Get an early start in selecting which workshops you will attend! The program for the 2012 National Smart Start Conference is now available online. If you have not registered for the conference yet, take a look–you will not want to miss this event. You may register online through April 13.
Check out the amazing line-up of keynote speakers:
Pre-Conference Keynoters: Pennie G. Foster-Fishman, Joan Blough & Alissa Parks
Local system’s change and systems building work is challenging, AND we know more than ever about what it takes to rise to and surmount those challenges. Join us for a stimulating and interactive learning experience where the presenters will share the eight levers for effective local systems change that have been identified and externally evaluated through Michigan’s Great Start initiative. These levers and our approach will help you gain clarity about where your local systems change efforts stand today. Explore the strategies and actions that are crucial to creating the conditions under which effective community leadership can take hold, enabling your community to move collectively to improve outcomes for young children and their families.
Opening Keynote: Lisbeth Schorr
In the last decade, efforts to build knowledge and translate research into practice have focused primarily on program evaluations, preferably using experimental methods. However, it is now becoming clear that any knowledge base that relies only on program evaluations is too narrow to be useful in building interventions to significantly improve lives. The development of more effective programs, policies and strategies, and more informed decision-making, requires that we draw on a combination of evidence from research, theory, practice and evaluation. Next generation solutions to successfully address the complex problems faced by children and families with limited resources must be evidence-based. But ‘‘evidence-based’’ does not have to mean experimental-based. Join Lisbeth Schorr in exploring how we can expand our ideas about credible evidence to support successful implementation and scale up, and to take pragmatic approaches to assessing complex interventions.
Keynote Lecturer: Margaret J. Wheatley
Every community and organization has an abundance of leaders, only visible if we look past formal role descriptions. Change happens not through laws and regulations, but when individuals see something that needs to change, and step forward to serve. Let’s face it: we need big changes in early childhood systems! The challenges are complex and daunting; they are not being solved by top down policies, and we can’t solve them alone. You will leave with a renewed sense of clarity and passion for your role as a leader, for the issue you most care about, and the colleagues you might partner with. You’ll also learn a practice for holding meaningful conversations with your communities and colleagues.
Keynote Lecturer: Judith Palfrey
Dr. Palfrey will discuss going to scale in building an integrated early childhood system and the importance of leadership in the development and maintenance of high quality early childhood networks. Dr. Palfrey has experience in integrated early childhood service delivery and research. She has witnessed the many twists and turns along the road that has led to programs like Parents as Teachers and Early Head Start. For the past eight years, Dr. Palfrey has been working with a multidisciplinary team in Chile on Un Buen Commiensa, an integrated approach to preschool education that focuses on language, literacy, health, socioemotional development and parent engagement.
Closing Keynoters: Major General Charles Luckey, Bill Shore & Linda K. Smith
Last year we replaced the traditional keynote with a more conversational approach. We had great feedback, so we have lined up three national leaders to inform and stimulate our thinking. Linda K. Smith is the Administration’s new Deputy Assistant Secretary and Inter-Departmental Liaison for Early Childhood Development. She will discuss the President’s early childhood vision and the critical role that she sees for the business and military communities in bringing that vision to fruition. Bill Shore, Chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce and Major General Charles Luckey, Assistant to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff for Reserve Matters/Joint Staff Lead Iraq Transition will talk about why they are engaged in early childhood issues and offer advice for attendees to engage local business and military leaders in their work.
