Tuesday, January 19, 2016 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205

Jed Elison, Assistant Professor, Institute of Child Development, UMN

Jed Elison, an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Child Development and a faculty member of the Center for Neurobehavioral Development, is a leader in the search for earlier indicators of behavioral development. Elison’s research is making huge gains in characterizing brain-growth trajectories in children between 3 and 24 months, an age when the foundation is laid for subsequent social and cognitive development. This past summer he won a grant of $2.45 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to study brain and behavioral development during this critical period of development.

A primary focus of his on-going research is the examination of basic developmental processes that contribute to individual differences in social communication during the infant and toddler period. Additional research interests include developmental social neuroscience, structural brain development and social cognition, visual attention, joint attention, eye tracking, MRI, DWI, and autism.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205

Katy Kozhimannil and Carrie Henning-Smith, School of Public Health, UMN

This talk will focus on rural/urban differences that impact women, children, and families early in the life course. In particular, we'll address rural/urban differences in the quality of obstetric care, predictors of obstetric unit closures in rural areas, and rural/urban differences in access to child care. For each study, we'll discuss real-world implications for families in rural communities, including the role of policy, access to care, and rural health workforce issues.

Dr. Kozhimannil is an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management, University of Minnesota School of Public Health and an Investigator at the Rural Health Research Center. Dr. Kozhimannil's work applies the tools of public policy analysis and health services research in the context of women’s and children’s health, primarily using administrative and survey data to characterize patterns of care and to examine the impacts of policies and interventions. Prior to starting her research career, Dr. Kozhimannil worked on HIV/AIDS prevention and policy as well as education and youth development both domestically and abroad.

Dr. Henning-Smith is a Research Associate at the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center. Her work primarily focuses on policy issues that impact quality of life and quality care for older adults and individuals with disabilities. She also conducts research on the social determinants of health, access to care, and health disparities. Before coming to the University of Minnesota, Dr. Henning-Smith worked in community organizing, policy advocacy, and social services.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205

Mark Vagle, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, UMN

This Brown Bag will focus on 5 Principles for Social Class-Sensitive Change (Jones & Vagle, 2013; Vagle & Jones, 2012) and how these principles are being put to use in theoretical, methodological, and practical ways in communities, schools, and classrooms. Poverty, as a social phenomenon, will be re-considered as a symptom of social, political, and economic histories, commitments, systems, and policies rather than the “problem”. Drawing on findings from studies of social class, the seminar will address practical implications for educational systems, structures, policies, and practices.

Mark Vagle is an Associate Professor and Associate Department Chair of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education and Human Development. His expertise in the field of education include experience as a former teacher (elementary and secondary), middle school administrator, and an award-winning instructor.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205

Catherine Wright, Early Childhood Mental Health System Coordinator, Mental Health Division, MN Department of Human Services

Catherine Wright’s presentation will focus on a study to better understand the parenting needs of parents with serious mental illness who were parenting preschoolers.  It was funded by the State and has served to help increase the dialogue across child and adult serving systems.  It has also led to changes in some policies in the mental health division around two generational approaches.

Catherine is a licensed professional clinical counselor (LPCC) and the Early Childhood Mental Health System Coordinator within the Mental Health Division of the Department of Human Services for the State of Minnesota.  She has a doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of St. Thomas and over 20 years of experience providing direct children’s mental health services and managing children’s mental health programs and systems.  Catherine is interested in developing an evidenced based treatment for parents with serious mental illness who are parenting their young children.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016 - 12:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Presented by Arthur Reynolds, University of Minnesota, and the Midwest CPC Team

Comments/reflections:

St Paul Public Schools - Kate Wilcox-Harris, Lori Erikson & Team

Rochester Public Schools/Families First of Minnesota-Head Start - Peggy O’Toole,Sandy Simar

Minnesota Department of Education, P3 Initiatives - Bobbie Burnham

Minnesota Department of Education, P3 Professional Development - Mike Brown

Minnesota Head Start Association - Gayle Kelly

This event released and profiled the new implementation system and manual for the CPC Preschool to 3rd Grade School Reform Model.  As a nationally renowned model for promoting early childhood development in the first decade, the CPC program simultaneously addresses the school readiness and early achievement gaps through 6 core program elements.  These are Collaborative Leadership, Effective Learning Experiences, Aligned Curriculum, Parent Involvement and Engagement, Professional Development, and Continuity and Stability.

Updates from the Midwest CPC expansion in the Saint Paul Public Schools, Rochester and other districts were highlighted. Resources were  shared to promote P-3 development, alignment, progress monitoring, professional development, and implementation in districts and communities. Financing options including Pay-for-Success initiatives were discussed.

