2012 Assessment Workshop

The 2012 annual Assessment Workshop celebrated 10 years of our annual event.  In the words of Dr Hillel Goelman, our afternoon keynote speaker this year, “ten years ago a small group of educators from schools, preschools, child care programs, early intervention programs, universities and parents got together and suggested the idea for a one-year Early Childhood Assessment Workshop. There were two major factors that led to this idea. First, many were concerned about the growth of standardized testing in early childhood settings. This concern has continued to grow over the years… The second and more positive factor was that there were many new, innovative and authentic ways of observing and monitoring early child development.”

This year, the topic of the 10^th Assessment Workshop was “Children’s Right for Fair Assessment – Celebrating a Decade of Innovative Practice” addressed, precisely one of the major concerns of many early childhood educators that refers to children’s needs for assessment being addressed in a fair way. The day opened with a powerful presentation with Dr Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond, BC’s Representative for Children and Youth, stressing on the need to recognize the rights of children at every stage of their development and serviced through the differences agencies and systems in a co-ordinate manner. Throughout the day, presentations from speakers coming from diverse academic, professional and community backgrounds echoed Turpel-Lafond’s call through various perspectives – -including health and mental health, child development and early intervention, family  and many others. The day ended with Dr Hillel Goelman’s keynote presentation on “The dangers of high stakes assessment” where he drew upon the different practices and strategies on assessment of young children that had been presented over the years during this event, and called for fair assessment practices, both standardized and informal that take into consideration the whole background of the child, their family and community.

A celebration of the 10^th anniversary of this event included public recognition of presenters who have shared their knowledge and expertise several times over the decade, including Dr Laurie Ford, our first keynote speaker in 2003 and who continued to present for 8 consecutive years.

This event has been possible thanks to the dedicated commitment of their organizing committee, with most of its members volunteering their monthly hours to make this day a reality. This year we welcomed Andrea Lemire and Christina Thiele, of the Society for Children and Youth of BC as new committee members. In addition to their wise and committed contributions to our committee – including a presentation from Andrea Lemire, we were blessed with beautiful thank-you cards and bookmarks for our presenters thanks to the graphic art talents of Christina. Our deepest thanks once again to Dana Brynelsen and Tanya Brown, volunteer community members, and formerly Provincial Advisors of the Infant Development and Supported Child Development Programs in BC, respectively, to Diana Elliott with the Aboriginal Infant Development/Supported Child Development Program Provincial Office. We are proud of Mary Stewart who completed her Master of Arts and defended her thesis just before our event – and presented it in one of the sessions! We are indebted to Dr Hillel Goelman, our leader and founding member of this committee and the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at UBC’s Green College for also taking on the closing keynote role in this celebratory year. As always, deep gratitude to Iris Berger and Dr Marilyn Chapman of IECER, the Institute for Early Childhood Education and Research at UBC’s Faculty of Education for their contributions, and to Dr William McKee of the Psychoeducational Research and Training Centre at the Faculty of Education for behind-the-stage organizing role!

We will be using your evaluations to plan the first year of our second decade, in 2013, were early identification of mental health, learning and behaviour difficulties, follow-up intervention, as well as family-related topics continue to show as your areas of interest. We are already planning our 11^th Assessment Workshop so – See you there!

If you would like to check the description and links to the presentations, these will be outlined in the sections that follow. Additional information on previous programs and presenters can be found at our new website.

Sincere thanks to:

Joyce Branscombe, Nicky Byres, of EventAbility. For the 10^th year, they rose over and above this occasion to make this day a memorable one – beyond unimaginable circumstances.

Bonnie Barnes, with the Infant Development Program of BC, and the Developmental Disabilities Association

…for their support and enthusiasm in presenting this exciting event

We gratefully acknowledge the administrative, logistical and onsite volunteering support provided by:

Cindy Jamieson, Coordinator, Provincial Office of the Aboriginal Supported Child Development Program of BC

Dr William McKee, The Psychoeducational Training Centre, Faculty of Education, UBC

Lesley Richardson and Lauris Williams, EventAbility

Natasha Boskic, Faculty of Education, UBC

Warm thanks to our enthusiastic and committed ECE student and community Volunteers:

• Leslie Byres
• Claudia Diaz
• Deb Fayle
• Kirsten Forrestell
• Carrie McLellan-Haq
• Leslie Richardson
• Lauris Williams

 In closing, we gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the Government of Canada through the Including All Children and Families – Expanding Partnerships Project. For the third year, telecommunication, printing and handout costs have been covered through this contribution.

2012 Presenters