CECER Presents: Preparing Future Rural Early Childhood Educators and Early Interventionists

Presented by The Centre for Early Childhood Education and Research (CECER)
Wednesday, October 27, 2021 | 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. PDT | Via Zoom
Presenters: Dr. Silvia Vilches, Dr. Mari Pighini, Mary Stewart, Dr. Beth McDaniel, and Verena Rossa-Roccor

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Rural regions of Canada and the US struggle to provide adequate early childhood supports for children with developmental delay and/or disability. However, there are few guidelines to help prepare future rural practitioners/educators working as early childhood educators (ECE) and early interventionists (EI). In this presentation, we share the process and results of a scoping review where we explored the characteristics of early childhood education and early intervention practice in rural settings, using a strengths-based approach. Findings of 56 screened-in items indicate that rural educators (ECE and EI) are most satisfied when they feel effective, which can be supported with additional time for family engagement, by being their whole authentic selves, and by understanding the meaning of local rural culture. We uncovered how cultural/racial inclusion, equity issues, travel, and distance barriers were under-studied. We identified limitations, including the broad use of the search term “early intervention,” a paucity of field-based ECE/EI studies and regional funding sources that fracture disciplinary coherence, while recommendations focus on the need to highlight the unique multi-disciplinary and multi-jurisdictional nature of rural early childhood and early intervention practice.