Thursday, September 15, 2016 - 9:00am to 10:30am

Humphrey School of Public Affairs - Room 205

An International Perspective, by Costas Meghir Yale University, Department of Economics

Costas Meghir is the “Douglas A. Warner III” Professor of Economics and a co-director of the Cowles foundation structural microeconomics program at Yale University. He is an International Research Affiliate at the IFS and a visiting Professor at UCL. Having graduated from Manchester University with a Ph.D., he worked at University College London becoming a Full Professor and the Head of Department. He is Fellow of the Econometric Society, Fellow of the British Academy, and Fellow of the Society for Labor Economics. He has been co-editor of Econometrica and joint managing editor of the Economic Journal. He has published in leading journals including Econometrica, the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies and the Journal of Political Economy. Costas Meghir teaches Labor Economics and Econometrics to graduates and undergraduates at Yale.

His research spans a broad set of fields, including household behavior and human capital formation. His main research efforts are currently focused on Early Childhood Development and the design of scalable policies improving child outcomes. He has been involved in the design and evaluation of an ECD intervention based on home visiting and in a subsequent center based program promoting early cognitive development in Colombia. Currently he is directing an NIH and World Bank funded project in Odisha (India), testing alternative forms of delivery (home visiting and group) for stimulation and nutritional interventions aiming at improved cognitive and health outcomes that are both cost-effective to implement and produce sustainable longer-run improvements.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, room 205

Elizabeth Davis, Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota

Co-investigators: Won F. Lee and Aaron Sojourner

Dr. Elizabeth (“Liz”) Davis is a Professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota, where she is engaged in graduate and undergraduate education and research focused on economics and public policy related to low-income families and young children. Her current research focuses on how the child care subsidy program influences mother’s employment, child care choices and quality of care.

Recent policy initiatives in Minnesota, including expansion of the Parent Aware Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) and funding for early learning scholarships, are intended to improve access to high quality early care and education (ECE), particularly for children in low-income families. In this study we develop new measures of access that combine information on the spatial locations of providers and families, prices, and quality ratings to measure the cost-quality tradeoffs families face when choosing care arrangements for young children. We use these measures to describe the characteristics of locations with high costs of access and analyze how ECE policies and funding may change families’ access to high quality care.

Thursday, October 6, 2016 - 8:00am

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Fall, 2016

On October 6, 2016, the Center for Indian Country Development (CICD) convened thought leaders and practitioners from across the country to put their heads together around Early Childhood Development in Indian Country.  Strategy Circles produced valuable insights into best practices, language immersion, mental health, policy advocacy, healing historical trauma, parental engagement, funding streams, and much more.  Summaries of this important work are available at link below.

See event information.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs - Room 205

Amy Susman-Stillman, Center for Education and Early Development, University of Minnesota

Integrating the arts into everyday activities is part of best practices in early childhood education. States are developing early learning standards of skills for young children which are fostered through theatre arts activities, including critical skills such as listening, speaking, imagining, inventing, creating and critically responding.  An intentional emphasis on integrating theatre arts into early childhood education is emerging, providing promising opportunities to engage early learners, increase their school readiness skills, and decrease the seemingly intractable achievement gap. This presentation will describe a program of work to create and measure the benefits of theatre arts programming for young children’s school readiness.

Amy Susman-Stillman, Ph.D., is Director of Applied Research and Training at the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED), University of Minnesota. Dr. Susman-Stillman’s interests focus on promoting strategies to improve the quality of early care and education, meeting the diverse needs of the early care and education workforce, and enhancing the impact of assessment in the field.  For the last 7 years, she has been working with the Children's Theatre Company to evaluate Early Bridges, their preschool theatre arts outreach program, and develop new ways to assess preschool children's theatre arts skills.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Room 205

Megan Gunnar, Institute of Child Development, UMN

Regents Professor Megan R. Gunnar is the Director of the Institute of Child Development and Associate Director of the interdisciplinary Center for Neurobehavioral Development at the University of Minnesota. Professor Gunnar has spent her career studying the social regulation of stress and its lack in infants and young children. Recently, she has been studying the development of children adopted from orphanages around the world. Internationally she is a member of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s Child and Brain Development research group. Nationally, she is a member of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, a group who translates the science of child development for use by policy makers.

Dr. Gunnar will discuss the development of orphanage-adopted children whose outcomes provide information on the sequelae of starting life in some of the world’s most depriving rearing contexts, when prior to age 3, there is a shift to some of the world’s most enriching environments.