Wellbeing for Infants and Toddlers in Education and Care

Gloria Quinones is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of emotions and wellbeing in early childhood education and care (ECEC). She has conducted extensive research on the role of emotions and play in young children's learning and development. Recent studies have explored conceptualising infant-toddler affective and play pedagogies, promoting the emotional wellbeing of early childhood educators. She is also deeply committed to examining how early education can address the challenges of climate change by fostering environmental awareness, resilience, and sustainable practices from the earliest years. Through this work, she aims to support both educators and families in contributing to a more sustainable and equitable world. Andrea Delaune is a Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury and the Co-President of OMEP Aotearoa in New Zealand. Andrea’s research explores the role of the moral imagination in promoting the importance of teacher-child relationships as the basis of pedagogy. Her recent work examines teachers’ ways of ‘seeing’ the child to ethically and pedagogically respond. By expanding the moral and ethical boundaries of early childhood education, Andrea seeks to recentre teachers’ everyday teaching practices as a ‘lived philosophy’ that can enhance moral understandings of pedagogy within the context of richly imaginative everyday life of the teacher. As the Co-President of OMEP Aotearoa, Andrea is also involved in research projects that promote expanded conceptualisations of the rights of the child within the everyday context of the early childhood setting, including the right to be loved.