Early Years Digital Symposium 2021

The Early Years Conference went digital

The Early Years Conference promotes the wellbeing of children and families by advancing collaboration and evidence-based practice; and provides a platform to reflect multiple perspectives to improve early childhood development.

A digital symposium was held over two days on 27 and 28 May 2021.

The theme this year was ‘from theory to practice’.

Read more www.earlyyearsconference.com.au   

After the jump

The Cairns Early Years Conference takes a cross-sector approach and is relevant for many professionals working with children from birth to 12 years including early childhood educators, healthcare professionals, child protection professionals, family support workers, child and family counsellors, community workers and program managers.  The conference is true cross-agency collaboration success story and is jointly funded and coordinated by:

• Act for Kids
• The Benevolent Society
• The Cairns Institute, James Cook University
• Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs
• Department of Education (Early Childhood Education and Care)
• Mission Australia
• Queensland Health

This year our speakers are:

• Nathan Wallis – renowned neuroscience educator, has been captivating audiences over 250 times per year to sell out events in New Zealand, Australia, & China. Nathan is a father of three and foster father to many. His professional background includes early childhood teacher, child therapist, social service manager, university lecturer and neuroscience trainer.
• Professor Sharon Goldfeld - is a paediatrician and Director, Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH) the Royal Children’s Hospital, Co-Group leader of Policy and Equity, and Theme Director, Population Health at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She has a decade of experience in state government as a senior policymaker in health and education.
• Joe Coyne – has over 20 years in the area of child and family psychology and is particularly interested in the developmental processes involved in healthy outcomes and the impacts of parenting and life events on personal trajectories. In recent years he has been exploring the benefits of incorporating attachment theory and research into contemporary treatment approaches for parents, children and adults. Joe will bring his practice and research related to emotion regulation, mindfulness, and compassion to the symposium.
• Professor Amanda Third – Principal Research Fellow in the Institute for Culture & Society, and Co-Director of the Young and Resilient Research Centre, at Western Sydney University and an international expert in child participation research. Amanda’s work investigates children’s and young people’s technology practices, focusing on marginalised groups and rights-based approaches. She has led child-centred projects to understand children’s and young people’s experiences of the digital age in 68 countries, working with partners across corporate, government and not-for-profit sectors.