Recap of Summer Institute

2019 Summer Institute: Achieving Quality! Best Practices in Early Childhood

With a dose of realness, Columbus City Councilmember Elizabeth Brown kicked off this year’s Summer Institute with an unexpected guest in tow – her son. Illness prevented him from going to school, so he joined her onstage for opening remarks before a room full of understanding early childhood educators. In a genuine moment, there was a universal acknowledgement of the predicament of working parents and the importance of child care. Councilmember Brown proceeded off script with a heartfelt message of how early childhood providers are not only preparing our future workforce through their daily work with young children, but that they provide a quintessential support to today’s workforce.

With the tone set, keynote speaker Deborah McNelis, author and owner of Brain Insights, took the stage and shared about the importance of “neural nurturing” and what happens in brain development during these critical years.

Repeated experiences are what forms the pathways in the brain. The repeated experiences you (early childhood professionals) provide are setting these children up for the world. This is what you do every day; you are brain developers.

Deborah went on to say, “For the development of children, it is so essential to provide neural-nurturing relationships. It’s critical for them to have responsiveness, so when providers and parents understand what it is that they need most, they can optimally help a child reach their fullest potential. We have to help providers know all that they can know and support them in their invaluable work by having policies, programs and services, and pay and recognition for them. We need to make sure that this understanding is everywhere and is common knowledge.”

Attendees then moved into breakout sessions, which offered practical application of more focused topics. Ranging from organizations across the region, presenters covered quality and best practices for early childhood, specifically on:

The day ended with a closing session on social-emotional learning for teachers, taught by Dr. Sarah Lang and Jovanna Tyree Ownes of Ohio State’s Virtual Lab School.

Attendee Elijah Miller, Director of First Star Learning Academy, shared that said that this year’s event, 

helped not just with social-emotional (development) but also with lesson planning and different activities that we can introduce into our classrooms. It’s helpful when you have inspiration from so many different places and bring it all in together.

Alicia Wiggins, an assistant teacher at Southside Early Learning, shared her own personal journey that led her to passionately pursue continued education. As a parent herself, Alicia shared that her “son was really shy. His teacher at the time saw that, and she worked with him every day. He just blossomed! I (realized) that’s what I want to do – that’s where I need to be in my life. I want to help other people’s children, and my own children, do the same thing.”
This realization came while she was pursuing her GED and had entered into a transition program to prepare her to attend Columbus State Community College. Prior to entering college, she was offered a job in the early childhood field where she has worked for the past seven years. When asked what she was able to take away from the Summer Institute, Alicia said,

Math. We have language and literacy in our classroom, but we needed more math components. Since (that session), my mind is going crazy. I have all kinds of ideas and a list of items for my director!

Lisa Welsh, Early Head Start Lead Education Specialist at the Schoenbaum Family Center, helped plan the 2019 Summer Institute. She said,

Early childhood educators are hungry for professional development. With all of the great research and continued movement on understanding quality in early childhood settings, we were proud to bring both research-driven information and practical application sessions to this year’s Summer Institute.

This year’s event was generously sponsored by partners committed to professional development for early childhood providers. We thank Early Head Start, the City of Columbus, and The Ohio State University’s College of Social Work for their continued support!

The Schoenbaum Family Center’s annual Summer Institute is a practitioner-focused event offering Ohio Approved credits for early childhood professionals. To see all of the pictures from the 2019 Summer Institute, click here.