Twelve years ago, Dr. Laura Doan read a staggering statistic.
According to the Early Childhood Educators of BC, up to half of the province's early childhood educators (ECE) leave the field within five years.
"Early childhood educators are vital to children, families, and communities," said Doan, a professor in the School of Education at Thompson Rivers University (TRU). "It's simply not sustainable to have so many people leaving the workforce before their careers have really even started."
Doan has recently been promoted to full professor and, to mark that honour, is giving an address at the Inaugural Professorial Lecture (IPL) on Tuesday, Nov. 19. She will present Among Giants: The co-creation of a province-wide peer mentoring program, which will cover how a program she created got started, its impact on educators and how it works.
Doan established a pilot program that offered peer-mentoring for new and experienced ECEs in B.C. Based at TRU, the pilot included 200 ECEs across 17 communities; it has expanded to 320 ECEs and 42 facilitators in 31 peer-mentoring communities.
In 2021, that pilot grew into a province-wide initiative with funding from an anonymous donor, which has exponentially increased the peer-mentoring program opportunities. The program continues to be a success today and is firmly embedded in ECEBC, the professional association representing ECEs in BC.
Doan's lecture is open to the public. The lecture is a way for universities to celebrate faculty achieving their full professorship milestone in their academic careers. The IPL series is also an opportunity for the public to meet new professors and gain an understanding of their scholarship, research and teaching.
What: Laura Doan speaks on Among Giants: The co-creation of a province-wide peer mentoring program
Where: Kamloops TRU campus, Scratch Café in the Culinary Arts Centre
When: Tuesday, Nov. 19, from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Other details: The event is free, but reservations are requested for seating and refreshments. Please RSVP by Nov. 17.
The lecture will be recorded and posted on the TRU website at a later date.
