A non-profit association of Early Learning and Child Care professionals who foster bold leadership and advocate for environments that support the well-being of children and families.
Check out Upcoming Professional Development Events under Professional Learning for details about a NEW upcoming opportunity: Resources for Infant Educarers: RIE® Foundations: Theory and Observation Course being offered here in Edmonton at McKernan CDC beginning March 2!
Watch your e-mail! Each member agency received an e-mail regarding current member information on file. Send any corrections to Vicki before January 14 as membership invoices will go out that day. Thanks!
Looking forward to seeing many of our members at the Google Training courses on Thursday!
Have you signed up for CAFRA’s FREE* Google Training course yet? Check your e-mail or see more information under Events on this page. Remember – this is in place of our January membership meeting. Sign up here: https://signup.com/go/xsCxTfd *FREE for CAFRA members
Here are the details again:
After reviewing the technology needs survey we have arranged for Metro Continuing Education to deliver a Google Essentials workshop on Thursday, January 16. The training will be delivered twice to ensure small group sizes of 20 people max. Organizations are asked to limit sign up to one person to give all programs the opportunity to attend. Should space be available near the cut off time, you will be invited to sign up a second person from your organization. We are pleased to offer this training as part of our professional development commitment for 2020, at no additional cost to the member.
Course Description We all know that Google is a big part of the online landscape—but does your Google savvy go beyond the search engine? Join us for a relaxed introduction to a series of Google’s most useful apps, including Google Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides. We’ll also cover Gmail. By the end of the course, you’ll have a handle on what these apps do and how they work together. Course Location Metro Continuing Education, 7835 – 76 Ave NW, Edmonton Course Date Thursday, January 16, 2020 (in lieu of CAFRA meeting) Course Times 9am to noon OR 1pm to 4pm Course Facilitator Shawn Gramiak Please follow this link to signup Registration will close on January 6.
In response to several requests for the opportunity to discuss recent cuts to the Benefit Contribution Grant we have decided to modify Thursday’s event’s agenda. The first 45 minutes of the morning will be used for round table work: 10 minutes venting and the next 35 minutes brainstorming solutions and a CAFRA position. We’ll then put it aside and focus on being with one another in play and celebration of successes.
If you did not RSVP yes for this event, but would like to participate in the the round table conversation, please respond to Shea at director@southsidemothers.com directly.
CAFRA Christmas Lunch Watch for your Evite to the Christmas lunch, coming soon! The Christmas Lunch will be held at Mckernan Baptist Church from 10am to 2pm on December 19. The deadline to RSVP will be December 13. If you have any dietary restrictions you would like accommodated, you MUST let Vicki know before December 5. Send your dietary requests to her at admin@cafra.ca.
2020 Essential Pieces Conference Seeks Presenters The 2020 Essential Pieces Conference will be held on April 25, 2020.
AECEA’s 2020 Essential Pieces Conference Committee is working hard on putting together an inspiring, professional conference for you for the 2020 conference. Look for registration details in January 2020.
In planning this conference, they would like to have workshop sessions that are relevant to the work that you do and topics that you want to learn more about. Therefore, they are putting out a call for presenters and would like your assistance in forwarding the form to presenters that you think may be relevant to AECEA members. It may be someone you have heard that has inspired you in your work and/or a session that you would like to participate in or it may be a session you present.
The deadline for proposals is Friday, December 6, 2019, all proposals must be submitted through the online form by that date in order to be considered. Find the Presenter Application Form here.
NEW professional development opportunities have been posted under Professional Learning. Know of any great opportunities we can share with CAFRA members? Send the information to admin@cafra.ca.
Are you familiar with the workshops and courses offered by Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations? They serve non-profits and charities in the Alberta capital region and offer a wide variety of events, workshops, and webinars beneficial to non-profit professionals. Check out their calendar of events. You can also subscribe to the ECVO newsletter here.
Mark your calendar: the next CAFRA members meeting will be our Christmas Lunch on December 19 from 10am to 2pm. More details will be sent out soon!
What are YOUR plans for Early Childhood Educators’ Professional
Development Day? This year, McKernan Child Development Centre hosted their ECE
PD Day events in September!
On Friday, September 20, the McKernan Child Development Centre team and Community of Learners partners took part in “Action Research: It Sounds So Scary” with Beverly Dietze. This full day workshop answered questions such as: Why Action Research? Why do the words Action Research sound so scary? Why is the topic becoming prevalent in early childhood education? Where do I begin? Where do we begin as a team?
Participants were introduced to principles of action research and how the process can provide a new lens to discover how children embrace their indoor and outdoor environments, their sense of curiosity, play, learning, and development. Using a variety of action research strategies, participants explored ways to capture action research, document the process, include children in the process, examine the findings that shed light on what the story is telling us, and determine how pedagogy and action research support quality programming.
On Saturday, September 21, MCDC hosted another session with Beverly Dietze. Thirty-two CAFRA directors and members attended “Cultivating Change Processes and Advancing Practices = Staff Renewal.” This session explored the questions: Why is change so challenging? How are plans for change rolled out? What happens if the change process is not done correctly? What leadership skills are necessary? Why do some staff embrace it and others find it hard to adjust? How do I coach and support change?
New research, curriculum frameworks, and
emerging ways of knowing are causing change to early learning programs and
practices. But, going through change can either be rocky for and with staff or
be the impetus for cultivating new areas of staff curiosity and renewal. This
workshop introduced the theory of change followed by the examination of
leadership skills and strategies to support the change process in teams with
diverse generations, cultures, skills and talents. Using a variety of examples,
participants engaged in thought-provoking discussions that provided insight
into how staff can be empowered to embrace change and gain a sense of renewal
through the change process.
If you haven’t shared your ECE PD Day plans yet, please send
them to Vicki at admin@cafra.ca so we can share them on the website. It doesn’t
matter if you have room to host other attendees – just let us know how you are
promoting ECE PD Day! Feel free to share photos and reports about your day as
well and we will post them on our website.
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Association of Early Childhood Educators of Alberta (AECEA) will be held on Wednesday, September 26, 2019 at 4:00 p.m. The meeting will take place online via a GoTo Webinar video conference.
This is a very important meeting as the AECEA Board elections will be taking place.
