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Whole Child Consultative Roles Conference 2022
This two-day virtual conference seeks to engage a broad range of consultative professionals with targeted, cross-disciplinary training as well as regional networking opportunities.
Nov 30, 2022 – Dec 1, 2022 | 9:30 am – 3: 30 pm MST
Registration Opens August 15, 2022

The Call for Presentations is Now Open!
What: The Colorado Department of Early Childhood is pleased to partner with Healthy Child Care Colorado and many other organizations to host Colorado’s inaugural Whole Child Consultative Roles Conference! This two-day virtual conference seeks to engage a broad range of consultative professionals with targeted, cross-disciplinary training as well as regional networking opportunities. Our goal for this conference is to make connections, build awareness, highlight coordination efforts, and explore innovations in the early childhood field.
Who: 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!
Why: Colorado prospers when our children thrive because they are our future leaders, community members, and workforce. No matter where they live in our state – the plains, mountains, rural areas, or urban centers – children need high quality support for development. The Colorado Department of Early Childhood and its partners have been engaged in intentional efforts to define, coordinate, and align a variety of consultative roles providing critical, quality improvement services to early childhood care and education settings across Colorado. To solidify these efforts and take the next steps in fortifying community partnerships across consultative roles, the Colorado Department of Early Childhood is hosting a cross-disciplinary virtual conference, Whole Child Consultative Roles Conference.
It is critical that we promote whole child approaches that elevate the broad early childhood workforce’s understanding of programs, services, and information that supports the Early Childhood Colorado Framework and Colorado’s Department of Early Childhood’s mission. We believe local collaboration and teaming efforts are key to ensuring children, families, and programs get what they need.
This project was supported by the Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five Initiative (PDG B-5), Grant Number 90TP0054, from the Office of Child Care, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Office of Child Care, the Administration for Children and Families, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
This work is responsive to the Colorado Shines Brighter strategy 6.1.2 Consultative Roles Alignment.
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:
- Provide centralized training and enhanced networking opportunities for consultative roles that count toward ongoing professional development requirements.
- Increase role awareness and create shared knowledge across consultative roles to improve the quality and coordination of services to early care providers statewide.
- 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.
- 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.
Registration opens August 15, 2022
Register before 11:59 pm MST on Friday, September 30, 2022 to receive the Early Bird rate: $65 (use promo code: HELPER22)
Registration between October 1, 2022 and November 29, 2022: $75
Note: Participants who register after Tuesday, November 15, 2022 may experience delays in receiving shipped conference materials. All registrations received after November 21, 2022 will not receive a conference shipment.
Cancellation/Refund Policy:
Cancellations will be accepted, and registration refunds will be made up until November 14, 2022. Refunds will include the ticket price less the Stripe fees (which consists of the payment processing fee and the service fee combined).
No refunds can be made after November 14, 2022; however, registrations may be transferred to another person free of charge until November 20, 2022. To request a transfer, the original registrant should notify HCCC by email at conference@healthychildcareco.org. The notification should include the name, email, and phone number of the person to whom the registration should be transferred.
The detailed schedule with session and presenter information will be available on October 24th.
Thank you to the Consultative Roles Conference Steering Committee for your thought partnership!
Amber Smith, Institute for Racial Equity and Excellence | Laura Sigrist, Government Performance Solutions |
Angela Ben-Zekry, Colorado Department of Early Childhood | Lindsey Dorneman, Colorado Department of Early Childhood |
Charles Ruda, Colorado Department of Early Childhood | Lisa Matter, Colorado Department of Early Childhood |
Chrissy Nichols, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment | Lisa Schlueter, Colorado Department of Early Childhood |
Christine Bauer, Colorado Department of Early Childhood | Maegan Lokteff, Early Childhood Council Leadership Alliance |
Dominique Calloway, Institute for Racial Equity and Excellence | Marcia Blum, Colorado Department of Education |
Felicia Zeeh, Colorado Department of Early Childhood | Meghan Leclerc, Colorado Department of Early Childhood |
Jasmine Crane, Institute for Racial Equity and Excellence | Melissa Taucher, Colorado Department of Education |
Jason Gold, Healthy Child Care Colorado | Phyllis Lucas, Coaching Consortium |
Jennifer Sommer Sheppard, Aurora Mental Health Center | Sarah Goldman, Early Childhood Council Leadership Alliance |
Jennifer Stucklen, Healthy Child Care Colorado | Sarah Roberts, Colorado Department of Early Childhood |
Jodi Gillespie, Colorado Department of Early Childhood | Taran Schneider, Healthy Child Care Colorado |
Julia Anderson, Colorado Department of Early Childhood | Tealyn Langseth-Schmidt, Colorado Department of Early Childhood |
Kate Newberg, Government Performance Solutions | Theresa Rapstine, Healthy Child Care Colorado |