We are ready to welcome more than 430 Purdue Extension professionals and guests to the Purdue Extension Professional Development Conference (PDC) at the Tippecanoe County 4-H Fairgrounds on December 4-5, 2024!
Sched App
Please download the “Sched” app and look for the “2024PDC” event. This will allow you to select sessions that you wish to attend and create your personal calendar for PDC within the app. A new video has been recorded to help with navigation of the app.
PDC Website
Please visit the PDC website for more details regarding the conference, including the most current conference schedule.
Please note that information on AgIT Equipment Pick-up, the PDC Clothing Swap, After Hours, and other topics are included in the white bar above the PDC banner.
Information on the conference proceedings for in-person and virtual participants is also available.
Hotel Accommodations
Those who requested housing during PDC will be receiving a confirmation directly from Carie Herbst as she processes the requests. Thank you for your patience.
Purdue University was awarded a five-year, $25 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to execute the Wabash Heartland Campus and Community Collaboration in December 2023. This grant works to improve two social determinants of health, transportation and child care, within a seven-county region: Benton, Carroll, Clinton, Fountain, Tippecanoe, Warren and White counties.
Three strategies anchor the child care initiative. Purdue Extension is leading two of them:
Purdue Extension has officially hired the Community Childcare team to undertake the work outlined in the grant. Collectively, they will serve the region and bring an array of experience and expertise to Extension. I invite you to welcome this team into our Extension family at PDC!
Community Childcare director:
Brianne Wrede brings over 20 years of experience in Indiana's education and nonprofit sectors. Her career has spanned roles as an educational advocate, teacher, instructional coach and administrator across central Indiana. Eight years were dedicated to working in child care and early childhood education. Holding a BS in education and an MS in higher education, Brianne is on track to complete her doctorate of education in leadership and innovation in February 2025. Alongside her role at Purdue, she currently serves on the Greater Lafayette Youth Development Committee and is an advisory board member for the FOCUS after-school program. Previous experiences include developing and leading K-12 outreach programming, managing community partnerships across the state, providing professional development and driving strategic initiatives for Purdue’s Women in Engineering Program.
Community Childcare deputy director:
Rachel Swank has more than 20 years of commitment to the field of education, teaching, and learning. She has completed both Purdue’s teacher education program for social studies education and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. Rachel was a secondary teacher for 10 years in a rural community before coming a licensing advisor/officer with the Office of Teacher Education and Licensure at Purdue. Rachel is also a PhD student in the College of Education, researching pre-service teacher self-efficacy levels.
Five Community Childcare educators:
Wendy Young-Collingwood hails from Boone County and has extensive experience in early childhood education. She has bachelor’s and master's degrees in elementary education with focus on social emotional learning. Wendy also has training in adult education and early childhood mental health. Her 13 years of roles with child care resource and referral agencies and Geminus-Spark Learning Lab have equipped her to provide educational, technical and coaching support to child care providers – in a licensed, ministry or family home care situation. Wendy will officially join us on Dec. 5 and will likely cover Fountain and Tippecanoe counties in her role.
Alejandra Durán Trinidad will serve as the Latino community child care educator. She is based in Tippecanoe County. She earned her PhD in applied interpersonal and instructional communication with a focus on mentoring and her master’s degree in health communication from Purdue University. She specialized in communicating with diverse populations. With over six years of experience in teaching, mentoring, and community outreach, and fluent in Spanish and English, she has extensive experience in conducting community needs assessments, developing programs, and delivering training.
Maritsa Romero has a strong background in public health, community engagement and behavioral research. She has a master’s degree in public health, focused on family and community health. Maritsa's expertise in community health, cultural competence, and bilingual proficiency in English and Spanish will be valuable as she primarily works in Clinton and Tippecanoe counties.
Jennifer Roth is a native of Carroll County and earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Purdue University in 1995. In 2024, she completed her English language learner licensure from Purdue. Over a 15-year career, Jennifer has taught elementary students in Delphi, Logansport, and North White schools. As the ELL coordinator for Clinton Central School Corp., Jennifer helped establish a comprehensive ELL program, developing curriculum and mentoring teachers in effective practices for supporting English learners. Jennifer will likely cover Carroll and White counties in her role.
Michelle Shonkwiler is a graduate of Indiana State University with a degree in social work. Based in Warren County, she has experience in teaching and mentoring children in her local communities for 30 years. She was part of a child-abuse prevention program for more than 20 years. She helped educate new parents on child development expectations and family goal setting. Michelle also worked with children as a behavioral health professional, helping children in the school system who had mental health diagnoses. Michelle will likely serve Benton and Warren counties.
Thanks to all who viewed the October recorded webinar about youth protection.
Several registration guides have been updated since September to reflect changes in the POMP-X system. You will find these and many other resources on the Youth Protection page of the Purdue Extension Hub. More than 400 youth programs have now been registered in POMP-X.
The newest resource is a PPT slide deck that has been developed for educators and specialists to share Youth Protection guidance with Extension Volunteers.
Youth Protection trainings continue to be available in Ideal-Logic for both program director and program staff: https://www.purdue.edu/ethics/ed-training/youth.php. Please be sure to complete these trainings using your Purdue career account.
Questions regarding youth protection? Please e-mail puextyouthprotection@purdue.edu.
Thank you so much to the 84 of you who participated in a brief survey during October about the disasters that Extension educators around the state have experienced in their community, their perceptions of the needs of families in those situations, and the resources, initiatives, and/or activities that have proven most successful in disasters in their communities in the past. Your responses were enlightening and will be invaluable as we tailor existing materials and develop an implementation plan that will enable Purdue Extension educators to help families to build resilience in the wake of disasters.
Attached, you will find the survey results. The .html file includes visualizations of all of the data we collected. The PowerPoint file introduces the project, how educators are or can be involved in the project, and a high-level summary of the results.
In short, we hear you that family resilience-building programs exist in some but not most communities, and don't always fit your families' needs. You have identified a need for not only immediate physical and safety needs but also community support and programs addressing psychological health and wellbeing. You have also clearly responded that knowledge about how to access existing resources is the biggest barrier. We will do our best to address this concern as we develop our implementation plan. Another critical barrier is that families can't or won't come to programming, especially in the aftermath of disasters. We will address this in our revisions of the materials and in developing creative ways to meet families where they are.
Finally, we would like to extend a very special THANK YOU to the educators who have already signed on to be a part of this work: Allison Hillis, Ashley Drees, Shannon Shepherd, Mandy Gray, Jamie Jo Lowder, Mindy Mayes, Megan Jaspersen, and Linda Curley (who is doing a spectacular job leading the charge on many aspects of this project!) We look forward to continuing our partnership with Extension and to establishing a partnership with the Extension Disaster Education Network (with the help of Amanda Mosiman and Angie Lindsey) and Indiana PREPared and AgrAbility (with the help of Ed Sheldon and colleagues).
To help the most families and make this program as usable as possible, we would like to include as many educators as we can, across all areas of Extension. If you have thoughts or want to get involved in this project, please don't hesitate to reach out (kristinemarceau@purdue.edu). We will periodically update educators and release calls for participation in specific activities as the project progresses.
Survey Highlights