2026 International Early Childhood Inclusion Institute

In this pre-conference session participants will examine how the tenets of Rightful Presence provide fundamental guideposts for inclusion and support intentionality in ways of engaging families, community members, and children.

Learning Objectives:
During this session, participants will:
Define the concept of Rightful Presence in early learning settings
Discuss how the tenets of Rightful Presence provide guideposts for planning toward inclusion
Practice leveraging the tenets when engaging families, community members, and children.

The purposes of the reflection session are:

• To set an intention for your time at the Institute.

• To reflect on the Keynote and Plenary sessions.

• Ensuring that you have an opportunity to connect, reflect, and build community.

In this interactive session, participants will explore six essential principles of adult learning and experience what it looks like to design professional development that honors how adults actually learn. Through activities, discussion, reading, writing, and reflection, participants will examine where these principles already show up in their practice—and discover new, practical ways to strengthen them.
Rather than simply learning ,about adult learning theory, participants will experience each principle in action. Along the way, they’ll uncover why each principle matters and how to intentionally apply them when facilitating presentations, coaching sessions, and staff meetings. Participants will leave with concrete ideas, fresh perspectives, and a deeper understanding of how to design and facilitate professional learning experiences that are engaging, meaningful, and effective for adults.

The home visiting workforce often struggles with how to maximize caregiver learning during home visits. This session focuses on strategies to scaffold caregiver learning during home visits including supported practice, prompting, intentional modeling, reflection, and how to use the PICCOLO to reinforce and expand responsive strategies. We will discuss how to decide what level of scaffolding each caregiver needs and when to apply each scaffolding strategy.

This series of joy-filled, short documentaries and music video feature children showing how they care for their families. The videos are part of a multi-platform content initiative for children ages 2-6, their families, and caregivers. This session will share content and resources that can be accessed right away to share with young learners and families in regard to caregiving.  ,,This session will highlight the beauty of all families.

Children are often misunderstood due to limitations of an assessment system. Misunderstandings can be a misdiagnosis, mistaken information leading to failures in interventions and curriculum for children, particularly multilingual learners, as well as misinterpretations of test results. Professional development is needed for ongoing improvement of assessment practices in the early childhood workforce. Presentation goals that can be applied immediately are: (1) gain understanding about early childhood authentic assessment, & impact on children and families including those from multilingual backgrounds, and (2) understand how different disciplines perceive the role and purpose of assessment, authentic assessment, and quality indicators/standards for assessing young children. Research will be shared on authentic assessment practices and participants will have the opportunity to discuss and reflect on the learnings and what this means in practice and how practitioners can co-produce services for children with families.

A workshop to help educators and staff learn to adequately take a moment to communicate and ,collaborate ,with parents effectively. Participants will be able to recognize the benefits of parent and professional relationships, which promote well-being and academic achievement. Participants will also have the opportunity to identify various communication styles that help bridge gaps. By the ,end ,of the session, participants will summarize the importance of effective communication and utilize their tools.

Coaching has become a cornerstone of high-quality professional development, supervision, and mentoring, however many coaches still struggle with planning and facilitating coaching conversations that build the capacity of the coachee in a sustainable way. In this session, learn about the flow of an effective coaching conversation and how to use the data you have to plan effective conversations that lead to sustainable changes in practice. Walk away with two newly developed guides to level-up your coaching conversations.  ,

Families are powerful advocates when equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to understand and interpret data. This session explores how families can use data to advance inclusive practices and make informed school choice decisions. Participants will learn how to help families interpret school and district data, understand equity indicators, and apply this knowledge to advocate for inclusive environments and high-quality educational options. Using DaSy's Look! Think! Act! Framework, practical examples, tools, and interactive discussion, participants will build the skills and confidence needed to support families to influence decisions that promote access, belonging, and positive outcomes for all children.