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?
Please save the date for our November workshop, Affirming Indigenous Identity in the Early Years, on Monday, November 24th at 7:00 p.m. EST. Candace Manitopyes, Founder and CEO of Relentless Indigenous Woman, will share her recently updated Early Childhood Education Indigenous Reconciliation Toolkit. RPS subscribers can purchase the toolkit at a discounted rate!
Our exploration of how to affirm particular racial identities in the early years continues in December with our Affirming Asian Identity in the Early Years webinar on Tuesday, December 16th, at 7 pm. Minsoo Kim-Bossard, Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at The College of New Jersey, will join Denisha Jones to discuss how educators and caregivers can support healthy Asian identity development.
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.
Subscribers can access the full course for $8 a month, including live and recorded webinars, reflective workbooks, and additional resources.
Kisha Reid and Trisha Dean discuss how we can and have reimagined early childhood education to align with the latest research.
Trisha is a fierce advocate for early childhood. She has led and advocated for free play, multi-age grouping, and relational-based care for many years. She has recently returned to working directly with children and is working to impact her new space with tried and tested philosophies.
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 ECE Indigenous Reconciliation Toolkit. “Designed by Relentless Indigenous Woman Co., this toolkit helps early childhood educators (0–6 years) cultivate empathy, intercultural understanding, and mutual respect in the classroom.”
Want to learn more about this toolkit and purchase it at a discounted rate? Subscribe to our RPS and watch the live webinar on Monday, November 24th at 7 pm EST. Candace Manitopyes, Founder and CEO of Relentless Indigenous Woman, will review the updated toolkit and provide a discount code for DEY RPS subscribers!
Our next DEY Dialogue is on Friday, November 21st at 12:30 pm EST. Jacob Vigil, Chief Legislative Officer for New Mexico Voices for Children, will discuss how New Mexico became the first state to offer universal childcare.
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 First Five Years Fund 11/18/2025 The federal government reopened on November 13, ending the longest federal shutdown in United…
Denisha talks with Rixa Evershed and Aidn White about applying ECEC values Equity, Truth, and Care to global challenges.
This month’s resource is the ECE Indigenous Reconciliation Toolkit. “Designed by Relentless Indigenous Woman Co., this toolkit helps early childhood educators (0–6 years) cultivate empathy, intercultural understanding, and mutual respect in the classroom.”
Trisha Dean is an Early Childhood Teacher and Director at Playing My Way in Brisbane Australia.
The East Hampton Star, Oct. 9, 2025 Jane Goodall To the Editor: I would like to say a few words…
The campaign and art asks participants to envision their own needs with regard to the DEY principles.
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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