Connected Beginnings

Nurturing the Social and Emotional Well-Being of Children Ages Birth to Eight

  • For optimal development "a child requires progressively more complex joint activity with one or more adults who have an irrational emotional relationship with the child. Somebody’s got to be crazy about that kid. That’s number one. First, last, and always." – Urie Bronfrenbrener

    Urie Bronfrenbrener

  • “Including parents in the screening process tells parents from the start that you value their observations, questions and concerns. And the cliché is true-parents in most cases are the best source of reliable and valid information about a child’s development.” – Elizabeth Twombley  

    Elizabeth Twombley

  • “Through relationships with parents and other significant caregivers, infants and toddlers learn what people expect of them and what they can expect of other people. Infants and toddlers learn through what they experience within relationships and what they observe in adults’ interactions with one another.” — Pathways to Prevention

    Pathways to Prevention

  • “What’s critical then is the interaction between genetics and what we call ‘serve and return’ between young children and the adults in their lives. The child does something and the adult responds. It’s the back and forth that literally, shapes the architecture of the brain.” — Jack Shonkoff

    Jack Shonkoff

  • “Children are not the people of tomorrow but the people of today. They have a right to be taken seriously and to be treated with tenderness and respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be-the unknown person inside each of them is our hope for the future.” – Janusz Korczak

    Janusz Korczak

Connect!

Happy New Year to You and Happy Birthday to Us!

2022 marks an important milestone for Connected Beginnings: our 15th year in service. We are also celebrating our 3rd birthday with the UMass Donahue Institute. Both seem so fitting. We have experienced much of the challenge and excitement of the middle teenage years, but at the same time are filled with the wonder and feistiness found in our preschool counterparts. In the end, each age carries a very similar spirit of determination and a focus on what the future holds – and Connected Beginnings can certainly identify with that!

With all of that in mind, Connected Beginnings will be celebrating with a rededication to our vision and mission. In the weeks and months to come we will be sharing information about our renewed efforts to support the social and emotional well-being of babies and very young children. We will be relaunching our newsletter in the coming weeks, and also sharing save-the-dates for upcoming Connected Beginnings events. Help us stay in touch! Please add your name to our quarterly newsletter mailing list here.

Past Posts

Activities and Services

Connected Beginnings provides, coordinates, and evaluates professional development opportunities aimed at enhancing the social emotional well-being of children birth to 8 years within their families, their communities, and their early care and … Read More