Harvey and early childhood educators focus of Rice U./Save the Children conference July 23-25

MEDIA ADVISORY

David Ruth
david@rice.edu
713-348-6327

Jeff Falk
jfalk@rice.edu
713-348-6775

Harvey and early childhood educators focus of Rice U./Save the Children conference July 23-25

HOUSTON – (July 19, 2018) – A special conference July 23-25 at Rice University will bring together teachers and administrators across the Greater Houston area and the Texas Gulf Coast whose classrooms, schools, homes or personal lives were impacted by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey.

Courtesy of Rice’s Glasscock School

The conference, “Caring for Children, Caring for Ourselves,” will be hosted by the School Literacy and Culture program at Rice’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies and Save the Children, a global humanitarian organization. The conference is designed for teachers working with children ranging from 3-year-olds to first-graders and will be taught by staff from both organizations.

Registration is now closed, but teachers and administrators who are interested can join a waitlist at http://glasscock.rice.edu/courses/caring-our-children-caring-ourselves. Members of the news media who want to cover the conference should RSVP to Jeff Falk at jfalk@rice.edu.

The conference’s workshops will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. July 23 and from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. July 24-25 at Fondren Library (Kyle Morrow Room) on the Rice campus, 6100 Main St.

“As early childhood educators, we know that children look to us as helpers and desperately need opportunities to engage in meaningful conversations about Hurricane Harvey and other traumatic events,” said School Literacy and Culture Director Karen Capo. “To do this, we must first attend to our own well-being. This conference will support the emotional needs of early childhood professionals while also providing specific ideas for supporting the young children in our care.”

In October, a month and a half after Harvey struck Houston and led to extended school closures, Capo and colleagues had hosted more than 175 Houston-area early childhood educators at the Glasscock School for a summit, “Look for the Helpers, Listen for the Stories.” Participants took home a tote full of resources and classroom materials that encouraged both teachers and children to discover the power of story and play to heal.

The president and CEO of Save the Children, Carolyn Miles, is a member of the advisory board at Rice’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders. Miles visited the university in February to discuss global child health challenges, a presentation Capo attended and which led to the collaboration between School Literacy and Culture and Save the Children.

For a map of Rice University’s campus with parking information, go to www.rice.edu/maps.

-30-

Follow the Glasscock School via Twitter @GlasscockSchool.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,970 undergraduates and 2,934 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for happiest students by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.