In this webinar, we were joined by JaneAnn Benson, advocate and founder of Early Childhood Ally. JaneAnn went through some of her pandemic key takeaways, how you can advocate as an educator, and some of the easy ways you can get started. Big or small, the key is to just get started.!
🎤 Our Special Guest
JaneAnn Benson founder of Early Childhood Ally has been in the field for over 35 years as a teacher, coach, mentor and director.
She spent the past 20 years at Grand Rapids Community College honored to lead and direct the Early Childhood Learning Laboratory, an accredited, star-rated program in the heart of Grand Rapids. Over the summer she transitioned to semi-retirement and remains as a coach and mentor with the Play and Learn project. As a long-time advocate of all issues impacting the field of early childhood, she has more time to devote to her passion. Check out Early Childhood Ally on Instagram, signing up for the monthly newsletter, and visiting her website at www.Earlychildhoodally.org where she is eager to hear more about your needs and connecting!
Connect with JaneAnn on Instagram
🧪 Key Learning Outcomes
- Check out JaneAnn’s Podcast on How To advocate as an individual for the field of Early Childhood Education
- Early Childhood Education is Essential and during COVID we have some keys peices we can stand on
- Reflect, Reimagine, Rest, and Rejoice.
- It’s an important time to reflect right now on what’s working, what isn’t, what we can change, and don’t rush this part.
- Reimagine – Take time to dream big and don’t overthink it
- Rest – Ask yourself: How do we reset and how rest at the same time? You want to be able to think about and reflect on what is working and rest it
- Rejoice – Find a space within the community to rejoice
- Be a critical thinker during this time to stay innovative and advocate best practices.
- What we do matters, and we are the experts! WE make a huge impact and that sometimes gets forgotten.
- The circle of influence is we have a field and families, and we
- Relationships create influence, decided what you want to advocate for. It can be big or small but start making looking at your connections and who can help be another voice and influencer.
- Be intentional – Understand who you can connect with and why you are advocating.
- Have your script! This way you aren’t thinking off the top and hit the key points you are trying to make. You have passion for what you do, so take your speech to the next level. Use an elevator pitch!
- Rethink your professional development so you are learning.
- Just start!
- Have fun with advocacy!
✨Feedback
We want to hear from you! Fill out our survey to help us improve your webinar experience and don’t forget to follow us on Social media
Join our community on Instagram and Facebook
🖥️ Watch Recording
To get the recording and slides sent right to your email, please fill out the form below!
📆 What’s Next on HiMama Helps?
Space is limited and you don’t miss out on our next webinar, register today to reserve your spot!
Running a Child Care Centre is Hard…
We’d love to make it a little much easier! Did you know that parents are increasingly evaluating childcare centers on whether they offer digital parental communication, photo and video updates, and contactless check-in and billing? The HiMama child care app helps to streamline your digital parent communications, join the family today and get a quote!
To learn more about early childhood education and the many influences that make the field what it is today, check out our post on the history of early childhood education.
I really really enjoy your webnar. It has given me the tools to operate my preschool centre more effectively especially helping the children to become successful learners.