Mentoring is an effective method of helping inexperienced individuals develop and progress in their profession. Extension staff have many opportunities to mentor volunteers and other community partners. The keys to establishing a successful mentoring relationship include creating a relationship of trust, clearly defining roles and…

For more than 20 years, Advocates for Children of New Jersey has published the Newark Kids Count Data Book, a one-stop source for child well-being data on the state's largest city. Newark Kids Count includes the latest statistics, along with five-year trend data, in the following areas: demographics, family economic security, food insecurity,…

This newsletter contains two articles: (1) "Experiencing Nature: An Opportunity for Pedagogic Quality" by Bowine Wijffels and Marc Veekamp; and (2) "There's Nature in Our Nature!" by Swati Popat. In the first article, the authors describe their experiences as project partners, discuss the design of nature experiencing for…

It started with a dream: to create a national best practices teaching and learning center that would not only provide the best available care and education to children ages 0 to 5 years old, but would also serve as a model for adult learners and like-minded entities and individuals in the early education arena. Committed to elevating the quality…

Despite the increasing demand for early child care and education (ECCE) services in Greece, the availability of such services continues to be rather limited compared to other European countries. In accordance, the relevant research, especially for children under 3 years of age, is almost nonexistent. This article discusses in brief some findings…

Maine has two initiatives that build on Early Head Start (EHS). The first initiative, Fund for a Healthy Maine, has since 2001 provided tobacco settlement money to existing Head Start and EHS programs to expand the number of children who receive full-day, full-year services. Local programs have the option of using these funds for EHS, depending on…

In this commentary the authors share their experiences on the design and implementation of community-centered early intervention programs in Prince George's County, MD. Their aim in designing community-centered programs was to provide infants and toddlers opportunities for learning, language, and motor development in natural environments with…

The purpose of the article is to describe Finnish media literacy policies and good media education practices in early childhood education and care. This article will focus on describing two central action lines related to the Children and Media Program, initiated by the Division for Cultural Policy of the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2004.…

In order for a successful center/school to achieve all it can for its children, staff, and operator, a plan is critical. Good planning begins by looking into the future that one wants for his or her center/school. Be as descriptive as possible in writing down the details of what that future looks like. Next, walk backwards from that future to the…

Naptime is designed to allow children to physically rest and emotionally unwind. It is a time of day where the "care" in child care really comes into play. But the reality is that naptime in a child care center is often a part of the daily schedule that children and staff both dread. This article presents some tips for planning and implementing a…

In the intervening years, the question of whether corporations should be in the child care business has been answered. Employers no longer question whether providing child care support for employees is a good idea; the key question now is whether they can afford it. This article reports that research for the employer child care status report finds…

Immediately after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the author and her partner made a decision to rebuild their child care center as two apartments. However, the city of New Orleans would only approve the location for one dwelling with a child care center. This article describes the author's experiences in rebuilding Gilda's Academy, her child…

Recent research (Te One, 2009) investigated perceptions of children's rights in a New Zealand early childhood care and education service (the Creche) for under-two-year-olds. Focus group interviews, interviews with teachers, observational field notes, photographs and a researcher's journal were used to generate data. Findings revealed that…

Having worked in the early childhood field for over three decades, the author has seen a lot of changes: The supply of child care services has increased ten-fold and the public respect for early childhood services has risen nearly as much. Despite these changes, certain challenges for these field have not been successfully addressed: Compensation…

A class of 3- to 5-year-old children in a midwestern child care center chose to study pizza restaurants as a group project. This article discusses how the project evolved, describes the three phases of the project, and provides the teachers' reflections on the project. Photos taken during the project and children's sketches are included. (Contains…