2025 Annual Celebration of NH Early Childhood Professionals

2025 Celebration Prizes for Credential Challenge

Still, deciding whether to participate in the 2025 Credential Challenge? Take a look at the amazing prizes up for grabs for both individual and team winners! The deadline for Credential Applications to be completed is February 28th, 2025.

2025 Celebration Prizes for Credential Challenge

Individual Prizes

• Kindle
• Echo Dot
• Self Care Kit
• Spa Finder Gift Card

Team Prizes

• Small Sensory Tables
• Wagon with all-terrain wheels
• Revive and Thrive Workshop
• Nature-Based Classroom Kit

For more details, visit NH Connections.

Description: Join us on Monday, April 7, 2025, for a time to celebrate you the NH Early Childhood Professional. The Annual Celebration of New Hampshire Early Childhood Professionals is open to all NH early childhood education and care providers. The event includes guest speakers, awards, giveaways, and recognition for those Early Childhood Professionals who have earned a credential during the Credential Challenge.

• Date/Time: Monday, April 7, 2025, 4:30 PM-7:30 PM
• Location: Grappone Conference Center, 70 Constitute Avenue, Concord, NH 03301
• Pre-Registration required

Event Details

Complimentary Light Dinner & Beverages

4:30 to 5:00 PM Registration, networking and appetizers

5:00 to 7:30 PM Celebration Program featuring:

• Notable guest speakers
• Awards presentations
• Credential recognition

Event includes:

• Professional Photo ops and photo booth
• Informational tables with resources
• Amazing Giveaways

Additional details:

This celebration will award one (1) Professional Activity Unit (PAU)

• The celebration will be held in Salons A, B, & C at the Grappone Center.
• This event will follow the CDC Guidelines for gatherings.
• The wearing of masks is optional.
• Attire is “work casual”.
• There are parking spaces in front of the building.
• Doors open at 4:30 PM. The program will begin promptly at 5:00 PM.

Christine is the founder and lead guide for BirchWalking, a social impact organization that “brings beings together in nature and creates safe spaces to deepen connections that promote resiliency and capacity for all to thrive and live well”.

BirchWalking provides a range of nature connected experiences including guided forest therapy walks and mindfulness for individuals, families, groups, and teams in New Hampshire and beyond both in person and virtually. Christine’s inspiration to become a certified workplace mindfulness facilitator and forest therapy guide came from her own experiences as a health and human services professional and leader experiencing burnout and vicarious trauma. After traditional trauma treatments failed to relieve her symptoms, Christine attended a multi-day forest bathing and mindfulness retreat and experienced profound benefits that lasted over time. She subsequently undertook training through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs (ANFT) to become a certified guide and now offers tailored forest bathing experiences for individual health and human services practitioners, as well as teams, leaders, and organizations. Christine is also a volunteer with the Old Growth Forest Network where she is a County Coordinator for two counties in New Hampshire, Rockingham and Strafford, leading efforts to identify and preserve old growth forests. She is also a member of the Advisory Group and Climate Justice Workgroup for the NH Healthcare Workers for Climate Action.

Christine has a Master’s Degree in Social Work (MSW) from the University of Michigan and Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work from the University of New Hampshire. She also holds a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS) in Education & Leadership from Plymouth State University and is a Certified Forest and Nature Therapy Guide and Trail Consultant through the Association for Nature and Forest Therapists (ANFT). Christine is also certified as a Workplace Mindfulness Facilitator (CWMF) through the Mindful Leader Institute, Brown University.

Siobhán Connelly, B.A.

Siobhán (pronounced sha-vawn) Connelly is a lifelong outdoorswoman and leapt at the opportunity to attend a Forest Therapy walk offered to the Family Resource Center team led by Christine Tappan. This walk prompted her to realize how infrequently her teammates spent time outside, and, witnessing the emotional responses several of them experienced fully piqued her interest in this practice. She gratefully accepted a scholarship offered by BirchWalking in addition to support from her workplace in order to gain certification from the ANFT.

She is excited by the adaptability ANFT guiding provides and feels it is a way she can happily bridge two passions in her life together: nature-based wellness and helping people. Siobhán has been a diligent family advocate since 2015, currently serving her community as the Adverse Childhood Experiences Response Team Coordinator. She was the recipient of the National Healthy Families America Outstanding Supervisor Award in September 2019.

Siobhán holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology (B.A.) from Lesley University. Much of her study area focused particularly on trauma and its effect on human relationships. She is an artist and has practiced Yoga-asana since her very early teens and spent many years sharing her practice both in the studio and privately. Her spare time is spent with her children and out among the beings, land, and waters around her home.

• Email at [email protected]
• Call at (603) 578-1386, ext. 2526 and ext. 2532

Host or Publisher Southern NH Services, Child Care Aware of NH