At the heart of this year’s Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Early Years Conference is a powerful invitation to pause and reimagine what early learning spaces can be. Day One keynote speaker Jase Williams brings a deeply relational, trauma-informed, and culturally grounded perspective to the conference with his keynote, We Are All Wired for Belonging, Connection, and Love. Drawing on relational neuroscience, Indigenous ways of knowing, and decades of educational leadership, Jase challenges educators to look beyond behaviour and outcomes, and instead centre emotional safety, cultural identity, and connection. His work reminds us that inclusion is not something we implement — it is something children feel through the quality of the relationships that hold them. We are excited to learn more about Jase as he shares personal insights and experiences that have shaped his work.
Was there a moment early in your life or career when you first understood how powerful belonging and connection can be for a child?
Yes. Long before I had the language of relational neuroscience, I understood belonging and connection through its absence, in my experience as a child at school.
As a child, school was not a place of safety for me. I learned very early what it felt like to be unseen, misunderstood, and judged rather than held. My nervous system was constantly on alert, not because I was ‘naughty’ or ‘difficult’, but because I didn’t experience consistent relational safety. I didn’t feel like I belonged, and my body knew it.
Because of that experience, I knew I wanted to be a different kind of teacher. I wanted to create spaces where children felt they truly belonged. Where they were seen, heard, known, valued, and loved. Not conditionally, not when they behaved or achieved, but simply because they were human.
Much later in my career, I had a moment that quietly confirmed everything I believed about belonging. I went to visit a former student who had become a tattooist. As she worked, we talked about her time in my class many years earlier. She had been a student in my very first class in the early 2000s.
Mid-conversation, she reached into her bag and pulled out a school exercise book she had kept all those years. Inside were drawings she had created to illustrate a piece of writing, along with written feedback I had given her at the time. She pointed to the comments and told me I was the only teacher who had ever truly valued her artwork. Other teachers, she said, had criticised it, laughed, or told her to stop wasting her time.
In that moment, I realised something that has never left me. Our words stay. Our presence matters. Our attentiveness and attunement matter. And our ability to truly see and value children, and not just their outcomes, matter. This will shape the story they carry about themselves for a lifetime.
You often speak about leading with aroha and unconditional love. Can you share a story from your time in schools where this approach changed what was possible for a child or community?
One moment that stays with me didn’t begin with a strategy or an intervention. It began with a child in deep distress.
He had been excluded more than once from other education spaces. His behaviour was labelled as dangerous and defiant, and the conversation around him was already moving toward removal. When he arrived at school each day, his body was braced for rejection. He didn’t trust adults, and based on his story, this made complete sense.
Instead of asking, “How do we stop this behaviour?” we asked a different question: “What has this child lived through, and what does his nervous system need right now?” We slowed everything down. We prioritised connection over compliance. We met him with aroha / love, and not as some kind of abstract value, but as consistent presence, predictability, and unconditional regard.
There was no quick fix. But over time, as he experienced safety and developed trust and his outbursts reduced. His capacity grew. Most importantly, he began to believe he belonged, not because he was behaving well, but because he was held well and he felt safe.
That same approach rippled outward. When we stopped excluding children and started holding them, whānau/family re-engaged. Staff felt supported rather than overwhelmed. The culture of the learning space changed. Leading with aroha/love didn’t lower expectations, it changed what became possible.
What I learned is this: love is not soft. It is deeply relational, biologically regulating, and profoundly transformative. When children and communities feel safe enough to belong, they don’t just survive, they begin to flourish.
You’ve worked across early learning, schools, and communities. Is there a moment with tamariki, rangatahi, or whānau that still stays with you today — and why?
Watching my grandson Joseph experience kindergarten as a four-year-old is something that still stays with me. He was very sensory-seeking and deeply drawn to soft materials and feathers. His teacher noticed this. On her evening walks, whenever she came across feathers, she would collect them and bring them into kindergarten just for him.
Years later, I was honoured to work alongside that same kindergarten, supporting them and others in the area, to deepen their understanding of relational neuroscience and trauma-informed practice. As I walked through the space, I noticed a photo of Joseph still on the wall, even though he had left and hadn’t been at that school for three years. In the photo, he was holding a feather.
The teacher came up beside me and quietly said, “I still collect feathers when I’m out walking.”
That moment has never left me. It reminded me that belonging isn’t created through programmes or policies. It’s built through noticing, remembering, and holding children in mind even when they’re no longer in the room. This is what I love about early childhood education. Children are seen, heard, known, valued, and loved, and that kind of connection shapes who they become.
How has your own healing journey shaped the way you show up for others in education spaces?
I’ve literally written a book about it, which I am planning to bring over to Canada with me to make available to conference attendees!
One of the hardest and most rewarding things I’ve ever done has been the inner work on myself. Like many people, I didn’t realise there was any work to do. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The biggest shift for me was understanding the why behind my own behaviours. That insight has allowed me to become far more responsive rather than reactive, especially in moments when I’m dysregulated or triggered by others.
Because of that work, I’m now able to show up in education spaces more grounded and settled, and when I’m not, I have the awareness and tools to return to that state far more quickly than I ever could before. That matters, because the way we show up as adults sets the emotional tone for the spaces we lead and the people we serve.
As educators reflect on progress and look toward the future of inclusion, what do you hope they remember on the hard days, when the work feels heavy or slow?
Inclusion isn’t a statement, concept, policy or strategy. It’s something that is felt.
On the hard days, when the work feels heavy or slow, I hope educators remember that real progress isn’t measured by programmes, strategies, or statements about inclusion. It’s measured in moments. In whether a child feels safe enough to stay. In whether a family feels met with dignity rather than judgement. In whether a child believes they belong, even on their hardest day.
This kind of change takes time because it’s relational, not technical. It asks more of us than learning new language or implementing new initiatives. It asks us to look inward, to notice when we default to control, compliance, or convenience, and to consciously choose connection instead.
When it feels exhausting, I hope educators remember that this work isn’t about fixing children. It’s about becoming the kind of adults and systems that children don’t need to be protected from. And every time we choose presence over pressure, we are quietly shaping the future we say we want.