‘Building the brain – what has love got to do with it?’
What About The Children? 2014 Conference
Thursday 13th March
at
The Royal Overseas League, London SW1A 1LR
Delegate fee £70 (includes coffee and lunch)
Are you interested in how the first three years of life shape a child’s future forever and how you can influence that for good?
Then come to our conference where key speakers from the sector will talk about the importance of a child’s early relationships and how they underpin physical, mental and emotional health
To book a place at the conference and for more information click here,
Confirmed speakers
Sally Goddard Blythe MSc – the International Director of The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology and author of a number of books on child development.
June O'Sullivan MBE – Chief Executive of the UK's leading childcare charity and social enterprise. A qualified Psychiatric Nurse and Social Worker June is passionate about children's wellbeing and being given the best start in life.
Early Childhood Development is in the News.
The importance of the work of What About The Children? was confirmed recently at a reception held at the House of Commons hosted by UNICEF, in coordination with the University of Northampton (UK) to launch a new work, the Handbook Of Early Childhood Development Research And Its Impact On Global Policy.
The Handbook pulls together international research on Early Childhood Development (ECD), and presents evidence on how to address the developmental needs of young children globally, including the most vulnerable. The co-author of the handbook Dr Pia Rebello Britto, global head of ECD for UNICEF, said that
the importance of early childhood development is unquestionable ........early childhood development is at the heart of the new post-2015 development framework with targets that promise all children care, support and services which work together for the best start in life.
What About The Children? was established in 1993 with aims that echo those expressed by UNICEF. We have argued that the first three years of life, especially the quality of the infant/mother bond shapes a child’s future out of all proportion to the rest of childhood. Since 1993 the charity, through it’s conferences and publication of research summaries, has worked to promote better public understanding about the critical nature of development in the first 30 to 36 months.
To view the full catalogue of What About The Children? research summaries which includes some of those quoted in the ‘Handbook of Early Childhood Development Research and Its Impact on Global Policy’, click here.
Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development (Eds) Narvaez, D., Panksepp, J., Schore, A.N. and Gleason, T.R. (2013)ISBN: 978-0-19-9755505-9) is another new ground breaking publication about research into early childhood development.
Click here to read the review written by Dr Carole Ulanowsky
The outcomes of a current departure in advanced western societies from what have been broadly considered to be optimal environments for early care are explored in considerable detail. Through their extensive research, writers from a range of scientific disciplines attempt to unpick the causal reasons for an increasing incidence of social and psychological dysfunction in children, evidenced in westernised, post industrial societies. What is strongly indicated is that in our ‘advanced’ cultural settings, care practices have, in several ways, lost touch with the primary needs of evolving human beings. – Ulanowsky C. 2013