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Emerging Issues I. Staffing

In high quality child care programs, the staff plays a critical role in planning and implementing inclusive practices. Essential elements of a comprehensive system for child care personnel include: standards and competencies; recruitment; training; compensation; teamwork; and opportunities for career advancement.

Standards and Competencies

Accreditation criteria for high quality early childhood education programs, can provide the foundation for building a system of standards that will ensure a competent and stable early childhood workforce. Standards should be based on measurable qualifications and should reflect current research-based knowledge about child development. Quality standards can help assure that child care staff will have the skills to meet the diverse needs of all the children in their care. Standards regarding total group size and adult-child ratio will have a direct bearing on the quality of care.

Standards for quality staff include:

• The ability and knowledge to support and promote children's healthy growth and development;

• Respectful, positive, and nurturing interactions with the children and their families — all children are to be valued and respected for the diversity among them;

• The recognition that children with disabilities are children first; and

• The ability to be a contributing team member.

Programs can encourage and support staff competence by having: (1) a comprehensive orientation about the program's philosophy and goals, policies, expectations and responsibilities, special needs of individual children, and health and safety procedures; and (2) a plan for on-going training and professional development that includes a wide range of topics such as curriculum, child development, legislation and regulations, development of constructive partnerships with parents, and knowledge of how to access community resources for the families in the program.

At the Champaign County Early Childhood Program in Urbana, Ohio, on-going staff development is central to the program. A staff self-rating scale based on the program's philosophy, instructional approach and operational guidelines, has been implemented. The staff examines and rates their own personal effectiveness and need for improvement. These self-ratings are used to develop both individual and program action plans.

Children's Playspace in Ann Arbor, Michigan requires potential staff candidates to respond to written and verbal questions during the interview process regarding their knowledge, skills and beliefs about children with disabilities. Once hired, staff participates in in-service training that focuses on child development and working with children who have special needs.

Issue #3 of the Child Care Bulletin¹ , published by the National Child Care Information Center, provides information on several of the program accreditation and staff credentialing programs available.

Recruitment

A plan for systematic recruitment of a diverse child care staff is critical to assuring the availability of quality personnel. Child care program administrators need to develop clearly written job descriptions that reflect the program's inclusion philosophy and list specific responsibilities and expectations for each role. Education and training requirements should be clearly defined and serve as basic criteria for employment. However, it is important that the recruitment plan is flexible. Community members who have had a range of experiences, are enthusiastic about working closely with staff, children and their families, and who express interest in furthering their training should be encouraged to enter the child care field. Potential employees should be questioned about their interests and strengths to help determine what their job roles will be.

Developing linkages with high schools and colleges, career and job fairs, and scholarship and mentor programs is a strategy that can be used to recruit a diverse group of career-focused personnel.

It is also important to develop recruitment strategies for child care directors and assistant directors. There are very few educational programs designed for local Child Care Administrators. Collaborating with the local college systems to offer affordable course work could provide a pool of qualified personnel.

Training

Training and staff development must be an on-going process that builds on the existing skills of each child care provider. It is important to gear training to those who are entering the field as well as to those who are already in the field. Training needs to be available to child care staff at different levels such as teachers, assistants, directors, family child care providers, and support staff.

Providers need to receive training and support on a regular basis and in a variety of ways. Preservice and in-service training may take the form of courses, workshops, on-site consultation, mentoring, release time to observe other programs, and informal meetings that focus on curriculum, problem-solving, or support for providers. A comprehensive plan for staff development should include cross-disciplinary training, whereby educators, mental health counselors, physical and occupational therapists, social workers, and administrators learn about and appreciate the role each person has in relation to the children and families in the program.

The "Yes, You Can Do It! Mentor Training Project" is a new project of the Children's Foundation. In this program, family child care providers who care for infants and toddlers with disabilities will be trained to be mentors for less experienced providers who would like to care for young children with disabilities. Accurate information and on-going support is a key to success for providers and parents with a young child with a disability.

An integral part of Best Practices in Integration training, in Bloomington, Indiana, is the acquisition of new skills and role changes on the part of all educators. The early childhood intervention specialist must learn to provide indirect services to children through consultation with early childhood educators. The early childhood educators, in turn, must learn about early intervention and the importance of forming a collaborative partnership process.

The content of training should reflect the current knowledge base of child development and best practices for all children. The content should be specific to the job functions, physical settings, and the children in these settings.

Resources should be made available when providers need information about a specific disability, or when they work toward incorporating the cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the children and families they serve into the life of the program. There should be an on-going organized effort to help providers apply the skills that they learn through training. Training must be affordable and easily accessible to encourage participation. Arrangements for training can be made with individuals, community colleges, resource and referral agencies, four-year colleges and vocational or technical schools.

In the Inclusionary Early Childhood Services program, in the Bronx, New York, training of child care providers is specific to the immediate needs of the children, rather than topic-based. When a child with severe bilateral sensorimotor hearing loss was enrolled at the Goose Bay Nursery School, an audiologist from the Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center consulted with the director, teacher, and assistant about the nature of the child's hearing loss and the rationale for the type of language and a communicative system selected for the child. Classroom practices were suggested to promote the child's social and linguistic development. The audiologist and the teacher met periodically to assess the child's progress in the classroom.

