Family engagement is essential to high quality services for all children in early childhood care and education. From the beginning of life, families nurture their children and the capacities they will need to be ready for school. The Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (PFCE) Framework for Early Childhood Systems is a guide to understanding…

Fostering Opportunities is an innovative student engagement program for middle school and high school students who have experienced foster care. The goal of the program is to help youth who have experienced foster care be successful in school and ultimately earn a high school credential. Fostering Opportunities was developed because of the clear…

Being a family day care provider is work that requires professional responsibilities and attention to the physical, emotional, and educational well-being of children; listening and responding to parents; and running a business. This videotape, in English- and Spanish-language versions, explores the elements involved in starting up a family day…

This text is Volume II of a comprehensive, self-instructional training program designed to address the training needs of child care programs serving children under 3 years of age. The two volumes are divided into modules that correspond to the 13 functional areas of the Child Development Associate competency standards. Each module contains an…

Explores several approaches to infant/toddler education and offers suggestions for developing an effective program that reflects the best of what is known about how infants and toddlers grow and learn. (RH)

Child Care Dallas planned and implemented a project aiming to produce an employer-assisted family day care system which would meet the developmental needs of infants and toddlers, increase the community supply of infant/toddler care, be affordable for parents and employers, and demonstrate effective methods for recruiting and training competent…

The booklet examines child care as a major resource for the prevention of child abuse, and is intended to bring child care and child abuse workers together. An introductory section on child abuse is followed by an update on the family, including historical perspectives and a case study illustrating cooperation of parents and day care staff. A…

Designed to help develop a model for training and support in childminding, this report provides a close analysis of regional meetings on training and support needs in London, England. The discussion is presented in three sections. The first part provides examination of the background of the project, current trends and approaches, and justification…

In efforts to address child care provider concerns about the staffing crisis, many Smart Start counties in North Carolina are seeking to implement substitute programs to promote release time for child caregivers to return to school or to cover staff illness and leave time. This type of substitute program involves the use of regularly employed,…

This guide details the core competencies for early care and education professionals in Kansas and Missouri. The guide's introduction provides background information about what core competencies are, why they are important, and how they can be used by practitioners, directors, trainers, higher education faculty, agencies, and professional…

Dayspring AIDS support services (DASS), a New England-based health organization, like many service organizations that rely on part-time and volunteer help, lacked the funds needed to improve and/or renew part-time staff and volunteer knowledge and skills. This paper describes an innovative way in which the professional development needs of DASS's…

Noting that a family with young children is under tremendous pressure and that a babysitting cooperative can give parents relief during a vital stage of a family's development, this book provides guidance for mothers of preschool children in starting and maintaining a Smart Mom's Babysitting Cooperative based on the University Place Baby-Sitting…

Maintains that parents and teachers of toddlers need to see "toddlerhood" as a special and distinct stage of development with its own set of tasks and behaviors, when creating age-appropriate activity programs in home or group settings. Gives eleven ways that such programs can be made to fit toddlers. (BB)

An administrative and curriculum guide are presented for the High School/Preschool Partnership Program in which high school students gain experience with handicapped preschoolers in a mainstreamed setting. The program is intended to expand services to high schoolers (parenting skills and career skills) as well as preschoolers. The administrative…

Discusses advantages of and criteria for development of effective caregiving teams in child care programs. (BB)