Rights & Needs of Young Children
Defending the Early Years
DEY’s Mission
approaches to learning informed by child development theory and evidence-based research.
DEY’s Primary Goals
- To advocate at the grassroots, local, state, regional, and federal levels for education policies based on child development theory and research.
- To mobilize the early childhood community to speak up for age-appropriate standards, assessments, and classroom practices that are based on research.
- To promote appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms and to support educators in counteracting policies and practices that undermine whole child health and optimal learning.
What’s New at DEY?
Our next webinar in our Reflective Practitioner Series (RPS) course, Seeing Ourselves Seeing Each Other: Nurturing Healthy Identity in the Early Years, will be on Tuesday, February 3, at 7 pm. DEY National Advisor Takiema Bunche-Smith will join DEY ED Denisha Jones to discuss strategies for affirming Black identity development in the early years! As part of the national 2026 Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, this webinar is offered free to all.
Seeing Ourselves Seeing Each Other: Nurturing Healthy Identity in the Early Years is our current Reflective Practitioner Series (RPS) course. Each month, we will discuss how to affirm a particular racial/ethnic identity in the early years. This course extends our recently published framework, Fostering Healthy Identity in Young Children: Affirming Race, Culture, and Ethnicity in the Early Years.
We are excited to share our upcoming programming, Research into Practice Book Talks. There are so many great books out there to support early childhood educators, caregivers, and families, and we want to help you read as many of them as you can!
Join us on Tuesday, February 24th, at 7 pm EST as we talk with Kirsten Cole about her new book, Teaching for Love and Justice: Learning About Race and Racism Alongside Young Children.
Kirsten Cole, Ph.D., is a teacher, researcher, and public-school parent based in Brooklyn, NY. Her research interests include anti-racist/anti-bias education, the study of teachers’ lives, and the relationships between families and teachers. She has published multiple articles and book chapters based on her research.
Did you miss January’s book talk? No worries, you can watch the recording here!
The Teach for Climate Justice Project was born in February 2025. The aims are to support educators who are teaching for climate justice, to encourage many more educators to join them in doing so, and to help build a grassroots movement to bring radical, transformative education for climate justice to millions of students, schools, and communities across the United States and beyond.
This study group will focus on Tom Roderick’s award-winning book Teach for Climate Justice: A Vision for Transforming Education. In ten sessions hosted by Tom Roderick and T4CJ co-director Elissa Teles Muñoz, we’ll wrestle with the book’s vision for education, how to teach for climate justice in ways that are developmentally appropriate for young children, and share ideas for the classroom.
Click hear to join https://www.teachforclimatejustice.org/events
Kisha and Nikki discuss her book, Brain-Based Early Learning Activities, and her journey from home-based childcare provider to Author and Director of Red Leaf Press and Think Small Institute.
Nikki Darling-Kuria is an early childhood education expert and oversees Think Small Institute and Redleaf Press. With nearly 30 years of progressive experience, she is an innovative operational leader and a creative subject-matter expert in early childhood development and learning.
The DEY Podcast with Kisha Reid is a monthly discussion-styled show featuring educators, advocates and other changemakers about their grassroots projects, innovations in education and reimagining early childhood environments. Our goal is to amplify these voices so we can all learn and work toward a more equitable and playful environment for children. Check out all episodes here.
This month’s resource is the book Beyond February: Teaching Black History Any Day, Every Day, and All Year Long, K–3 by Dawnavyn James. “Dawnavyn James believes Black history shouldn’t be relegated to the month of February. In her groundbreaking book, Beyond February: Teaching Black History Any Day, Every Day, and All Year Long, K-3, she provides a practical guide for elementary educators who seek to teach history in truthful and meaningful ways that help young students understand the past, the present, and the world around them.”
On our latest DEY Dialogue: Discussions in Defense of Childhood, Denisha talks with hosts of The Home Grown podcast, Melinda Marshall and Bethany Corrie.
Part of Early Childhood Nerdwork, The Home Grown Podcast is a place where providers come together to share the mess, the mayhem, and the magic of family child care.
Moderated by DEY Executive Director Denisha Jones, these dialogues aim to inspire and reaffirm our dedication to protecting and nurturing childhood. Join us in this important mission to defend childhood and advocate for the well-being of society’s youngest members.
Did you miss the livestream? You can catch up on all our DEY Dialogues here.
We’re thrilled to announce the release of our resource for the campaign, In Defense of ECEC: Restoring the Link Between High Quality and Child Development. This advocacy toolkit is a powerful new resource designed to equip early childhood educators, advocates, and leaders with clear, compelling messaging that links what we know about child development to what we do in practice and policy.
Click on the image to download the toolkit, and you can watch the webinar recording below.
You can also download individual pages for each topic covered in the toolkit!
DEY has released a framework to support early childhood educators, caregivers, and parents in supporting young children’s healthy racial identity development. Fostering Healthy Identity Development in Young Children: Affirming Race, Culture, and Ethnicity in the Early Years is a framework designed for early childhood educators, caregivers, and parents to understand the development of racial identity and support healthy development in the early years. Click the image to download the framework.
Click on the image to download the framework, and you can watch the introductory webinar recording below.
Also, check out the DEY 2025 BLMAS Resource List here!
Do you want to explore the toolkit and framework in more depth? Become a monthly subscriber to our Reflective Practitioner Series and access our In Defense of Quality and Fostering Healthy Identity Courses!
From KTVB7 1/30/2026 As class started for more than a dozen toddlers at Onelau’ena Emergency Shelter in Kapolei, there were…
Denisha talks with Rixa Evershed and Aidn White about applying ECEC values Equity, Truth, and Care to global challenges.
Our January resource is the book Beyond February: Teaching Black History Any Day, Every Day, and All Year Long, K–3 by Dawnavyn James. “Dawnavyn James believes Black history shouldn’t be relegated to the month of February.”
Kisha and Nikki discuss her book, Brain-Based Early Learning Activities, and her journey from home-based childcare provider to Author and Director of Red Leaf Press and Think Small Institute.
Nikki Darling-Kuria is an early childhood education expert and oversees Think Small Institute and Red Leaf Press.
Our goal was to create opportunities for those who support early childhood learning to play and learn and about playing and learning.
DEY seeks to rally parents and educators to take action on policies affecting the education of young children, by encouraging them to speak out with well-reasoned arguments against inappropriate standards, assessments, and classroom practices.
DEY provides mini-grants of between $200 and $500 to individuals and organizations to help foster work in communities across the country. DEY’s first mini-grant, awarded in 2014, resulted in a rally for play that took place in Minneapolis.
DEY
Are you concerned about the direction that education policy is going? We are, too!
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