Track

Friday, April 10^th

Saturday, April 11th

Promoting Healthy Development

Beyond Beautiful Smiles: Oral Health in the Child Care Setting – 10:30am-12:00pm Tooth decay is the most common chronic disease of childhood and insufficient access to oral health services is a reality for many young children. This workshop will review the vital role of child care setting in the primary prevention of oral health diseases and participants will discuss best practices and opportunities for oral health promotion, screening and referral.

Promoting Social Emotional Health – 8:00-9:00am Social emotional development is at the foundation of school readiness and lifelong health. This workshop will explore the multiple mechanisms and evidence based programs available to enhance the promotion of social emotional development in the early care and education (ECE) setting including: curriculum, consultation, professional development and mixed models with the goal of increasing knowledge and uptake of evidence based programs.

Your Role in Developmental Screening – 1:30 – 3:00pm Techniques, supports and tools to support efforts in childcare to promote improved practices around developmental screening will be shared. The relationship between early screening and referral school readiness and lifelong health will be emphasized. An emphasis on supports at the provider, program and community linkage level will be described as will techniques for improved communication with the medical home and enhanced parent engagement.

Caring for Children with Special Needs – 10:00-11:30am This interactive workshop will partner Health Care Providers, Child Care Health Consultants and Early Care Providers to develop Individualized Health Care Plans for children with special health care needs. Special consideration will be provided to medication administration and communication with the child’s medical home.

Promoting Physical Activity and Nutrition – 3:30-5:00pm This workshop will address screen time reduction, improved nutrition, increased physical activity and breastfeeding promotion in childcare and the convergence of healthy living practices. Participants will learn about tools and techniques to achieve Quality Stars NY standards for promoting healthy practices in the early care and learning environment.

School-Age Leadership

Friday, April 10th

Saturday, April 11th

Maintain files that make your Licensor Smile – 10:30am-12:00pm Take the stress out of your next OCFS file review with this no panic approach to compliance focusing on staff orientation, employee/child documentation & file maintenance. We’ll walk through a Quality Stars NY participating center’s current internal system and provide you with templates, examples and resources to help you create a similar process to fit your needs.

AfterSchool Works! NY Lunch and Learn – 12:00-1:00pm Come to this workshop to learn the value of becoming a member of AfterSchool Works! NY, how you can get more involved with ASW and most importantly, learn about our great quality initiatives such as Accreditation and Credentialing.

Special Needs: Strategies for School-Age Caregivers – 1:30-3:00pm Providing care for children with special needs can be challenging at times. Come to this workshop to learn concrete strategies on adapting the physical and sensory environment for children with special needs. Participants will gain an awareness of how to provide respectful accommodations so that children with special needs can have meaningful experiences during the out of school time.

Stepping Into Leadership – 3:30-5:00pm The front line staff who work with youth are charged with creating innovative and dynamic programming—how are we supporting the staff that lead them? In this interactive workshop, participants will explore strategies for successfully leading a team, including observation and assessment tools, on-going professional development techniques, motivational practices, and tools for effective communication to create a high performing team.

School-Age Child Care

Friday, April 10^th

Saturday, April 11^th

Managing Challenging Behavior – 8:00-9:30am Challenging behaviors communicate unmet needs and lagging skills. Come learn practical strategies for: • Exercising positive leadership • Building relationships • Structuring productive environments • Coaching social and emotional skills • Actively intervening as needed.

Discipline and the School Age Child – 8:00-9:30am Six steps to improve your effectiveness in changing from a “Reactionary Discipline” approach to using “Positive Guidance Techniques” and helping children to be part of the solution.

Strategies for Including Youth with Disabilities in Youth Development Programs – 10:00-11:30am This session will provide tools to ensure that staff at all levels of an organization have the skills, knowledge and attitudes they need to ensure that everyone is welcome and included. Staff training, accommodations and policy development are all key to successful inclusion.

Strength Based Strategies – 1:00-2:30pm This training will teach you the concepts behind strength-based strategies and some practical lessons on how to incorporate them into your afterschool program and life. Much of society’s approaches to dealing with higher risk youth and disengaged families is through a lens of their weaknesses or problems that need to be “fixed.” This training will provide participants with 3 simple steps to the Strength-based approach.

Expanding Social Emotional Learning with Community Partnerships “Oh My” “Oh How?” “Oh Wow! – 1:00-2:30pm After-School programs offer a unique opportunity for equipping youth with social and emotional skills. This workshop is designed to provide practitioners with the knowledge, practices and resources needed to integrate and elevate social and emotional learning into program design.

Infant Toddler

Friday, April 10th

Saturday, April 11^th

Providing Continuity of Care – 10:30am – 12:00pm We know that infants and toddlers need a secure base to explore the world. Through positive changes in the Child Care Center we can provide a model that is good for Centers, parents and staff. We will increase positive attachment between child and caregiver as well as improve family involvement. 'It takes a village' to raise a child has spun into giving children a team who work together in the best interest of the child and promote positive change in childcare centers.

Texture Table/Sensory Activities for Infants and Toddlers – 3:30-5:00pm This hands-on workshop will focus on the use of a variety of materials for sensory exploration by young children as well as alternatives to the use of the traditional texture table. Participants will gain an understanding of the standards and guidelines of the NYS Early Learning Guidelines, NYS Core Body of Knowledge, and NAEYC accreditation as they pertain to sensory learning for young children.

More to come!

Professionalism and Leadership

Friday, April 10th

Saturday, April 11^th

The Collaborative Community: Working Together to Promote High Quality Care for Children – 10:30am – 12:00pm Come to this session to energize your thinking about ways to strengthen your local infrastructure to benefit children and families. We will discuss the power of collaboration and highlight successful cooperative ventures that have changed the local early childhood landscape. Both family child care and center care will be represented in the examples highlighted.

