Conferences & Institutes

Infancy Institute

This early childhood conference focuses on the care of infants through four-year-olds. Each year workshops focus on curriculum, infant and toddler development, challenging behaviors, working with families, and emotionally responsive practice highlighting cutting-edge developments in research, relationship-based practice, and family-centered care. The institute, founded in 1987, has educated thousands of infant/toddler specialists from around the world. We welcome caregivers, teachers, directors, trainers, home visitors, parents, early interventionists, developmental specialists, social workers, family childcare providers, and all who support young children in a variety of settings.

2023 Conference
Relationships that Heal: Choosing Connection over Control

Online
June 20 from 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM ET
June 21 from 12:00 PM – 6:30 PM ET
June 22 from 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM ET
Post-Conference Session (On campus; additional registration required) June 23, 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM ET

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2023 Keynote Speaker: Deidre Quinlan

Attending to Attachment in Early Care: The Circle of Security

Because babies are hard-wired to be social creatures, it is literally unbearable for a human being to not feel connected to others in some way. We all learn behavior strategies to help us feel a connection with others and to protect ourselves from isolation. In this presentation, participants will explore through the lens of the Circle of Security® how behaviors feel from the inside—not just how they look from the outside—so that we can better understand how our own feelings and behaviors impact our relationships with children and how children depend on relationships with adults to grow and develop.

2023 Featured Presentation: Soyoung Park

Letting Go of Control to Build Radical Communities of Care with Young Children

In this talk, we will explore what it means to create communities of care when we live and work in an unjust society that pushes us towards control. Through stories of children, families, and educators, we will consider how letting go of control can be liberating for both children and adults. This talk will offer us an opportunity to collectively reimagine institutions that aim to fix, control, and manage young children and families who are too often othered in our social systems. Through this collective reimagining, we will also reflect on our own personal responses to behaviors that challenge us. In so doing, we will begin a process of reframing, where fear becomes curiosity, perceived deficit becomes genius, and a desire to control becomes a desire to connect.

History of the Infancy Institute

In 1987, Faculty and Graduate Students of the Bank Street Infant & Family Development and Early Intervention Program recognized the lack of professional development designed specifically to improve the practice of those working with infants and toddlers. The Infancy Institute was the answer to that interdisciplinary need in the many settings where infants, toddlers, and families interact with professionals. Highlighting cutting-edge research, development, relationship-based practice, and family-centered care, the institute has educated thousands of infant/toddler specialists from around the world.