Inclusion Matters Center for Inclusive Child Care

In this second part of our discussion, we are joined again by CICC Coaching Manager, Beth Menninga.  This segment focuses on extended separations and reunions with infants and toddlers.  We discuss military deployment, divorce/break up or split households, work travel, incarceration, foster care, hospitalization, immigration related separations, teacher leaves, and change of classroom or care setting. 

Listen as Beth Menninga, our CICC Coaching Manager, joins Inclusion Matters and shares key practices to support our youngest learners through common daily separations and reunions. 

Join in our second part of a discussion on the importance of play with Dr. Sue Starks, Professor of Education and Chair of Early Childhood at Concordia University St. Paul.  We discuss the fact that play is a developmental need and that all children show us what they need through play.  Quality play is encouraged through the supports, prompts, activities, and experiences that we provide in the early childhood setting. Listen as Dr. Starks encourages us all to play!

Listen as our guest, Dr. Sue Starks, Professor of Education and Chair of Early Childhood at Concordia University St. Paul, talks about one of her passions, supporting play in young children.  Dr. Starks shares that play is relationship based and your environment matters.  How can you align your space to foster early social emotional connection through play. Join us as we explore this important topic. 

Join us as we hear from our CICC Intern, Loretta Campbell, Early Childhood Special Educator (ECSE) and Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Master’s student.  We discuss the role of the ECSE teacher and the relationship between special education and child care, highlighting key relationship-building and support for the family which benefits the child and all who care for them. 

Join us for this important episode of Inclusion Matters as we discuss critical information for all those interacting with young children.  Our expert guests, Gina Liverseed, CMV Nurse Specialist, Minnesota Department of Health, and Amanda Devereaux, Program Director, National CMV Foundation, give an overview of CMV or Cytomegalovirus, share facts about who is at risk, how it is spread, symptoms, treatment, and ways that we can deter the spread of CMV in early childhood settings.

Need More Information? 


Talk to your healthcare provider.


Minnesota Department of Health website:  Health.mn.gov/CMV


National CMV Foundation: Nationalcmv.org