Reflections on NRCEC 2022: Select Session Recordings and Poster Galleries Now Available

ACF programs aim to support the social and economic well-being of families, children, individuals, and communities. This includes investments in early childhood programs that promote economic security, health and safety, and positive developmental trajectories for vulnerable young children and their families. Federal, state, and local governments make substantial investments to deliver high quality programs to young children and their families, and there is a robust and growing body of research to inform those investments. However, many questions remain about how government programs can most effectively and efficiently support the well-being of young children and their families, particularly children and families from underserved communities and populations that have been systematically marginalized. ACF's National Research Conference on Early Childhood (NRCEC) aims to address these knowledge gaps across programs serving young children and their families.

The goals of NRCEC are to:

History and Overview Video_REVISED from Stakeholder Engagement Team on Vimeo .

• identify and disseminate research relevant to young children (birth to 8 years) and their families;
• encourage collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to build the evidence base for policy and practice; and
• foster discussion of research priorities, gaps, and needs.

NRCEC 2022  (PDF) was held virtually from June 27^th to the 29^th. Over 5300 individuals registered for the conference and nearly 2900 individuals attended. Attendees included a diverse group of academic and professional researchers, early childhood program administrators and practitioners, federal, state, and local agency staff, Training and Technical Assistance providers, and representatives from non-profit and philanthropic organizations. The NRCEC 2022 virtual venue hosted plenary and breakout symposia sessions, topically themed poster galleries , networking opportunities, discussion boards, and more.

Several key themes emerged over the course of the 3-day event about:

1. Supporting the early care and education (ECE) workforce.

Numerous sessions and posters highlighted research on workforce well-being and strategies to support workforce recruitment and retention. For example, Addressing the ECE Workforce Crisis: What Do We Know About Sustaining the Workforce? highlighted new research on workforce turnover, recruitment, retention, and job satisfaction. And Increasing ECE Compensation: Policies Promoting ECE Workforce Well-Being and the Continuity and Quality of ECE highlighted federal, state, and local efforts to finance, shape, and implement policies to increase ECE compensation and address structural racial and gender gaps. A number of sessions also highlighted strategies to build the competencies and qualifications of the early childhood workforce, including:

• Supporting a Thriving Early Childhood Home Visiting Workforce through Effective Hiring, Preparation, and Supervision ;
• Building a Diverse, Skilled, and Stable ECE Workforce through Apprenticeship Programs ; and
• State Efforts to Support the Competencies of the Infant and Toddler Workforce .

2. Building inclusive and equitable early childhood systems that support the diverse needs of all families and all members of the workforce. The opening plenary session, Addressing Historical Inequities in ECE: Strategies to Support Workforce Equity , provided a first-of-its-kind historical overview of how the roots of inequities in ECE along racial and gender lines in the U.S. are linked to workforce compensation disparities that are still felt today. This theme was echoed in Welcome Remarks from Katie Hamm, ACF’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood and Acting Director of the Office of Head Start, who commented on the need to address systematic inequities in our early childhood systems and highlighted the history of racial wage and opportunity gaps for early educators. Scaling Quality and Equity in Mixed Delivery Public Preschool Systems: What We Know When Rubber Hits the Road (State of the Field Synthesis Session) explored systematic inequities in public preschool mixed-delivery systems. The closing plenary session, Creating a System of Care for Infants and Toddlers — A Discussion with State Leaders , highlighted what the most rigorous evidence to-date says about effective state level policies that create both the conditions in which children thrive and equitable systems of care.
3. COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery.

The session Child Care in Crisis: How a Pandemic Exposed our Inadequate Care Infrastructure, Affecting Parents, Children, and the Early Childhood Workforce highlighted how the pandemic stressed the vulnerable child care system and led to unprecedented enrollment declines, program closures, and staffing shortages. The session highlighted impacts of the pandemic on the well-being of families and early educators and highlighted potential policy solutions to support recovery. Welcome Remarks from Ruth Friedman, Director of ACF’s Office of Child Care, highlighted federal funding streams that have sought to stabilize childcare programs and support families’ access to care through the pandemic. Several sessions also highlighted lessons learned from the pandemic that may inform service delivery moving forward, including Competency-Focused Virtual Professional Development and Lessons Learned from COVID-19 , which examined modifications to professional development made during the pandemic that may remain useful post-pandemic.

Select NRCEC 2022 session recordings and access to the poster galleries are now available at www.nrcec.net . We encourage you to explore the content and share your thoughts and reactions on social media using #NRCEC2022.

We look forward to seeing you at NRCEC 2024!