Enhancing Early Learning Environments to Successfully Include Young Children with Disabilities ECHO

Program goal

The goal of this ECHO is for participants to learn how to meet the needs of young children with disabilities and explore strategies to support inclusive, welcoming early care and education (ECE) spaces.

About the Enhancing Early Learning Environments to Successfully Include Young Children with Disabilities ECHO

Research shows that all children, especially children with disabilities, thrive when they have access to high-quality, inclusive early learning environments with their peers. Inclusion is not just a setting or place, but it also considers the practices used in these settings to ensure full inclusion of children with disabilities. The goal of this ECHO is for participants to learn how to meet the needs of young children with disabilities and explore strategies to support inclusive, welcoming early care and education (ECE) spaces.

In this training, attendees will:

• Engage with other early childhood professionals in an all teach, all learn model which provides a space for participants to share their experience and expertise.
• Learn from diverse perspectives and engage with early childhood special education policy experts.
• Explore how to implement effective practices that are dynamic and individualized to reflect children's strengths, preferences, learning styles, and cultures. 
• Develop goals for creating an inclusive learning environment that fosters children's growth and development, particularly for young children with disabilities.

Who should attend?

Participants may register as an individual, but we highly encourage teams of 2-5 to register from the same program. Early childhood professionals who work in ECE settings with children ages birth to five, early intervention, early childhood special education, workforce professional development, and home-based programs, including but not limited to:

• Infant, toddler, preschool, and early childhood special education teachers in child care or school-based settings
• Head Start and Early Head Start teachers, coaches, education specialists or supervisors
• EI/ECSE providers such as DSIs, service coordinators, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, and occupational therapists
• ECE coaches, inclusion and mental health specialists, and other ECE technical assistance providers
• Leaders and staff from state agencies that administer ECE services and other community collaborators

Meet our team

• Dr. Evandra Catherine
• Dr. Eric Bucher
• Dr. Xigrid Soto-Boykin
• Dr. Darielle Blevins
• Lisa Gordon
• Dr. Tunette Powell
• Dr. Brittany Alexander

Program schedule

Eight virtual sessions taking place on the second Tuesday of each month, beginning Oct. 10, 2023, until May 14, 2024, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. MST.

Community partners