Tool

This report focuses on strengthening systems that support professional development as a critical task for the early childhood development field. The report advocates for an integrated professional development system that:

• Fully incorporates infant-toddler workforce preparation and ongoing professional development based on widely accepted, evidence-based competencies;
• Is aligned with and articulates into college degree programs;
• Includes alterative pathways to credentials;
• Connects the various service delivery program types;
• Provides appropriate compensation.

The report defines an early childhood professional development system that includes the infant-toddler workforce, highlights the six essential policy areas that need to be addressed and shares policy recommendations in context.

Zero to Three

2012

The ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers was adopted on 5 October 1966 at a special intergovernmental conference convened by UNESCO in Paris in cooperation with the ILO. It sets forth the rights and responsibilities of teachers, and international standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, teaching and learning conditions. It also contains many recommendations for teachers’ participation in educational decisions through consultation and negotiation with educational authorities. Since its adoption, the Recommendation has been considered an important set of guidelines to promote teachers’ status in the interest of quality education.
The ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Education of Teachers (1966) is accompanied by the UNESCO Recommendations concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel, WHICH was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO in 1997, following years of preparatory work between UNESCO and the ILO. This standard is a set of recommended practices covering all high ereducation teaching personnel. It is designed to complement the 1966 Recommendation, and is promoted and its implementation monitored by UNESCO in cooperation with the ILO, notably through the Joint ILO/ UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendations concerning Teaching Personnel (CEART).

ILO/UNESCO

2008

Southeast Asian Guidelines for Early Childhood Teacher Development and Management focuses on recommendations based on both regional and international experiences concerning how to best manage and further enhance the quality of early childhood teachers in terms of the following aspects:

• recruitment to the profession,
• pre-service education,
• certification, deployment,
• continuing professional assessment and development,
• career progression, and
• working conditions and environments.
• These guidelines aim to aid relevant ministries and agencies in the professionalization of early childhood teachers and the promotion of better working conditions.​

SEAMEO

2016

The Early Childhood Workforce Index represents the first effort to establish a baseline description of early childhood employment conditions and policies in every state and to track progress on a state-by-state basis to improve early childhood jobs. Providing states with periodic appraisals of their efforts, based on measurable status and policy indicators, is aimed at encouraging states to step up their efforts to address these persistent workforce challenges and at supporting related advocacy efforts. It is our hope that expanded and consistent focus on early childhood jobs will, in turn, generate refined strategies and encourage the incubation and testing of sustainable policies to attend to compensation and other issues that have gone largely unaddressed.

Center for the Study of Child Care Employment

2016

This manual is to serve as part of an awareness raising effort to identify and address issues of child protection in education in Southern Sudan. This resource was developed as part of the Save the Children Alliance campaign to ensure dramatic changes to children’s education in countries affected by conflict.

This manual was developed to help guide the facilitation of a child protection training for teachers, trainer of trainers for teachers (TOTs) and other education authorities. It was developed together with a Teachers Handbook on Child Protection. This manual can also be used for the training of
members of Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) and community-based child protection groups.
The material was developed for use by facilitators who do not necessarily have much background in
child protection but who have been involved with delivering trainings.

The manual is divided overall into two sections:

1. Facilitating the training
2. Sessions for training teachers

The first section on Facilitating training includes tips for preparation and facilitating the training. The second part includes suggestions for sessions. Each section includes: 1) key learning points; 2) session contents; and 3) activities / group work.

The Tanzania Para Social Work Program represents a comprehensive workforce development model to strengthen the social welfare system in low-resource countries. The program was developed to equip caregivers and their supervisors with critical knowledge and skills that strengthen their ability to provide care and support to vulnerable children and their families, particularly in communities most affected by HIV/AIDS.

The year-long training program teaches basic social work and child development skills that empower community-based workers and volunteers by improving their ability to identify, assess, engage, and link those in need to existing care and support services.
The intent of the curriculum is to introduce Para Social Workers to the basic concepts, processes, and helping skills that underlie all interventions with children and families, thus providing a foundation for effective intervention with this population. The Para Social Work Program gives community-based workers a basic knowledge of:

• Social work practice;
• Human behavior and development in the social environment, especially focusing on vulnerable children and families; and
• HIV disease including prevention, counseling and testing, treatment access and issues, and related familial, social, and community advocacy.

The emphasis of the program is on skills development. Therefore, theoretical and conceptual material is presented to support its application to working with children and families. Additionally, training methods employed emphasize active, practical skills development and experiential learning. Participants are given numerous opportunities to practice skills presented in the class setting to facilitate their transfer to real-life work with children and families. Participants in the Introduction to the Para Social Work course complete a workbook demonstrating their mastery of the skills included in the curriculum.
This Para Social Work Program includes three stages to achieve basic Para Social Work skills.

This user friendly tool: i) addresses in detail the definition of a quality service, ii) provides a menu of available tools for the measurement of the quality of child care centers serving infants and toddlers ages 0 to 3 years (36 months), and iii) reports on the implementation process of these instruments in the region. The Toolkit presents a theoretical description of the tools and a guide explaining where, how, and when to use each tool, based on a detailed approach with different dimensions to consider in order for the quality measurement to be successful. This toolkit is designed to be a resource for researchers and technical staff of any discipline, working for governments and institutions interested in measuring and monitoring the quality of child care centers serving infants and toddlers ages 0 to 3 years aims to assist them in translating the discussion on improving child care quality into concrete actions and results.

Achieving Excellence through Continuing Professional Development: A CPD Framework for Early Childhood Educators provides child care personnel with a structured pathway to develop, update and specialize in knowledge and skills relevant to their profession. It is designed to help child care personnel continue to deliver high quality programs and services to children and families.

The Workforce Development Framework (WDF) can guide agency leaders to improve the health of their child welfare workforce. The WDF describes the key elements of an effective workforce and evidence-informed strategies to develop each component. The WDF’s inner circle describes the process for assessing organizational workforce gaps and implementing workforce strategies while the outer one delineates the components. Leaders can use this framework to develop a comprehensive approach to improving the health of their workforce. Together, the Process and Components compose the Workforce Development Framework (WDF) developed by NCWWI.