Holly Elissa Bruno, MA, JD, is an award-winning, best-selling author, international keynote speaker, ground-breaking radio host and seasoned team builder – and on April 1, 2017, she will be the keynote speaker at Camp Fire’s Early Childhood Education Conference. (Register for conference)
Holly Elissa gave us a sneak peek into her mind to get us geared up for the conference with this Q&A.
CAMP FIRE: How did you first become involved with early childhood education management?
HOLLY ELISSA BRUNO, MA, JD: I’m grateful that being an attorney made it possible for me to write. I’ve wrote with colleague Tom Copeland the best-selling book, Managing Legal Risks in Early Childhood Programs for Teachers College Press. That book offers practical legal advice on dilemmas arising from hiring or firing staff to handling an intoxicated parent who insists on picking up his child.
I chose early childhood because I believed – and still believe – we can make the world a better place for each child. As a survivor of childhood abuse and neglect, I know from my own experience, how one kind and loving teacher, director or aide can give a child hope.
CF: How has your background in law shaped your outlook on our current early childhood education system?
HEB: Gwen Morgan at Wheelock college, an independent thinker and visionary innovator, noticed my work and decided the early childhood field could use my skills. She made sure I was sent across the country to teach Wheelock’s “Human Side of Management” course. As I listened to the compelling stories of ECE leaders in communities in California, Oklahoma, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, North Carolina, Illinois, Minnesota, and Utah, I was struck by their leadership prowess and their humility. I decided their stories of courage, creativity and selflessness needed to be told. These leaders were expert at Emotional Intelligence (EQ); however, they undervalued their worth. I wanted to change that. That desire has become my mission: to make sure early childhood professionals no longer underestimate their value, and that they credit themselves with considerable genius.
CF: What can our audience expect from your keynote speech?
HEB: My keynotes are the opposite of traditional. What participants have to say is just as important as what a keynoter may say. You will be invited to be engaged, interactive, meet new colleagues, share your insights, laugh, have fun and let yourself be uplifted in the process. A burning interest of mine is the burgeoning research in neuroscience, how we affect one another on a cellular level, and how we adults can grow and change in ways we never thought we could. This is all very optimistic and heart-warming, which is what I intend my message to be.
CF: If you had to offer one piece of advice to a child care center director, what would that be?
HEB: I would rather listen to a leader and support her or him in finding out what her or his signature contribution can be than to give advice. However, I know that if a leader is true to herself, kind to herself and honors her intuition, she can use even her shortcomings and failures to make a difference.
CF: You’ve contributed many beneficial resources to the education field, including books, podcasts and blogs – which project has been your favorite and why?
HEB: What gives me great joy? Being of service to people who make our world a better place, witnessing children pulse with curiosity and confidence, watching an adult finally realize her own worth and laughing together at being called “glorified babysitters”. Whether others acknowledge it or not, we are in the business of changing lives for the better. Things don’t get much better than that.
Holly Elissa Bruno served as Assistant Attorney General for the state of Maine and Assistant Dean at the University of Maine School of Law. While working as Associate Professor and Dean of Faculty at the University of Maine-Augusta, Holly Elissa was selected “Outstanding Professor”.
An alumna of Harvard University’s Institute for Educational Management, she teaches leadership courses for The McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership and Wheelock College.
Holly Elissa’s books include the best-selling, What You Need to Lead an Early Childhood Program: Emotional Intelligence in Practice (NAEYC, 2012), Managing Legal Risks in Early Childhood Programs (Columbia University’s Teachers College Press, November 2012) and Learning from the Bumps in the Road (Redleaf Press, 2013). Her first book, Leading on Purpose was published by McGraw-Hill in 2008. The Comfort of Little Things: An Educator’s Guide to Second Chances received the National Living Now silver award for books from any field that “uplift the quality of life”.
