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?
In April, we begin our new course, Foundations of Whole Child Care & Education, with Kisha Reid. Each month, Kisha will delve into practices that foster holistic development, support children’s autonomy, and equip early educators with the language, practices, and understanding of how to develop affirming communities for children and families.
For $8 a month, RPS subscribers get access to the live webinar, recording, reflective workbook, and resources!
Our next Research into Practice Book Talk is on Thursday, March 26th, at 7 pm EDT. Join DEY ED as she talks with DEY National Advisor Heather Bernt-Santy about her new book, Using Schema Play Theory to Advocate for Free Play in Early Childhood.
Heather Bernt-Santy, MAEd, is the author of Using Schema Play Theory to Advocate for Free Play in Early Childhood and has spent more than 35 years living her commitment to children, their families, and the educators who support them. Many know Heather as the host of the popular early care and education podcast That Early Childhood Nerd, where she explores big ideas with curiosity, humor, and heart.
Did you miss February’s book talk with Kirsten Cole on her book Teaching for Love and Justice: Learning About Race and Racism Alongside Young Children? Click below to watch the recording.
Kisha Reid talks with Alison Bomba about her work as an experienced child and adolescent psychologist. She focuses on Nature Play as a tool to support her work.
Dr. Alison Bomba is a psychologist, author, speaker, consultant, and community volunteer. She owns and operates a specialty private practice in Downtown Frederick, providing grief therapy as well as exposure-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to treat anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder in children, teens, and young adults.
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.
Our March Diversity Is Not Divisive Resource is Embrace Race. They “help parents, caregivers, and educators raise children who are thoughtful, informed, and brave about race, especially in the birth through middle school years”. Their website includes action guides, toolkits, webinars, and more! Also, check out their fellowships!
Save the date for our next two DEY Dialogues!
On Tuesday, March 24th, Dr. Katie Sloan will join Denisha to discuss her latest article on fascism and early childhood teacher education!
And on Monday, April 20th, Denisha talks with the hosts of the new podcast Liberated Learning. Kisa Marx and Mike Huber share why they believe play is the space where we can claim liberation.
All DEY Dialogues are streamed live on the DEY Facebook page, and recordings are added to our website.
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 Vanguard News Group 3/15/2026 Civil rights groups filed a Freedom of Information Act request on March 11 seeking transparency…
Denisha talks with Alliance for Quality Education (AQE) Co-Directors Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari and Marina Marcou-O’Malley about the fight for universal child care in New York.
Our March Diversity Is Not Divisive Resource is Embrace Race. They “help parents, caregivers, and educators raise children who are thoughtful, informed, and brave about race, especially in the birth through middle school years”. Their website includes action guides, toolkits, webinars, and more! Also, check out their fellowships!
Kisha Reid talks with Alison Bomba about her work as an experienced child and adolescent psychologist. She focuses on Nature Play as a tool to support her work.
Dr. Alison Bomba is a psychologist, author, speaker, consultant, and community volunteer. She owns and operates a specialty private practice in Downtown Frederick, providing grief therapy as well as exposure-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to treat anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder in children, teens, and young adults.
The project served as community-level advocacy by translating child development theory into practical, visible learning experiences. It reinforced the importance of developmentally appropriate practices that should inform early childhood education policies and decision-making.
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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