Guest speaker: The Early Years Last a Lifetime

Introducing guest speaker: Dr. Dan Wuori

With more than 30 years of early years leadership, Dr. Dan Wuori is the Founder and President of Early Childhood Policy Solutions, a bipartisan public policy consultancy focused on the needs of young children, their families, and the early years professionals who serve them. He serves concurrently as a Strategic Advisor on Early Childhood to the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation. In both roles – and in his prior position as the founding Director of Early Childhood at The Hunt Institute in Cary, North Carolina - Dr. Wuori has worked alongside governors and state legislators to improve early years policy across the United States.

But to parents the world over, Dan is known not for his policy work, but for his innovative use of social media to educate about infants and toddlers – with more than a quarter million followers (across platforms) tuning in to his daily video child development lessons. This work was recently profiled in The New York Times, which called his X (Twitter) account “a font of delight and edification… educational, but also – put simply – awwwww.”

His new book The Daycare Myth: What We Get Wrong About Early Care and Education (and What We Should Do About It) was released in September 2024. Upon its announcement, the book – which explores the costly disconnect between what we know about the science of early development and our public policy – spent a week at the top of Amazon’s education, education reform and policy, and developmental psychology best sellers list. It is now in its third printing.

Dan is currently hard at work on a second book, Wonderment: Our First Three Years, which was recently acquired by Ballantine Books (a division of Penguin-Random House) for publication in early 2027.