PLEASE NOTE: THIS EVENT IS A TUESDAY AND NOT OUR REGULAR THURSDAY MEETING SPEAKER: Dr. Julie Petrie is a Developmental Clinical Consultant in the Psychology Department at BC’s Children’s & Women’s Hospitals. In the Neonatal Follow-up Program, she provides psychological assessment and consultation to families of ‘high-risk’ children recruited at birth from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Julie also participates in research follow-up studies. She is particularly interested in the early detection of markers of brain integrity. In children born very prematurely, she has found infant focused attention is related to developing cognition and executive functions. Julie is also interested in how parent stress and parent-child interactions affect children’s neuro-development. TOPIC: > Julie will present an overview of the common cognitive, learning and behavioural outcomes of children born very prematurely. She will provide an overview of the brain mechanisms as well as the behavioral and physical developments that underlie these outcomes. This will be followed by a group discussion about the potential for parent-child factors and early interventions to change the developmental trajectories of these...

Speaker: Emily Mlieczko is a certified Early Childhood Educator and has been in the field for over 20 years with certification in both Special Needs and First Nations Perspectives in Early Childhood Settings. Throughout her career she has been engaged at the community and provincial level in a number of different projects and events highlighting the specialty of the ECE sector. Topic: The importance of Early Childhood Education on mental health of young children. In this presentation, Emily will outline the role of the Early Childhood Educators of BC and Early Childhood Educators in promoting mental health and wellness in young children and their...