Date: Saturday November 5, 2022 9am-1 pm Cost: $50
Total PD hours: 4 hours Location: Online Presenters: Heather Bartholomew & Debbie Thompson 

Description: This workshop will provide ECE strategies to support children in peer interactions across preschool routines & environments. Participants will learn how, who & when to provide support with peer interactions.
Facilitators will share tools & strategies for ECE’s to use to create positive, capable & cooperative peers to be successful in pre-school setting
The objectives for this workshop 1) ECE’s will learn how to identify children who needs extra support in positive peer interactions. 2) Participants will come away with a repertoire of peer activities, suggestions to support positive peer inter-actions 3) Participants will discuss critical social skills & learn steps of teaching these skills to support peer acceptance & the development of friendships.

Presenter Biographies: Heather Bartholomew graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Arts (Child & Youth Study) & in the twenty plus years since then, has been working with preschoolers. Additionally, she has recently begun working part-time with adults with developmental delays, giving her a broader, across the lifespan perspective on supporting di-verse individuals at any age. She has worked as an Early Childhood Educator, one-to-one support staff & as a resource teacher. For five years, she served as Resource Teacher at the Mount’s Child Study Centre, supporting children with identified special needs &, in particular, delivering programming to students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Heather has worked as a Program Implementer in Halifax’s Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention program for the past seventeen years. She has developed & facilitated workshops on a variety of topics, most frequently relating to Inclusion. Heather is passionate about facilitating positive inclusion experiences & finding effective & efficient strategies to sup-port individual & classroom-wide learning.

Debbie Thompson is a graduate from Mount Saint Vincent University with the Degree in Child & Youth. Debbie started her journey in ECE at Wee Care Developmental centre working as a Developmental teacher in an integrated setting. It was there that she knew she wanted to focus her attention on working with children with special needs. Debbie also developed the Resource position at Wee Care & was responsible for developing & implementing plans for children with special needs. Debbie now works at the IWK as a Program Implementer for the Early Intensive Behaviour Intervention program (EIBI) working with children with Autism. Through her job at the IWK she continues to work closely with preschool teachers consulting & providing feedback in various programs. Debbie also teaches regularly at Nova Scotia College of Early Childhood Education & Mount Saint Vincent University on various topics including challenging behaviour & Inclusion.