Earn CEUs from ZERO TO THREE
ZERO TO THREE is pleased to offer free Continuing Education Units for a variety of learning events and early childhood professional development.
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Schedule: Pre-Conference Programming
Pre-Conference Programming for the 2026 LEARN Conference
Serious about making a difference and growing your career?
We have just the thing.
Our Pre-Conference Programming provides you with the space and time to roll up your sleeves, dig a little deeper and LEARN alongside an intimate cohort of your peers.
Pre-Conference forums are available as an add-on on Page 2 of the registration process. Questions? Email us!
Explore options to enrich your journey with tailored sessions designed for early childhood professionals seeking advanced development opportunities and impactful strategies to immediately apply to your practice.
Pre-Conference Forums
Explore these two opportunities to enhance leadership skills and build collaborative relationships while learning from some of the best and brightest leaders in the early childhood field.
Pre-Conference Forums include a networking lunch and .5 CEUs/5 Contact Hours. (Price: $245)
Honoring Voices to Drive Change: Turning Lived Experience into Action
Join us for this engaging forum to learn how lived experience can support systems change
Families and frontline staff understand what communities need. But their voices are not always included in program and policy decisions. What would shift if lived experience truly shaped your work?
In this forum, you will learn practical and ethical strategies for gathering and applying lived experience to strengthen decision-making, build trust, and support more responsive systems. Grounded in ZERO TO THREE’s theory of change, this session offers real-world examples and concrete tools you can use right away to create more responsive programs and systems.
Learner Objectives: As a result of participating in this forum, learners will be able to…
- Identify at least two ethical practices for gathering lived experience from families and frontline staff.
Distinguish between meaningful partnership and token consultation in early childhood systems. - Apply an Honoring Voices approach to integrate lived experience into program improvement or policy decision-making.
Faculty:
Evandra Catherine, PhD, IMH-E®, Research Professor, Local Evaluation Partner – Educare Arizona, Children’s Equity Project, Arizona State University
Digital Decisions: How Technology Is Reshaping Early Childhood and Family Support
Explore how new technology shapes early relationships and early education settings
Technology and emerging AI tools are already shaping how families seek advice, make caregiving decisions and connect with their children. They are also changing how professionals deliver services, set boundaries and navigate ethical questions. The real question is not whether these tools matter. It is how we respond.
In this interactive forum, you will explore how digital tools, social media and emerging AI platforms are influencing parent-child relationships, caregiving practices and professional roles. Grounded in research and real-world examples, this session will examine both the opportunities and the risks, from digital distraction and “techno-interference” to the growing influence of online guidance in family decision-making.
You will leave with practical strategies to navigate technology and AI with clarity and confidence. You will be better prepared to strengthen relationship-centered practice and respond thoughtfully within your program, community, and cultural context.
Learner Objectives: As a result of participating in this forum, learners will be able to…
- Identify at least two ways digital technology and AI can influence parent-child relationships and early childhood development.
- Select strategies to respond thoughtfully to families’ use of online guidance and AI tools, including boundaries and ethics.
- Recognize how cultural and community contexts shape families’ experiences with digital advice and technology.
Faculty:
Jenny Radesky, MD, David G. Dickinson Collegiate Professor of Pediatrics, Division Director, Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School; Co-Medical Director, AAP Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health
Julie LeMoine, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry; Faculty Lead, AI & XR – Ed, Director AI-XR HEALS Lab, iCELS; Member, Digital Medicine Project, Dept of Medicine, UMass Chan Medical School
Transformational Play in Child-Parent Psychotherapy
Join us to examine clinical treatment as it unfolds and consider how catalytic play in Child-Parent Psychotherapy supports family transformation.
Rarely do we have the opportunity to come together and observe a clinical treatment as it unfolds. In this session, participants will engage in deep dialogue while reviewing eight clinical sessions and reflecting together on how catalytic play is used in Child-Parent Psychotherapy as a therapeutic modality to support a family in transforming their experiences.
We will also consider how work like this can be transformative not only for the family, but for the clinician and even the field itself—challenging aspects of what we were taught in graduate school and inviting a ripple of change across systems to become more responsive to the needs of young children who have experienced early danger.
During this session we will explore the following:
- Clinical microinterventions that catalyze dialogue between caregiver and child, strengthen the connection between affect and experience, and help families metabolize and share experiences of past danger through symbolic play
- Archetypal play scenarios and core CPP concepts that help us better understand symbolic play
- The evolution of play scenarios across sessions
- Ways that the CPP fidelity framework guides intervention
- Play as a port of entry to the caregiver’s past and to ghosts in the nursery work
Faculty:
Chandra Ghosh Ippen, PhD, Child Trauma Research Program at University of California, San Francisco & ZERO TO THREE Board of Directors, Katie Stone, PhD, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Clinical Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Minnesota Medical School
Showing Up in Challenging Times: Trust, Boundaries, and Compassion in Pediatric Care
(Limited to HealthySteps Affiliates)
Join us for this timely symposium to explore how pediatric teams can support families while caring for themselves
Caring for babies and toddlers has always been demanding, and many families are now facing increased and compounding pressures. At the same time, pediatric professionals are navigating growing stress, shifting expectations, and challenges to trust in health care systems.
What does it look like to support families in this environment while also protecting your own well-being? Where are the boundaries of your role, and how can you partner with others to strengthen support?
In this HealthySteps Symposium, designed for the HealthySteps network and partners , presenters will share practical strategies to help teams respond with clarity and compassion. This session offers real-world tools to support families, strengthen trust, and sustain your team’s capacity to do this work.
Learner Objectives: As a result of participating in this symposium, learners will be able to…
Identify strategies to support families experiencing heightened stress, including those impacted by fear of deportation
Apply approaches to build and maintain trust with caregivers amid challenges to medical expertise and vaccine hesitancy
Recognize ways to support pediatric teams facing increased stress and mental load
Practice compassionate boundary-setting to balance what can be controlled with what cannot
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LEARN: Early Childhood Professional Development
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