LEARNS: Early Childhood, part of Maine's Statewide Systems Change Initiative for Inclusive Early Childhood Care and Education, offers topical training opportunities for early childhood educators at meetings throughout the state. These low-cost seminars provide information on creating inclusive settings and opportunities for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Training sessions are offered in the evenings to make them more accessible to providers.

Compensation

To ensure the recruitment and retention of a qualified and competent staff, it is critical to develop and implement an equitable compensation system for child care providers at all levels.

An equitable compensation system offers salaries and benefits commensurate with the increase in knowledge and skills that staff members gain through taking courses, participating in a cohesive training program, or working toward a degree or credential. Offering child care providers incentives and opportunities to move into positions that have increased responsibilities and status lets them know that their work and skills are valued. With a fair compensation system in place, early childhood workers will more likely remain in their positions and will experience a higher degree of job satisfaction.

A complete compensation system will also include benefits to providers such as:

• Scholarships to further their training and education;

• Training that is affordable and easily accessible;

• Arrangements with local colleges so that providers can accrue credits towards a degree; and

• Release time to attend classes.

The Child Care Education Program at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro recruits staff who have four-year degrees in child development or related fields and who have earned a state Birth through Kindergarten Teaching Certificate. In order to maximize staff salaries, the program has a sliding fee scale for families and the administrator's salary is paid by the university. In addition to providing health benefits, the program allows up to 40 hours leave per year for staff to take classes, prepare and deliver presentations in the community, and participate in training. A substitute teacher, who acts as a "floater," enables staff to spend two hours per week at special education meetings for individual children or on preparations for their classrooms.

Teamwork

Building quality inclusive child care programs requires teamwork. Parents and other family members need to be included as integral partners in the team process. Parents are an important source of information about the abilities, strengths, needs and interests of their children. Program staff, in turn, can assist families with assessing their needs and to explore and evaluate resources that are available to them. Involving the entire child care staff in all phases of the process from the planning and design to the implementation and evaluation of programs is critical.

Caring for children with disabilities requires expertise from many disciplines. A staffing system that supports regular and frequent interactions with a wide range of multidisciplinary specialists will assure the availability of necessary skills and knowledge.

It is important that a climate of mutual respect among staff members and parents be established and that each person has the opportunity to share knowledge and insights about the children, curriculum, or special services and to be able to express ideas for potential changes with the rest of the team.

The Family Center of Washington in Montpelier, Vermont specifically trains providers to be integral members of the multidisciplinary team, which may include parents, early childhood coordinator, pathologist, health professionals, occupational or physical therapist, and a behavior specialist. Since the child care providers may spend the most time with each child in the setting, they provide essential input in developing and implementing each child's Individualized Educational Plan (IEP).

The Leadership Training to Support Child Care for All Children Project, in Champaign Illinois, was funded by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Illinois Planning Council on Developmental Disabilities. The project prepared regional "inclusion leaders" throughout the state to help increase the quality and availability of inclusive child care to families of children with special needs. Regional inclusion leader teams include parents, resource and referral staff, child care providers, special service providers and community college staff. The teams consult with child care programs and individual staff members, conduct workshops, organize conferences, and plan fairs to increase the awareness and involvement of the community.

Opportunities for Career Advancement

Since knowledgeable and experienced personnel are critical to the success of any child care program, strategies need to be developed for staff retention and promotion. It is essential that as providers increase their professional qualifications, they are rewarded with increased compensation, so they can envision a satisfying future in the field. A comprehensive career ladder should be developed that defines quality standards and competencies for staff and that demonstrates the varied opportunities available for moving toward increased responsibility, status and compensation. Opportunities for career advancement should take into account the wide range of job roles and levels of training that providers currently have.

A Head Start teacher within the Early Childhood Education Department atThe Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, attended a local community college and graduated with an Associate Degree. She then transferred to a state college and earned a Bachelor's Degree in Early Intervention. After graduation, she was rehired by the Head Start program as a Specialist in Early Intervention. The Tribal Scholarship Trust Fund paid for her tuition, books and 80 percent of living costs.

Helen's Story

I've taught three-year-olds at Community Child Development Center for six years. Last year I took a course at our local university about including children with disabilities. I had two children in my class with special needs. The center paid half of my tuition and allowed me to leave early on the day of my class. After my first research project, I started to get excited because I was learning ways to adapt the curriculum to help the children in my class. I also discovered that I was already doing a lot of good things such as regularly observing each child. During the course, I made some changes in my classroom and afterwards I spoke with my director about ideas I had for the whole center. She was very supportive and encouraged me to do a presentation at a staff meeting. As a result, we formed several committees to look at multi-age classrooms and to find speech and language resources. Not long after this, I was promoted to head teacher. Now, I have decided to go back to school to get my Master's degree in special education.

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