North America

The Best Teachers for Our Littlest Learners? Lessons from Head Start's Last Decade

Summary:

The Best Teachers for Our Littlest Learners? Lessons from Head Start's Last Decade aims to inform efforts to strengthen the early childhood workforce by documenting the current state of the Head Start workforce in the United States. Through five parts, this paper examines the effects of recent efforts to improve the skills of Head Start teachers. This paper includes:

  • a review the evolution of Head Start workforce policy over the last 50 years;
  • an analysis of the impact of the most recent reauthorization of Head Start;
  • case studies of the evolution of the Head Start workforce in four states;
  • a discussion of how the broader policy and research context has evolved since the last reauthorization of Head Start; and
  • policy recommendations to strengthen the Head Start workforce.
Resource web file:
bellwethereducation.org

Describing the Preparation and Ongoing Professional Development of the Infant/ Toddler Workforce: An Analysis of the National Survey for Early Care and Education Data

Summary:

Describing the Preparation and Ongoing Professional Development of the Infant/ Toddler Workforce: An Analysis of the National Survey for Early Care and Education Data presents an analysis describing the professional development activities of the United States’ Infant/Toddler (I/T) workforce. The analyses shared in this brief aim to help the filed better understand the strengths and needs of the I/T workforce in center-based and home-based early care and education programs.

Resource web file:
www.childtrends.org

Child Care: Research-Based Policy Recommendations for Executive and Legislative Officials in 2017

Summary:

Child Care: Research-Based Policy Recommendations for Executive and Legislative Officials in 2017 presents the following set of reccomenations:

  • Use regional market rate survey data to inform a tax credit formula that will provide a true benefit to families.
  • Support a highly effective child care workforce with scholarships for training and education.
  • Use caution when amending child care regulations, specifically child-teacher ratios and group size requirements.

This short policy brief was released by Child Trends.

Resource web file:
www.childtrends.org

Supervising for Quality Child Welfare Practice

Summary:

This bulletin for professionals presents an overview of child welfare supervision and explores the dimensions of supervision that agencies may want to consider as they seek to strengthen the effectiveness of their services to children and families. This bulletin is designed to provide child welfare supervisors, managers, and related professionals with examples of States’ efforts to strengthen supervisory capacity and with tools and resources to enhance supervisory skills.

A Comprehensive Workforce Strategy to Advance Child Welfare Outcomes Workforce - Workgroup Report

Summary:

For a child welfare agency to achieve its mission, it must attract, develop, and retain a skilled and ready workforce. Yet, child welfare agencies across the country are struggling to recruit, hire, train, support, and retain committed and high-performing staff. To hear key stakeholder concerns about the child welfare workforce, the Children’s Bureau and the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute invited 28 state and county agency leaders and 7 university partners, Children’s Bureau staff and national consultants to participate in a Workforce Workgroup on March 4-5, 2013. This report is a compilation of the most pressing child welfare workforce issues they face and recommended strategies for developing the child welfare workforce of the future.

Critical Competencies for Infant-Toddler Educators Related Professional Criteria

Summary:

The appendices from the Critical Competencies for Infant-Toddler Educators Related Professional Criteria, provide clear and concise guidance on essential knowledge and skills for infant-toddler educators.

Illustrating how criteria from various partners can be used together to support the preparation and professional development of infant-toddler educators, this document includes related professional criteria, tools and child development benchmarks.

Resource web file:
www.zerotothree.org

Early Childhood Education and Services for All! - Policy Recommendations Derived from the Forum

Summary:

Ultimately, high-quality ECEC services must not only be accessible, affordable, and available, but also desirable and relevant to all families and responsive to changing demographics and evolving needs in order to be successful.


The recommendations that follow are intended to provide a comprehensive set of guiding principles for policymaking at the local, national, and federal levels, as well as for funders and other stakeholders, and are based on the knowledge generated from the Transatlantic Forum on Inclusive Early Years’ (TFIEY) convenings. While these recommendations are focused on issues in ECEC that may particularly impact children in a low-income or migrant context, they are considerations that can benefit all young children and families in ECEC systems across the EU and US regardless of their background. Investing in inclusive, high-quality ECEC is a win-win situation: for all children and their families and for society.

Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation

Summary:

Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress.

Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8

Summary:

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the family—which includes all primary caregivers—are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment.

Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Resource web file:
www.nap.edu

Early Childhood Education Professional Development: Training and Technical Assistance Glossary

Summary:

Professional preparation and ongoing professional development (PD) for the early childhood education workforce is essential to providing high-quality services to children and families. Consistent terminology and definitions related to PD methods, roles, knowledge, and capabilities have emerged as a critical issue for the early education field. Recently, states have experienced new early childhood education system challenges and needs related to training and technical assistance (TA). The urgency of these issues grows, particularly as states increase their focus and work on quality improvement activities, including quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS).

To support related efforts, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) jointly developed this glossary of professional development, training, and technical assistance (TA) terms. Additionally, NAEYC and the Alliance of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (a collaborative effort of the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators and ACCESS–Associate Degree Early Childhood Teacher Educators) will continue to explore and develop national education-related definitions as a companion to this training and TA glossary.

Resource file:
Resource web file:
www.naeyc.org