2026 Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Early Years Conference

Inclusion: Reflecting on Progress & Shaping the Future

🌿 Conference Focus

In 2025, we gathered in response to a pressing and urgent reality: children and families continue to experience exclusion in our early childhood spaces. That gathering marked a turning point—one that called us to rethink our practices, disrupt deficit discourses, and renew our commitment to inclusion and belonging.

One year later, we return with important questions:

  • › Where are we now?
  • › What have we done with what we learned?
  • › How have we moved from reflection to action?
  • › What has shifted—in our classrooms, programs, communities, and hearts?

The 2026 Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Early Years Conference invites early childhood educators, school-age providers, scholars, practitioners, and policy influencers to come together once again—not only to share knowledge, but to critically reflect on how inclusion is being lived out in practice.

This year’s conference is more than a continuation. It is an invitation to accountability—to revisit our commitments to children, families, community, and lifelong learning.

🌈 Core Values

1. Educating for the Rights of Children

We highlight inclusive pedagogies that honour every child’s right to participate, engage, and contribute in ways that are meaningful to them. Children are recognized as citizens and contributors in their communities.

2. An Ethics of Care

“Educators build responsive relationships with children, families, and communities through an ethics of care that is democratic, inclusive, and joyful” (ECEBC, 2022). This includes welcoming the Other, noticing with intention, and “listening with the recognition of the unknowability and unpredictability of human relations.” (Langford & Richardson, 2020)

3. Belonging & Embracing Complexity

Every child has the right to a felt sense of belonging. We honour the complex, sometimes ambiguous work educators do as they hold space for the diverse experiences, identities, and needs of children and families.

4. Educating for Social Justice

We commit to pedagogies that challenge and dismantle systems of colonization, racism, classism, ableism, and heteropatriarchy within our relationships, institutions, and practices of care.

5. Modeling Inquiry

We explore inquiry rooted in place, community, and Indigenous perspectives—recognizing multiple ways of knowing, being, and understanding.

6. Embracing Diversity

We ensure the conference is inclusive, respectful, and accessible for all people, abilities, and perspectives, while striving for sustainable event practices.

🎯 Conference Goals

  1. Model inclusive pedagogies using highly interactive, experiential, responsive, and relational practices.
  2. Share success stories and emerging approaches aligned with the BC Early Learning Framework and the Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework.
  3. Support the evolving work of educators and partners in co-developing inclusive, relational policy and practice across early learning and care settings.
  4. Strengthen a Sea-to-Sky network of relational and inclusive pedagogical leaders, including:
    • Early childhood educators
    • Families
    • Elementary teachers
    • Therapists
    • Support workers
    • Organizations and community partners
  5. Contribute to professionalization by offering local opportunities that support educators’ pedagogical commitments and lifelong learning.

🧭 About Us

The Sea to Sky Early Years Conference (formerly the PCFI ECD Conference: Play–Learn–Love) began in 2005 with support from Children First (MCFD) and Success by 6 (United Way of the Lower Mainland).

For many years, the conference ran as a 2-day annual event providing workshops for:

  • ★ Early childhood educators
  • ★ Elementary teachers
  • ★ Supported Child Development teams
  • ★ Parents and caregivers

During the pandemic, the conference shifted to virtual one-day sessions. In 2026, we continue rebuilding a dynamic, community-rooted gathering for the early years sector.

👥 2026 Conference Planning Team

  • ★ Julia Black – Early Childhood Care & Education Program, Capilano University
  • ★ Lisa McIntosh – Child Care Resource & Referral Coordinator
  • ★ Amielle Aubry-Lafrance – Child Care Resource & Referral Consultant
  • ★ Julie Van Eesteren – Family Resource Services Manager, Sea to Sky Community Services
  • ★ Samantha Johnson – Supported Child Development Coordinator
  • ★ Vanessa Proc – Childcare Coordinator, Sea to Sky Community Services
  • ★ Carmen Hartle – Ayas Lam Family Program House Manager & Early Intervention Services, Squamish Nation
  • ★ Cheryl Simpson – Manager of Child Care, Sea to Sky Community Services
  • ★ Chelsie Brubacher – Director of Service Delivery, Sea to Sky Community Services
  • ★ Ruby Bhangoo – Early Years Coordinator, Sea to Sky Community Services
  • ★ Alyssa Morris – Manager of Child & Youth Development, Sea to Sky Community Services
  • ★ Heather Androsoff - District Vice Principal, Early Learning & Child Care, School District 48 (Sea to Sky)

Interested in becoming a sponsoring leader?
Contact us for sponsorship opportunities.