13th Annual SCPITC Advanced Training for PITC-Trained Trainers

March 4-5, 2020

Charleston Harbor Resort & Marina   

Charleston, SC

Please join SCPITC and national experts, Dr. Eva Marie Shivers and Ms. Debby Irving, on a journey towards equity at both the personal and institutional level. Together we will explore differing cultural contexts and shared aspirations for cultivating racially equitable early childhood systems that promote strong, nurturing families and healthy child development.

Participation is open to PITC-Trained Trainers who have completed any of the following coursework:

–WestEd PITC Trainer Institutes Module I, II, III or IV offered in any location

–WestEd PITC training in South Carolina

–University of South Carolina/SCPITC Summer Infant/Toddler Course

Featured Speakers:

Eva Marie Shivers, J.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Shivers is Executive Director and Founder of the Indigo Cultural Center in Phoenix, Arizona, and a nationally recognized researcher on issues related to early childhood education, culture, community, and provider-child relationships. A proud, third generation South Phoenix resident, prior to returning to Arizona and founding the Indigo Cultural Center, Shivers was a faculty member in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh.

She has presented her child care research throughout the country and has numerous peer-reviewed publications. She also provides research consultation to federal, state, and local policy makers, especially around the issues of how to cultivate racially equitable early childhood systems. Shivers, a ZERO TO THREE Leadership Fellow (Class 2005), has served as faculty in the Harris Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Training Institute at Southwest Human Development since 2008, and is a faculty member of WestEd’s Program for Infant/Toddler Care.

Dr. Shivers has a dual identity as scholar and artist. She has danced professionally in Phoenix, New York, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, and has taught dance and musical theater in community settings for more than three decades. She received her Ph.D. from UCLA’s Department of Education, Psychological Studies in Education. Dr. Shivers also holds a law degree from Howard University School of Law, and a B.A. in English Literature from Arizona State University.

Debby Irving, M.B.A.

Debby Irving is a racial justice educator, author, and public speaker. Combining her organization development skills, classroom teaching experience, and understanding of systemic racism, Irving educates and consults with individuals and organizations seeking to create racial equity at both the personal and institutional level.

After a blissfully sheltered, upper-middle-class suburban childhood in Winchester, Massachusetts, Ms. Irving found herself simultaneously intrigued and horrified by the racial divide she observed in nearby Boston. Her career began in a variety of urban performance-art and community-based non-profits, where she repeatedly found that her best efforts to “help” caused more harm than the good she intended. Her one-step-forward-two-steps-back experience of racial understanding eventually lead her to dig deeply into her own white privilege, where she found truths she never knew existed. Her first book, Waking Up White, describes that journey and the lessons she learned along the way.