Making a Difference: A DIY Approach to Marketing, Community Building, and Transforming Environments – 8:00-9:30am This workshop will highlight a project from the Capital District Child Care Council Called Make a Difference One Play Space at a Time. Innovative strategies to market your program, fundraise, and build a strong community presence will be shared. The initial project was partially funded by the NAEYC mini-grant with sustaining funds raised through crowdfunding. Through creativity, collaboration and imagination you too can make a difference!

Ethics: Navigating the gray area – 1:30 - 3:00pm Participants will explore the NAEYC Ethical Code of Conduct through several case studies. We will analyze potentially unethical practices, resolve ethical dilemmas, and discuss ways to uphold standards of confidentiality, sensitivity, and respect for children, families and colleagues.

Team Building through Teamwork – 10:00-11:30am Participants will explore different aspects of team building as it relates to teamwork. Throughout the training the group will view multiple aspects of teamwork through different children's books and activities. Concepts addressed will include accepting of new staff, teamwork, problem solving/creativity and motivation. Participants will be prepared to create, establish and implement goals in their own programs upon the completion of this training.

Everyone Has a Story - Learning from the Experiences of Others – 3:30 – 5:00pm This session will provide an opportunity for participants to become aware of how to use their experiences, passion, and knowledge in the field as a basis for mentoring and training early childhood professionals. Sharing stories along with the use of the NYS Core Body of Knowledge will guide this session.

Loving Leadership: Key Practices of the Intentional Director – 1:00-2:30pm Research tells us that success in preschool is a good predictor of a child's future success. The directors' role in providing a safe, creative, nurturing, predictable growth-community is crucial. Through a combination of interactive discussion and group activities, this directors' workshop will examine the key practices of loving leadership (both meanings) and developing the attitudes (dispositions) necessary to build an intentional leadership model.

Management and Administration

Friday, April 10th

Saturday, April 11^th

Learning Communities: A Good Place to Foster Continuous Quality Improvement – 10:30am-12:00pm Learn how Buffalo and Rochester have created QUALITYstarsNY Learning Communities, in order to create a good place to explore best practices in early childhood education, develop leadership, and foster continuous quality improvement. Discover ways to develop your own Learning Community.

Motivating Staff! How are we going to keep them? – 8:00-9:30am Once you find really good staff, it is critical to do everything you can to keep them engaged and motivated. This workshop will discuss staff engagement and motivation which leads to better experiences for the children and families in the program.

Program Budgeting - Understanding and evaluating your operating costs – 1:30-3:00pm Whether you are a small home provider or a program within a much a larger organization understanding your budgeting formula is critical to your long term sustainability. We will explore helpful tools that allow you to be more responsive sudden changes in your revenue and/or expenses.

Lead with Purpose and Poise! – 10:00-11:30am  An interactive, strategy rich and targeted workshop engaging participants in discussion and activities that highlight leadership that is outcome oriented. Leading with poise takes a reflective look at personal and professional approaches that get the outcomes you need in your workplace, with your staff and in your career.

Building a Dependable Staff -3:30-5:00pm This training will help you to decide what the key elements to your program are, concerning staff. How to build them up, and keep them happy. You will gain some new ideas and tools to use at your centers after the conference.

Leadership in a Child Care Setting – 1:00-2:30pm This training is designed to enhance professionalism, and improve leadership in a child care setting by examining ways to administrate, supervise and manage with foresight. Experience-building dialogue identifying program management techniques, detailing why administrative policies and procedures help provide superior quality service is discussed.

Family Child Care

Friday, April 10th

Saturday, April 11th 

Put It in Writing - 8:00am - 9:30am - In this session participants will learn how to communicate effectively with parents and employees in writing.  At this session we will cover many topic areas that are necessary to be successful when creating parent and employee manuals.  We will also share information on both federal and state tax laws when hiring employees and family members.

How to be Your Own Best Friend - 8:00am - 9:30am - In this session participants will learn how to put their best foot forward when talking and building relationships with their legislators.  Elected officials in Washington, Albany, and your county make important decisions about child care funding and policy every day.  They need to hear from you!  Presenters will lay out who they are, what’s the message, and how to build the power that puts early learning and care at the TOP of New York’s agenda.

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation – Receipts and More! - 10:00am - 11:30am - In this session participants will learn the three key recordkeeping rules that will save them time and money on their taxes.  We will share the 2015 tax changes that affect their home-based businesses.  We will discuss the business deductions that can help reduce their taxes.  We will assist participants to calculate their time-space percentage correctly.

Watch Me Bloom – Planting the Seeds of Early Literacy - 10:00am - 11:30am - Research proves there are six skills preschool children need to have to be successful in school.  Using pictures and props, the presenter will demonstrate how to help children in your home-based program build these skills while having fun.  

Space – The Final Frontier! - 1:00pm - 2:30pm - Learn how to make the most of the space in your home environment that will promote appropriate behavior for the children in your care.  Since young children learn from their own experiences and explorations, they develop their potential most fully in a relaxed, rich environment that offers a broad range of activities.  A well-planned daily schedule offers all that is needed to share a delicious moment with a friend, practice a new skill, or clean up a spill.

You know that parent who you just don’t like? - 1:00pm - 2:00pm - Good working relationships with parents support healthy child development and reduce stress for you in your day-to-day work. The presenter will teach skills and tools to support your work to effectively engage parents to build effective provider – parent partnerships built on trust.