Child welfare professionals support early childhood wellbeing through practices that promote placement stability, attachment, and trauma recovery. Using pre-training and three-month follow-up survey data from an online training program, this study describes how frequently professionals report using trauma-informed, caregiver-focused, narrative support, and placement practices. Findings identify which practices are routinely implemented versus more situational, offering workforce development insights to strengthen services that influence children’s stability, relationships, and emotional wellbeing in foster, adoptive, and guardianship systems.

The cycle of inquiry provides a useful framework for enhancing early childhood teachers’ data use practices through professional development (PD). In this presentation, we will describe how Educare Lincoln and their evaluation partners implement inquiry cycles to co-develop PD to support teacher classroom instruction. Additionally, we will discuss how our data-driven methods have helped us better understand teachers’ strengths and challenges and design PD experiences tailored to address areas of need and optimize classroom practices.

(1) This session presents findings from an evaluation of the Smart Start Backpack Program, a take-home initiative designed in collaboration between research and community partners to strengthen parent-child interactions and support kindergarten readiness. Using caregiver surveys and interviews, the study examined feasibility, family engagement, and perceived benefits and barriers to participation. Findings highlight the value of hands-on, flexible activities and the importance of clear guidance and timing. Implications for designing family-centered transition-to-kindergarten supports are discussed.

(2) Rising temperatures are reshaping urban environments, with young children facing distinct and unequal risks. This presentation will share high-resolution drone and handheld thermal imaging to reveal how heat is experienced at the scale of children’s movement in parks, streets, and childcare sites. Findings show how surface materials, canopy cover, and neighborhood investment shape uneven thermal conditions. By visualizing children’s lived heat exposure, this work reframes extreme heat as a design, justice, and child development issue.

This presentation describes an NIH-funded, cluster randomized controlled trial evaluating a Self-Determination Theory-informed coaching and feedback capacity-building model delivered through Nebraska Cooperative Extension to improve responsive feeding implementation in rural family child care homes (FCCH). The study examines effects on FCCH provider implementation capacity and child dietary intake. Findings will inform scalable workforce-based strategies to strengthen early childhood nutrition across rural public health systems.

This session leverages large-scale, restricted-access data to provide new evidence on preschool attendance among US children. We document trends in preschool attendance over the last 25 years, showing that income inequality in enrollment has declined only slightly. We then use our detailed data to examine inequality in attendance among the most recent groups of preschool-aged children. Finally, we explore the implications of our findings for the potential returns to future expansions of preschool.

The shortage of early childhood educators calls for innovation in teacher preparation. To address this challenge, the Responsive Equitable System for Preparing Early Childhood Teachers (RESPECT) across Nebraska Project engaged diverse Nebraska communities to learn about their strengths, valued experiences for young children, and desired educator competencies and dispositions. This presentation will describe how we built relationships and collaborated with community researcher-partners to plan and conduct focus groups in a multiple case study design.

To understand the implementation of early childhood coaching, accurate and efficient documentation of practices used by coaches is necessary. Self-report methods of coaching behaviors are commonly used, however the reliability of self-report methods, including coaching logs, needs further exploration. This presentation explores: 1) What is the degree of match between coach report of coaching practices and observer ratings? And 2) How do coaching characteristics predict degree of match between self-reported and observed coaching practices?

Using longitudinal data from NSWERS (2021-2024), this study finds Nebraska’s public early childhood educator (ECE) workforce is not keeping pace with growing Pre-K enrollment. As children served increased, the number of ECEs, full-time positions, and average wages declined, while workforce exits rose. Framed as a leaky bucket, low compensation and high turnover perpetuate workforce shortages. These findings call attention to the need for compensation reform and retention investments to sustain Nebraska’s early childhood educator infrastructure.

This session explores interdisciplinary, community-engaged research conducted with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Nebraska at Kearney. Grounded in community-based participatory research and implementation science, Extension educators help design, implement, and study professional learning for early childhood educators. Findings across these programs suggest improved engagement, workforce sustainability, and implementation quality, underscoring the importance of Extension educators in translating research into meaningful practice and strengthening early childhood systems serving young children and families.

In this session, First Five Nebraska will provide an update on the latest early childhood legislation and policy in Nebraska. The session will conclude with reflections on the intersection of research and policy and explore creating connections between the research and policy communities.

Cultural engagement with Native practices and language shapes early academic outcomes among American Indian/Alaska Native children in Head Start. Using Latent Class Analysis of the 2019 AIAN FACES national dataset, five distinct profiles of cultural engagement were identified. Children with higher levels of direct cultural transmission demonstrated stronger executive function, vocabulary, and literacy scores. Findings are contextualized through key informant interviews with Native scholars and community members.

The SUNRISE Study is an epidemiological study consisting of researchers from 60+ low-, middle-, and high-income countries assessing the movement behaviors of preschool-aged children according to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. This session will highlight work between researchers at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, University of Nebraska at Kearney, and others from around the United States and the world as part of the SUNRISE study.

(1) This talk will describe the development of a socio-emotional assessment system for use with children aged 3 to 5 years. We will provide an overview of our iterative process for developing an instrument that would address the needs of early childhood centers and families. We will then present promising preliminary data to support the initial efficacy and acceptability of the tool.

(2) Grounded in a socio-ecological and participatory framework, the Nurture Nebraska campaign promotes awareness of social and emotional development among children ages 0-5. The conceptualization was co-developed through community focus groups and expert panels. The 2025 campaign unfolded in two phases: organic user-generated storytelling followed by a statewide launch. Mixed-method evaluation, including web analytics and engagement metrics, reveals key awareness insights and adoption patterns.

Burnout is a significant challenge in early childhood education, affecting educators across roles and career stages. Using survey data from 594 Head Start educators across 19 grantees, this study examined how personal characteristics and wellbeing predict burnout. Findings indicate that job title, experience, and age do not predict burnout; rather, mental health emerged as the strongest predictor, highlighting the need for wellbeing supports within Head Start programs.

Researchers from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, Communities for Kids, and Nebraska Extension will discuss the Knowledge Network for Early Childhood Workforce (KNEW) project. This congressionally funded community effort started in 2024 and brought together 15+ rural communities with the goal of increasing recruitment and retention of early childhood educators in Nebraska. The session will include how communities came together to collaborate, research on social networks, and outcomes from professional development.

Consistently low scores in reading and writing outcomes highlight the need for stronger foundational literacy instruction. This session presents findings from a quasi-experimental study examining the feasibility and promise of Write Sounds, an integrated handwriting, phonics, and spelling intervention for students with word-level difficulties. Results demonstrate high implementation fidelity and large, significant effects on handwriting accuracy and contextual spelling, with growth across decoding outcomes, underscoring the implications for efficient, integrated literacy intervention in school settings.

The Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) Reimbursement Project tested if reimbursing clinicians for non-covered activities increased their capacity to take these cases. Three years of data reveal that reimbursements expand CPP services. Reimbursed clinicians received more referrals, completed more assessments, initiated more CPP cases, and closed more cases to fidelity. Over time, differences widened: in the final year, reimbursed clinicians opened twice as many cases as non-reimbursed clinicians. Findings suggest expanding reimbursement policy to sustain the CPP workforce.

Play-based learning, traditionally associated with early childhood education, is critical for fostering cognitive, social-emotional, and academic skills across all educational levels. This case study explores how educators can integrate play-based pedagogies to enhance equity, engagement, and innovation. Data from interviews, survey items, and instructional artifacts reveal that play-based strategies improve critical thinking, collaboration, and inclusivity. Findings advocate for systemic shifts in policy and practice, positioning play as a transformative tool for 21st-century learning.