Center for Early Childhood Wellbeing
The Center for Early Childhood Wellbeing (CECW) supports research, education, and public transfer of knowledge in service to early childhood practices that promote positive life outcomes and wellbeing. The founding philosophy of the CECW is that a just, healthy and productive society is vitally dependent upon the ability of all children to develop their whole capacities.
We seek grant donors who are willing to invest in the generation and application of knowledge that promotes economic, social, and cognitive wellbeing in early childhood.
Faculty Research
The Center supports faculty research from multiple disciplines committed to:
- Promoting equal childhoods
- Improving early childhood education through evidence-based programming
- Advancing knowledge of early childhood social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development and
- Informing and implementing public policy and discourse.
Enchanted Garden: An Early Childhood Summer Camp
The CECW supports the Enchanted Garden, an early childhood summer camp for children ages 3 ½ to 5 years. Our summer program supports the wellbeing of children in our community through an evidence-based daily rhythm that invokes the social and emotional capacities of young children.
We seek grant funding to extend camp participation to children in low-income families. The summer program also serves as a faculty research site for gathering and applying vital data on contemporary childhoods, parental perceptions and practices, education, and development.
Undergraduate Student Involvement
The Center offers opportunities for student involvement. Undergraduate students will have the opportunity to work closely with faculty to:
- assist in designing and implementing creative, evidence-based early childhood summer camp curriculum that is developmentally appropriate and that supports social and emotional wellbeing.
- develop skills to reflect upon and assess camp activities.
- assist with grant writing.
- assist with research design, data collection and analysis.
In the Classroom & Beyond
The Center supports the preparation of our undergraduate students to be leaders in promoting childhood wellbeing. Through classroom and experiential learning, students are prepared to utilize science-based knowledge and practices that promote positive outcomes amongst children in their careers and communities.
Social Policy and Public Discourse
The Centers promotes policies that equalize and enhance childhood health and wellbeing through relationships with community partners, ongoing education of social workers, and other forms of knowledge transfer.
Director
Dr. Nazneen Kane, Assistant Professor of Sociology, is the current and founding director of the CECW. Her current research examines the ways in which social, economic, and cultural influences shape early childhood educational programming.
Dr. Kane is interested in the rise of educational pressures amongst U.S. preschoolers, the social class and race disparities amongst America’s preschoolers and in the decline of early childhood programs that support social and emotional development.