Presents 10 ways child caregivers can provide themselves with opportunities to develop positive attitudes and improve relationships. Includes visualizing possibilities, setting goals and learning to plan, including personal recreation, finding a mentor, joining a professional organization, keeping a journal, volunteering, striving for balance, and…

In an effort to address issues concerning credentialing early childhood directors, explores career decisions and provides a framework for understanding the growth and development of director competence through the career cycle. The career cycles of beginning, competent, and master directors, and the growth and change which occur, are detailed.…

Suggests ways child care directors can support staff in their professional and personal development and still maintain a solvent operation. Suggestions include conducting an all-agency training audit, creating a training accountability chain within the agency, providing information about and expectations for training and its outcomes, and…

Surveyed 50 experienced child care center directors about what training experiences most influenced their skill development. Found that directors often had to learn on the job; life experience strongly shapes performance; training opportunities were often outside the field; management training helps acting directors most; conferences are most…

Presents suggestions for early childhood teachers and caregivers to make the most of professional development opportunities. Recommends setting goals for training, determining one's learning style, identifying one's stage of professional development, and selecting the appropriate type of training. Presents specific guidelines for program-based…

Provides background information on Fred Piaget, and describes his three stages of day care director development: pre-managerial, concrete managerial, and formal managerial. (HOD)

Presents child-care directors' opinions regarding influences on their thinking about staff development. Suggests strategies for keeping professional-development efforts on track, such as using the questions emerging from working with children as a basis for learning, incorporating time and systems for thinking about learning, forming a book/study…

Details steps to make day care staff training well-targeted, creative, and useful. The steps are: identify training needs, select training topic and define the target audience, define training goals, select methods of presentation and activities, provide good training resources for future use, evaluate training, and infuse the training with…

This document contains three issues of Competence, from April, July, and November 1993, Volume 10, 1-3. This newsletter is published by the Council for Early Childhood Professional Recognition, the organization that awards the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential to child caregivers. Each issue focuses on aspects and concerns involving…

To enable educators, parents, and policymakers to make sound decisions about programs for young children, the Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy was established in 1997 by the National Research Council to study a broad range of research on early learning and development and to explore the implications for the education and care of children ages…

The competence of directors and administrators of children's programs is very important to quality, and efforts that seek to bring directors and administrators more support and help them to develop their competencies are worth examination. This paper begins by briefly discussing "A Preliminary Overview of Director Credentialing…

Outlined are components believed to be critical to fostering the development of a comprehensive child care system in Massachusetts: delivery models, curriculum development, staffing, professional development, cost, affordability, and policy. Child care delivery models are discussed in terms of present delivery models, problems in the delivery…

Reflecting some of the most up-to-date thinking about enriching the experience of those who plan for and are involved in the care of children, this brochure lists critical skills of those individuals in the child care profession, and may be used as a reminder and as a self-evaluation tool. The skills highlighted are: enhancing child development;…

Based on the view that the quality of children's early experiences depends largely on the knowledge, experience, and skills of the people who work with them, this guide for early childhood practitioners in Vermont is designed to help them prepare and carry out a personally tailored professional development plan. The guide is presented in four…

This publication aims to help infant/toddler caregivers and directors of infant/toddler programs by outlining the goals and skills needed to work with children during their first three years. The work is divided into two complementary sections, one for directors and one for caregivers. Section I defines the roles of directors of infant and toddler…