Our goal is to engage professionals who support children and early care and education professionals across Colorado.  This means early childhood coaches, early childhood mental health consultants, child care health consultants, early intervention providers and evaluators, child and adult care food program specialists, licensing specialists, local health departments, and more!

Timeline:

• August 4, 2022:  RFP Opens
• August 18, 2022:  Information Session Webinar 11:30 am MST – REGISTER NOW!
• August 19 & 26, 2022:  Additional Virtual Drop-In Office Hours – 10:00 am – 12:00 pm MST
• September 11, 2022:  RFP closes – Submit presentation proposals by 11:59 pm MST
• October 7, 2022:  Acceptance/Rejection Notification will go out via email

Review PDF Proposal Submission Form (Spanish) | Frequently Asked Questions (Spanish coming soon)

The theme of the inaugural Whole Child Consultative Roles Conference is Connect. Coordinate. Innovate.  The last few years have been challenging for the early childhood field. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed stress on our infrastructure and extended inequities among our fellow Coloradans.  We have shifted the way we do our work to meet the needs of adults caring for young children.  At the conference, we will gather to build relationships, awareness, collective knowledge and recognize the tremendous dedication of our consultative role workforce during this unprecedented time.

Our Goals: 

1. Provide centralized training and enhanced networking opportunities for consultative roles that count toward ongoing professional development requirements.
2. Increase role awareness and create shared knowledge across consultative roles to improve the quality and coordination of services to early care providers statewide.
3. Promote whole child approaches that elevate the broad early childhood workforce’s understanding of critical information that supports the Early Childhood Colorado Framework‘s vision of all children being valued, healthy, and thriving.
4. Learn from one another and build on regional collaboration through intentional networking and teaming efforts.

All conference sessions will be conducted live and online via the Hopin platform. All sessions will have support from trained moderators and tech support is offered on-demand from Hopin staff. Interpretation services will be available during sessions, as needed.

Presentation Proposals:

Desired Content. We seek presentation proposals for our virtual conference that include content that is relevant to the cross-disciplinary audience. Proposed sessions should have a focus on demonstrating how different roles have successfully worked together to support and respond to the needs of their community.

Desired topic areas include: adult-child interactions, reflective practice, early childhood landscape, universal preschool, child development, consultative stance, implicit bias, continuous quality improvement, self-care, nutrition, physical activity, inclusive settings, language justice, racial equity, early intervention services, and more.

Level of Content. We are seeking varying degrees of content from introductory to intermediate to advanced levels to ensure all attendees have an entry point to learn, be challenged, and grow.

• Introductory: Content for those with little or no experience or familiarity with the topic
• Intermediate: Content for those with some experience or familiarity with the topic
• Advanced: Content for those with significant experience or knowledge of the topic

Session Types. The steering committee invites presentation proposal submissions for breakout and plenary sessions at our virtual conference as outlined below.

• Breakout Session. Breakout sessions are 1-hour or 1.5-hours in length and will be offered to groups between 30-80 participants.  You will be able to determine your desired group size when completing the submission form.  Breakout sessions can be delivered in a variety of forms including presentation, facilitated discussions, panel presentations or discussions, and more.
• Plenary Session. Plenary sessions are 1-hour in length and will be offered to all 300-500 conference participants at the same time.  This type of session works best for content that is relevant to all attendees.  Plenary sessions can be delivered as a presentation or panel presentations or discussions.

Presentations are typically in the form of demonstrations, lectures, stories of success, or speeches meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product.

Facilitated Discussion sessions are meant to be a low pressure, casual way for attendees to share knowledge, resources, and most importantly, connect & have fun.

Panel Presentation/Discussions are typically facilitated by a “panel moderator” who guides the panel and the audience through a lively conversation about a specific topic.  The panelists are a group of people typically 3-4 experts or practitioners in the field, who share facts, offer opinions, and respond to audience questions either through questions curated by the moderator or taken from the audience directly.

Learning Objectives. Describe in measurable terms using a behavioral verb (such as describe, discuss, explain) what attendees will be able to do following participation in the session.  The learning objectives should provide a clear focus for your session.  Words to avoid: understand, know, learn. Refer to this guidance document to craft strong learning objectives.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI). Clearly describe how you will incorporate DEI principles in your presentation to provide meaningful connection to the content.

Submission Process. Complete and submit the online form; one submission per presentation.  You have an option to change the application language to Spanish when you open the submission form. You will be able to stop and return to your submission at a later time.  Please assure the proposal is submitted completely, indicated by a completion message and a confirmation email immediately following the submission.  Once submitted, revisions cannot be accepted.  Late submissions will not be accepted.  Communications regarding the submission and upcoming presentations if the session is accepted will be sent to the lead presenter only.

If you haven’t presented at a conference or submitted a proposal before, we strongly encourage you to apply.  We can connect with you to help guide you through the RFP process.  If you would like additional support, please reach out to us at conference@healthychildcareco.org 

Presenter Stipends. In recognition of your time and expertise to present at the Whole Child Consultative Roles Conference, we are pleased to offer a $100 stipend to each presenter and panelist. Presenters may elect to waive the stipend or designate it to your organization. All stipends will be paid by December 31, 2022. All selected presenters will receive a discount code to register for the conference at no cost to them.