Every day, early childhood educators across the Sea to Sky corridor are shaping the foundations of belonging, wellbeing, and lifelong learning for children and families. The 2026 Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Early Years Conference: Inclusion — Reflecting on Progress & Shaping the Future creates intentional space for educators, partners, and community leaders to pause, reflect, and come back together with purpose.
In 2025, the conference responded to a pressing and urgent reality: children and families continued to experience exclusion in early childhood spaces. That moment marked a turning point — calling educators to rethink practices, disrupt deficit-based thinking, and renew commitments to inclusion and belonging. One year later, the conference returns with essential questions: Where are we now? What have we done with what we learned? How have we moved from reflection to action? What has shifted — in our classrooms, programs, communities, and hearts?
“In 2025, we intentionally created space to name the reality that exclusion still exists in early childhood settings,” says Chelsie Brubacher, Director of Service Delivery at Sea to Sky Community Services. “Returning in 2026 is about accountability — about asking what has changed in practice, in relationships, and in how we show up for children and families.”
Co-hosted by Sea to Sky Community Services (SSCS), the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Early Years Conference reflects SSCS’s ongoing commitment to inclusion in practice. Through its Supported Child Development services, childcare programs guided by the BC Early Learning Framework, and community-based children’s programs, SSCS creates spaces where belonging, cultural responsiveness, and relationship-centred practice are embedded in everyday learning.
Beyond hosting, SSCS actively convenes partners, supports educators and families year-round, and embeds the learning from the conference into ongoing programming and service delivery.
“For us, the conference doesn’t end when people go home,” Brubacher explains. “What we hear and learn alongside educators directly informs how we shape our early learning and children’s programs moving forward. The learning is carried back into practice supporting children and families every day.”
The conference is collaboratively developed with conference partners Child Care Resource & Referral (CCRR), Squamish Nation, School District 48, and Capilano University. Together, these partners bring diverse perspectives and shared responsibility to the work — honouring Indigenous ways of knowing, strengthening professional practice, and supporting educators and families as they navigate systems-level change in early learning and care.
“Inclusion in the early years is not static,” says Brubacher. “It requires continual reflection, learning, and willingness to adapt. The Early Years Conference offers educators a chance to step out of the day-to-day, reconnect with their values, and return to their work with renewed clarity, compassion, and confidence.”
Through highly interactive and relational learning experiences, keynote speakers and conference sessions explore how inclusive pedagogies can dismantle systems of colonization, racism, ableism, and exclusion while strengthening joyful, democratic relationships. Participants will share success stories, learn from emerging approaches aligned with the BC Early Learning Framework and the Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework, and contribute to a growing Sea to Sky network of inclusive pedagogical leaders.
Whether you are an early childhood educator, school-age provider, family member, therapist, scholar, or community partner, the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Early Years Conference offers an opportunity to reconnect with values, deepen practice, and shape a more inclusive future for children and families across the Sea to Sky corridor.