2010 Assessment Workshop

Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes: Laps to Landscapes

Assessing the Physical Development and Well-Being of Children

Our topic for our 8^th annual Assessment Workshop intended to reflect the current interest in the province – and the country- on physical achievements and how this relates to the overall health and well-being of children with the past year’s interest in Olympic and Paralympic activities.  Moreover, and taking into consideration all of the financial restrictions and provincial government closures of the Provincial Advisor Offices for the Infant Development and Supported Child Development Programs, our steering committee decided to embrace the larger perspective of physical development and well-being by integrating the physical environment and community contexts where children –ought to- thrive. This year’s success was due to the presence and ongoing support  of the many groups and institutions that facilitate our work to make this one-day workshop a reality. We thank IECER, the Institute for Early Childhood Education and Research at UBC’s Faculty of Education for their ongoing collaboration, together with our community members and program representatives that contributed to the planning, advertising and making this day a reality. Dr Carl Dunst’s keynote on the occurrences of daily lives as opportunities for parent-child activities that foster physical development and optimum well-being provided a springboard for the day, filled with sessions that went from heads to shoulders and knees and toes by touching on different physical, sensorial, perceptual and motor aspects in child development. Presentations that brought up activities in the playground and in the woods and how these shape children’s daily lives introduced the perspective of “laps to landscapes.” And, in closing, Dr. Wendy Hall’s reminded all of us the importance of balancing “work and play” by highlighting key aspects of her recent research on sleep in infants and young children – and how important rest is for their sleep-deprived parents!

Once again, your evaluations for this year have already contributed for the 2011 event – this time our topic will focus on assessing the mental health and social and emotional well being of children. Once again, the description and links to the presentations are outlined in the sections that follow. Additional information on previous programs and presenters can be found at the HELP website http://www.earlylearning.ubc.ca/resources/presentations/.

We would like to thank the following for their support and enthusiasm in presenting this exciting event:

We gratefully acknowledge the administrative, logistical  and onsite volunteering support provided by:

Warm thanks to our enthusiastic and committed student Volunteers:

Janet Kidd, Calli Craft, Michaelyn Hoven, Jessica Parker, Brenda Peterson, Veronica Shim, Maya Goldstein (Graduate Students, Faculty of Education, The University of British Columbia), Lindsay Byres and Cory McPhail.