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For three years now, the planning team for the Oakland Early Learning Symposium has come together to create meaningful opportunities for early learning professionals to explore best practices and learn in community. This year, we wanted to continue to support best practices, while also recognizing the unique circumstances of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.  At the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, preschool teachers and early childhood education (ECE) providers attending our “Let’s Talk Early Learning” informal Zoom event shared that they were seeing more behavioral challenges than usual as children returned to care and school or started in new ECE settings. Given the weight of these challenges, the planning team wanted to provide Oakland early learning professionals with resources and tools in a way that would be both fun and practical.
The planning team chose the topic of “Fostering Early Social-Emotional Learning through Books” for the first symposium event in November. Through a partnership with Tandem, Partners in Early Learning, we provided all symposium attendees with the opportunity to pick up a bag of children’s books, such as Jabari Jumps and Homemade Love, related to social-emotional learning.  Participants from Part IV reflected on the year in the above word cloud. The planning team for the Oakland Early Learning Symposium faced the challenge of 2020-21 similarly to everyone else, by moving one step at a time and doing our best to respond to the needs of those we serve. The result was a series of four online events over the 2020-2021 school year entitled, “Navigating the New Now: Child Care During COVID-19.
Background on the Early Learning Symposium
The Early Learning Symposium was born out of a collaborative effort that included OUSD, Oakland Literacy Coalition, Oakland Starting Smart and Strong, BANANAS, City of Oakland Head Start/Early Head Start, Alameda County Office of Education, First 5 Alameda County, YMCA of the East Bay, St. Vincent's Day Home, and the New Teacher Center. The inaugural event in 2019 resulted in 350 participants attending. The diversity of participants included teachers, instructional assistants and directors from Head Start and state funded programs, family child care providers, and informal care providers. More detail on the 2019 event here.  Photo by Maryam Salassi At the Oakland Early Learning Symposium workshop held on February 27, direct service staff from community based organizations provided up to date information on how child care providers and preschool teachers can refer families to everything from mental health consultations to free diapers, right in their own neighborhood. One participant commented, “the symposium was great, and a perfect opportunity to learn about resources that are available to families who need support during these challenging times.” Watch the video recording of the workshop.
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