Conference App

Follow the instructions to download the conference app here. The conference app will have the most up to date information on session times, locations, announcements, and any possible changes to the schedule. However, if you would like to download and print the full conference schedule, click here.

Schedule

We know you’re anxious to begin planning your conference experience. In the coming days, we’ll share instructions on how to access the conference app. Our vendor is delayed in providing the app, but we’re working around the clock with them to get it ready for you. Be sure to check your email for app updates throughout the week.

In the meantime, take a look at the full conference schedule to get a head start on planning your week.

Pre-Conference Sessions

Pre-conference sessions will take place on December 2, from 9:00 – 12:00 PM PT. You can read about our pre-conference offerings as of November 17 here.

Opening Plenary

Join the BUILD Initiative as we boldly, authentically, and courageously reflect on the current moment—and what it means for our children. At BUILD, we believe that we are the heart of the matter: equity foot soldiers and creative champions, ready to design a more just, equitable, and loving future. This session will move you through spoken word, hard truths, evocative visuals, and an award-winning soundtrack.

Our featured speaker is world-renowned violinist and activist Vijay Gupta, who sees music as a lifeline—a way to transform pain, grief, and trauma into nourishment. In conversation with Teachstone CEO Karlo Young, Gupta will share insights from his work with Street Symphony, the LA nonprofit he founded, and why he believes that “with every breath, every brush stroke, every word, every note, we cast a vote for the future we want to create.”

The session will also highlight the winners of BUILD’s first Spoken Word Poetry Contest—members of our early childhood community, Lucy Recio and Danielle Horton.

Immerse yourself among your people; allow your eyes to reimagine a brighter future, your ears to be soothed by collective proclamations of hope, and leave with this truth: We Are the Heart of the Matter.

Breakout Sessions

Start planning your conference experience! Check out the breakout session schedule and session descriptions.

We’ve prepared some suggested roadmaps for breakout session themes to help guide your experience.

• Prenatal-to-Three Roadmap
• Child Welfare and Early Childhood Cross-Systems Collaboration Roadmap
• Leadership Skills Roadmap
• Family and Home-Based Child Care Roadmap
• ECE Workforce Roadmap
• Innovations, Pilots & Big Ideas Roadmap
• ECE Quality Improvement Roadmap

Mini-Plenary Sessions

​Immigration remains one of the most volatile issues in our country. For early childhood professionals, educators, and advocates; however, this is more than a political debate—it’s about the children and families in our care. Current immigration enforcement policies and practices pose serious risks to immigrant children, families, and the broader early childhood systems we work within.

What are the connections between immigration policy and early childhood practice? What do we need to understand about the trauma that the current climate creates for young children? How do these policies ripple through our programs and communities, and what can we do to support families while advocating for change?

To help us navigate these critical questions, we’re joined by Dr. Cynthia Garcia Coll, a pioneer in developmental psychology. Dr. Garcia Coll has been instrumental in pushing the field to confront racism, discrimination, and prejudice in research and practice. For decades, her research has examined how sociocultural and biological factors shape child development, particularly among minoritized populations. She has published extensively and served as editor of two major journals, Child Development and Developmental Psychology.

In this conversation, moderated by Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, Senior Vice President, Government Relations and Research, Start Early, participants will gain a deeper understanding of immigration-related trauma, practical insights for supporting affected families in early childhood settings, and strategies for advocacy within our field.

Join us for a thoughtful exploration of how we can respond to one of the most pressing challenges facing young children and families in the US.

What does the future of child care look like? What happens when you test out this future with 23 solutions labs across 10 states and DC?
This mini-plenary, led by Marica Cox Mitchell at the Bainum Family Foundation, spotlights the WeVision EarlyEd initiative and the solutions lab sites that are implementing bold strategies to make child care more affordable, accessible, and high-quality.

WeVision EarlyEd isn’t just navigating what exists and accepting “it is what it is.” Through solutions lab sites, this initiative is testing child care options, right-sizing quality standards, and redistributing funding. Anchored in real-world implementation, this session reveals what’s working, what challenges remain, and how these innovations can reshape licensing, policy, and practice nationwide.

