MAAEYC brings early childhood conference back to the Berkshires

November 13, 2024

BUW helps advocate for changes to this year's conference and partners with BTCF to sponsor 46 educators to attend

For the second year, the Massachusetts Association for the Education of Young Children (MAAEYC) hosted its conference in Berkshire County, welcoming early childhood educators, caregivers and professionals from across the state back to Taconic High School. 

As MAAEYC President Cheryl Hovey opened the conference, she told the more than 200 professionals in attendance, “together we have the power to shape the future, one playful moment at a time.” 

This year’s conference focused on how to help kids heal from trauma through optimism and play, and featured Anthony “Ant” Toombs Sr., senior playmaker guide and outreach specialist for the Life is Good Playmaker Project (LiGPP). Throughout his 15 years with LiGPP, he has helped thousands of early childhood professionals create more safe, loving and joyful environments for children to engage, connect and explore. 

In March 2022, Alica Ginsberg, early childhood career pathway grant coordinator at Berkshire Community College, accompanied a handful of students to the MAAEYC Conference in Worcester. Toombs was the speaker. 

“I became determined to help bring this fantastic speaker and program to the Berkshires,” she said. Here’s why. 

“For years, and especially since COVID, I have seen teachers, directors and programs in general struggling with dysregulated behaviors from our youngest children in the community,” said Ginsberg. “Our teachers deserve to know how to support these children and create environments that are healthy and responsive to the child's needs, no matter how challenging.” 

She also acknowledged that the distance and time away from family and other responsibilities made it challenging to attend the Worcester conference. Ginsberg worked with MAAEYC to bring the conference further west, to Berkshire County, last year. It was held on a Saturday and the focus was on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, but attendance was low. 

Ginsberg, along with Katherine von Haefen, director of community impact at Berkshire United Way, and Sarah Muil, director of the Austen Riggs Nursery School – the trio working together to facilitate monthly meetings with early childhood educators – reached out to conference attendees to get their feedback. 

As a result, von Haefen, Ginsberg and Muil advocated bringing the conference back here, changing the date to a school holiday so that more educators could attend, and focusing on behavior, trauma and play. Ginsberg said Hovey was very receptive and worked out the details with Toombs and Heather Thompson, a teacher at Taconic. This year’s conference was sold out! 

BUW and Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation (BTCF) partnered to provide scholarships for 46 Berkshire educators. Each scholarship included registration plus a one-year membership to MAAEYC. Greylock Federal Credit Union sponsored an additional two educators. 

“Berkshire Taconic appreciates that so many early childhood educators were able to participate in the MAAYEC conference and we were glad to have provided some assistance from the Community Fund toward making that possible,” said Maeve O’Dea, program director at BTCF. “We look forward to continuing to partner with Berkshire United Way on other training opportunities.” 

As the largest accrediting organization for high-quality early childhood education, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) also connects educators to resources and professional development opportunities. von Haefen called NAEYC “the gold standard for early childhood education.” 

Read more about the conference from iBerkshires: Early Educators Learn Power of Play at MAAEYC Conference