Anderson (HELP) provided a current update on the child-care funding situation – both the impact on the different programs and the advances in recent negotiations with government officials.

Once again, participants’ strong ratings of the workshops and of the event, in general, have provided this Organizing Committee with invaluable feedback to already start planning for our 2008 Assessment Workshop event. Please see the description and links to the presentations below.

We would like to thank: