April
23, 2007
- Don't call child-care
professionals baby sitters
ONCE
a year, formal time is given in April to thank professionals who care for and educate
the youngest children in
I
have personal reasons - three to be exact - for taking time to thank the professional
caregivers for the work they do. The three reasons are simple - Megan, Marcus
and Max - my children. Since my children have been old enough to sit up, I have
had them in child care.
As I
watched my daughter, then 18 months old, walk into the classroom for the first
time, I knew I wasn't going to be able to leave her. She immediately gave me a
wave goodbye, but I was the one having separation issues. The tears shed were
my own. I didn't want to leave, but I also knew that I had to work. What was I
going to do? I decided to fill out an application and began working full time
at the center where my daughter attended. My daughter is now 18 years old and
will soon be graduating from high school. Could I have taken another job making
more money? Sure, but I would have missed out on being near my children. The
payoff to me was simple.
Eighteen
years ago, I thought it would be an easy job - play with children and clean up
after them. Although I had a degree in early childhood education, I was in for
a rude awakening. It took me time to fully grasp and understand the enormity
and importance of providing quality care. It was "day care" after
all. We were there to care for the children, not educate them. That job was
left to the school system. Once I understood that it was up to me, I hungered
for more information, more training and more education. I began to appreciate that child care was not
a baby sitting job, but a career full of professionals who understood the
importance of nurturing, providing a secure base and allowing children their
autonomy.
People
used to ask me what I did for a living. I would proudly say, "I am a child-care
provider." They'd smile and say, "How fun! It must be easy to be a
baby sitter."
I would then list everything I taught "my children" that day: problem solving, cooperation, science, math, creativity and self-help skills. I would tell them about the continuing education we child-care providers are expected to complete. I would tell them about training opportunities, such as the Apprenticeship for Child Development Specialist program and the ongoing trainings through local child-care resource and referral agencies.
Most
of all, I would share with them the effect I had on a child's developing brain.
I wasn't going to be the caregiver that allowed a child's brain not to be
stimulated, not to have those neurons and synapses firing on all cylinders, not
to make the child ready to learn.
"It
is my personal mission," I would say, "to make sure that each child I
come in contact with is the best person he or she can be at that moment in time."
"Besides,"
I would say, "if you can't buy in to the important groundwork child-care
professionals do, look to the research. For $1 spent on quality early care and
education, $7 is saved in juvenile detention programs." If you can't buy
in to developing a child's brain, perhaps you can understand the financial
ramifications of poor-quality early care and education experiences for
children. Baby sitter? I think not.
My
children have had wonderful child-care providers that have helped shape and
nurture them. I have been fortunate to understand early care and education from
both sides - as a provider and as a parent. Neither is easy, but because of the
providers that came into the lives of my family, I became a better parent and,
I hope, they became better child-care providers.
That
is why I ask you to take the time to thank a child-care provider. The time spent in quality care today will
reap benefits for years to come. But please
don't call them baby sitters anymore. Call them child-care professionals.
Ertl is a training supervisor at Connect Child Care Resource and Referral, an instructor for the Apprenticeship for Child Development Specialist program.
http://wvgazette.com/section/Opinion/Op-Ed+Commentaries/2007082122
August
22, 2007
- Child development
apprenticeship would be great for all in the field
The
Apprenticeship for Child Development Specialist Program is a training program
for professionals working with children from birth to 8 years old. The program
is based on a professional partnership between early care and education
providers and their employers.
Several
colleges and universities throughout the state have agreements so that
apprentices who complete the program may enroll in qualified degree programs
and receive credit for the courses they took during the apprenticeship.
Just
like apprenticeships for plumbers and carpenters, ACDS is a teaching program
where students learn by doing. An apprentice must be a high school graduate or
possess a GED and work at least 20 hours a week in early care and education.
The curriculum is based on a blend of classroom work and on-the-job training,
which provides professional growth. This course is two years with four
semesters, where students attend class for 15 weeks each semester, one evening
each week and complete 3,200 to 4,000 hours of on-the-job training. Once they
have completed these hours, participants receive their Department of Labor
certificate.
Apprentices
gain practical experience in child observation, classroom management, family
partnership, staff communication, child advocacy, community involvement,
physical development, first aid, health and safety, diversity and ethics,
social and emotional development, behavior guidance, language development and
cognitive development.
The
program began in
Primarily
funded through the state Department of Health and Human Resources, the program
is offered to qualified students at the amazing bargain rate of $70 for the
entire four semesters!
Wouldn’t
it be great if all people working in the early care and education field had a
minimum of this education? Ask your child care center or preschool if its staff have the ACDS certificate or are enrolled in the
program.
A new
apprenticeship class will be offered at the Connect Child Care Resource and
Referral office,
Barrett
is an apprenticeship specialist at River Valley Child Development Services. Anyone with questions can call (866) 982-2237
or (304) 523-0433, ext. 404. ACDS Web
site is wvacds.org.
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Opinion/Op-Ed+Commentaries/200801015
January 02, 2008
- Ideal development center is
worth reaching toward
Imagine if you will, a child development center where parents can take their
children at any time of the day or night (because all
jobs do not exist between 8 and 4 or 9 to 5). This child development center is
state of the art, with plenty of space to play, learn, eat and interact.
This child development center is safe and clean. A flexible, play-based
curriculum that incorporates math, music, art, physical education and languages
in addition to English (including sign language) is used. There is a sick room
and clinic so that when a child has a minor illness, a parent does not have to
miss work. Children receive healthy, nutritious meals that encourage lifelong healthy
eating habits.
The staff is well trained. At a minimum, they all have Apprenticeship for
Child Development Specialist certificates. The director has a minimum of a
bachelor’s degree in child development. Staff make
regular home visits to each family providing age-appropriate materials
enhancing all areas of child development.
v:shapes="_x0000_i1029">Materials regarding child health and safety
topics are provided as well, and the focus is kept on the individual child in
the privacy of the family home.
As a youngster, I didn’t have preschool, paid child care or in-home family
education. My mother and father were married and both worked outside of the
home. Until the age of 10, I had two sets of grandparents plus a
great-grandmother, all living in my town, who could
care for me when my parents could not. Two teen-age neighbors could come over
if my parents went out in the evening. I assume they earned the standard
baby-sitting fee for our small town during that time period.
Perhaps those around my age and older feel that there is
just too much of a fuss made over this appeal for such structure or services
for young children. After all, we made it OK, right?
Well, some of us did. Some of us didn’t. Illiteracy, generational poverty
and an increased need for prisons could be a good argument for more attention
toward what our children actually need at a young age.
We now know a lot more about early brain development than we knew 20 years
ago. So, back to the pie-in-the-sky vision of the ideal child
development center. What does it cost to have such a child development
center for all children in
What does it cost not to have the state-of-the-art facility and programming?
Do we want “just anyone” watching our children to provide a minimum of safety
and enrichment? Do we want to acknowledge years of brain studies and economic
studies that show that high-quality child care and early education results in
numerous long-term benefits to everyone?
A study conducted in 2005 by the
Currently, our tax dollars subsidize child care for those who meet income
guidelines. Those who provide child care and accept a state subsidy may receive
$6 to $35 a day, depending on the age of the child, rate type, type of care and
additional factors, such as documented special needs and nontraditional hours.
Most child-care facilities want to provide child care to all children, but
the reality is that they need families who can pay privately to balance out the
families who rely on the subsidy. It is safe to assume that those child-care
workers with at least an apprenticeship certificate have high standards of care
based upon what they learned about child development in their coursework. In
order to recruit and retain these workers with education and high standards of
care, we as a society need to pay them for the important work that they do.
The Kanawha Early Childhood Committee of the Regional Family Resource
Network made an effort in 2007 to raise the awareness of the professionalism of
those working in early child care and education through two previous
commentaries like this one. The West Virginia Kids Count Fund is in the midst
of working toward raising the quality of the early child development system. I
hope that their efforts, as well as others, will be fruitful and that one day
the dream of the imaginary child development center will be available to all
parents who work outside of their home.
Baranaskas is executive director of the Regional Family Resource Network,
Inc. of Boone, Kanawha and Putnam counties.