You’ll leave with:

• Actionable insights from early pilot results across diverse settings
• Policy implications for licensing bodies and system leaders
• Replicable strategies to advance affordability and sustainability in your own context
  

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There are influential, yet often misguided, narratives surrounding early childhood and child welfare systems. For instance, it is commonly believed that families living in poverty are neglectful and that children end up in foster care solely due to intentional and severe abuse, as portrayed by the media’s focus on extreme cases. Additionally, the prevailing thought is that the best way to help children in troubled families is to separate them from their families.

While separation may sometimes be necessary to ensure a child’s safety, leaders in child welfare and early childhood education are implementing positive changes in our systems and communities. These changes emphasize building the resilience of families rather than resorting to separation.

This session will demonstrate how economic and other concrete supports can help families take care of themselves and their children and keep them safe. It will show how leaders are reshaping the narrative from “mandated reporting” to “mandated supporting,” and how changing the narrative about families can lead to the development of community resilience.

Ten years ago, the Transforming the Workforce for Children from Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation report set a transformative vision for early childhood workforce systems. This session brings together national partners to reflect on its impact and the ongoing need for action. Featuring insights from a new five-part paper series, the discussion will highlight progress made, challenges faced, and strategies to strengthen and support a diverse ECE workforce. Join us to recommit to advancing lasting systems change for children and educators alike.

I endured three C-sections in the span of seven years. Each time, my body was pushed to its limits, stitched back together with courage and prayers that I’d live to hold my children again. I will tell my story today—alive, resilient, and unafraid—because my voice is loud, clear, and heard. But tragically, this is not the reality for too many Black women in America, whose voices are often dismissed until it is too late.

This session places at its core the lived maternal health experiences of those most affected by systemic racism, limited access to quality care, and the chronic exclusion of their voices from decision-making. Participants will hear firsthand stories that illuminate how inequities manifest in real lives, then engage in structured dialogues to analyze the root causes and community-specific barriers. Guided networking activities will help attendees identify and connect with nontraditional allies—such as community health workers, employers, schools, local businesses, and faith communities—who can play a pivotal role in improving maternal outcomes. The discussion will equip participants with strategies to intentionally bring these partners into the conversation, broadening the circle of influence and creating a more inclusive vision for maternal well-being, and flipping the script on who gets to shape maternal health solutions.

This isn’t just a session—it’s a shared space for building alliances and exploring solutions that could save lives.

Closing Plenary

The BUILD25 closing plenary is the moment to ignite momentum. Together, we’ll channel what we’ve learned, questioned, and discovered into bold, future-shaping action for young children and families.

Celebrate our collective journey: our curiosity, our courage, and our shared determination to keep the Heart of the Matter at the center of our work. Don’t miss the session that sends us forward energized, united, and ready to make real change happen.

About the Conference

Early childhood leaders are grappling with critical issues in early childhood systems building. Over the last several months, our colleagues have been trying to answer questions such as:

• What’s blocking us from creating an early childhood system that works for young children and families?
• What is working for whom?
• What barriers can be moved?
• What’s stuck that can be unstuck?
• Connected problems require cross-system approaches: How can education, health, family economic supports, child welfare, and housing work better together to meet the needs of children, families, and communities?

Join us Tuesday, December 2 – Thursday, December 4, 2025, at the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles, CA. During the conference, BUILD will make space for early childhood leaders to gather during this unprecedented time to build the coalitions needed to tackle those tough issues. National, state, community, and tribal leaders will come together to:

• Talk with their peers and build community.
• Collaboratively develop strategies that improve recruitment, retention, compensation, and professionalization of a workforce that reflects the children with whom we work.
• Exchange strategies to ensure high-quality early care and education services that promote program improvement, reflecting the communities we support, and are family-friendly and supportive of providers and teachers.
• Grow your leadership and communication skills to enhance the quality of work that individuals and teams do for young children and their families.

Are you looking for ideas on how to better support children, families, and communities? Want to build your professional network and engage with others who see that we need to join with families and educators to build better solutions for our complex challenges by joining together across agencies and sectors? BUILD25 is for you if you:

• Work at the national, state, community, or tribal level focusing on education, health, and human services.
• Provide technical assistance, coaching, or home visiting.
• Focus on early care and education, community development, family economic support, and health, including prenatal, infant, and early childhood mental health and maternal health.
• Work in child welfare, housing, or prevention.