Professor Louise Derman-Sparks

Louise Derman-Sparks, now Faculty Emeritus, served on the human development faculty of Pacific Oaks College for 33 years.   Previously  she worked with young children and families  as a teacher  and program director.  She is the author and co-author of several books, her most recent work being Anti-Bias Education for Young Children & Ourselves, with Julie Olsen Edwards (NAEYC, 2010).   Other books include: “What If All the Kids are White?”  Anti-bias/ Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families with Dr. Patricia Ramsey (Teachers College Press, 2006 and 2011); Teaching/Learning Anti-Racism: A Developmental Approach with Dr. Carol B. Phillips (Teachers College Press, 1997);  and Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children with the ABC Task Force (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1989). Ms. Derman-Sparks speaks, conducts workshops and consults widely throughout the United States and internationally.  A former member of the Governing Board of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, she currently works with Crossroads: An Interfaith & Community- Based Anti-Racism Training Organization and is on the Advisory Board of the National Association for Family Child Care.  
A social justice activist for 50 years, Ms. Derman-Sparks is also  the mother of two human service professionals,  Douglass and Holly Sparks.

Rina Gill

Rina Gill is currently the Associate Director, Policy and Practice, in the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), where she provides strategic leadership to ensure the integration of the principles and practice of human rights, gender equality, child participation and disability inclusiveness across UNICEF’s global advocacy, policies and programme.

Formerly Chief of Communication for Development (C4D) at UNICEF headquarters, Ms. Gill spearheaded the establishment and strategic repositioning of C4D as a key cross-cutting practice area for UNICEF’s policy and programme work. Her experience in the field of international development spans 35 years, including 25 years in developing country contexts in Asia and Africa. She has worked in both technical and managerial positions in the UN, with civil society organizations, and in the public and private sectors, across a variety of settings in low-income, middle-income and post-conflict countries. Several of her initiatives have been adopted by NGOs and UN agencies as models in other countries.

A student of Child Development, Ms. Gill has technical specializations in social communication, professional filmmaking and visual anthropology. She has commissioned and conducted participatory research on a wide range of issues including childhood disabilities, early child marriage, bonded labour and rural-urban migration. This has provided a strong foundation for her understanding of the social, cultural and structural causes of discrimination and exclusion, and has informed her advocacy and programme efforts to address the needs of the most marginalized children and women. She brings to her work a high level of intellectual curiosity, passion and an eagerness to seek new challenges.

Professor Luiz Alberto Olivera Gonçalves

Luiz Alberto Oliveira Goncalves has a degree in Social Sciences and an MA in Education from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (1985), in which he developed a study on racial discrimination in primary schools in Brazil. He earned a doctorate in sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales/Paris (1994) and post-doctorate from the University of São Paulo (2006). Since 1995 he has held the position of Professor at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. He was Executive Secretary of the Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality of the Presidency. He is currently a Senior Researcher at the National Research Council (CNPq). Since 1983 he has been conducting research on educational inequalities and race relations in Brazil, with emphasis on the educational performance of white students, blacks and other ethnic groups in elementary school. He has produced material on issues of racial discrimination in the field of child education and is currently studying models of policies to protect children and young blacks to reduce homicide rates involving that racial group in the big cities. He is also a member of the technical committee of the Ford Foundation Scholarship Program/Carlos Chagas to students of African descent and Advisor to the Kellogg Foundation in the design of racial equality in Brazilian Northeas.

Meryl Shepherd, Dalvir Gill, Haki Kapasi and Mary Andall-Stanberry

The Black Voices Network, based in England, is a network of children’s services practitioners bringing together the voluntary and community, government and statutory sectors’ knowledge to influence policy and practice development from an ethnically diverse and racial equality perspective. Through seminars, the network offers a safe space for black and other minority ethnic practitioners to share good practice, learn about new, innovative research and discuss challenges to their career development.

Black Voices Network seeks to become the leading Network in England promoting racial equality through encouraging debate, high quality equality training for all and career development for black practitioners. We want policy makers and service providers to acknowledge racism and commit to eradicating it. We want the next generation of black children to grow up with the unshakable knowledge that they are as precious to our society as white children and their lives have the same potential.

The speakers at this keynote symposium will include: Meryl Shepherd (who is a lecturer in early childhood studies at Roehampton University and a trainer in using Persona Dolls); Dalvir Gill (who is a senior lecturer in early childhood studies at Newman University College in Birmingham and a researcher with the five country international study ‘Children Crossing Borders’); Haki Kapasi (who runs the Inspire consultancy and is a trainer and researcher on aspects of race in children's services); and Mary Andall-Stanberry (who is a senior lecturer in Early Childhood and Education Studies and researcher into the support and retention of Black and Minority Ethnic Students and a resultant Pilot Mentoring Scheme at Canterbury Christ Church University). All are deeply involved in the practical applications of their work.

For further information on the network please visit: http://www.ncb.org.uk/ecu_network/bvn/home.aspx