Zero to Three

I dug deeper into the Zero to Three website this week and concentrated on the Care & Education section. In this section there is a wealth of information and I made a basic outline of what can be found in this section. There are a lot are great resources and articles for parents, and professionals. Throughout the outline I included some outside links under licensing issues that I found very interesting and worthwhile.

Care & Education

Child Care

• Most Popular resources on Child Care
• Preschool Prep: How to Prepare Your Toddler for Preschool
• Fun ways to get ready for preschool
• Responding to your child’s worries
• The preschool countdown: what to do and when
• Saying a good good-bye
• Choosing Quality Child Care
• A good caregiver is
• What to look for in a child care program
• Licensing Issue
• National Association for Child Care Resource & Referral agencies - http://www.naccrra.org/  NACCRRA, the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, is our nation's leading voice for child care. We work with more than 700 state and local Child Care Resource and Referral agencies nationwide. These agencies help ensure that families in 99 percent of all populated ZIP codes in the United States have access to high-quality, affordable child care. To achieve our mission, we lead projects that increase the quality and availability of child care professionals, undertake research, and advocate child care policies that positively impact the lives of children and families. Since 1987, NACCRRA has been working to improve the system of early learning for children by:
• Providing training, resources, and best practices standards to local and state CCR&Rs that support high quality, accountable services
• Promoting national policies and partnerships that facilitate universal access to high quality child care
• Collecting, analyzing, and reporting current child care data and research, including childcare supply and demand trends and
• Offering child care and parenting information and resources to families and connecting families to local CCR&R service
• National association for the education of young children - http://www.naeyc.org/  The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is dedicated to improving the well-being of all young children, with particular focus on the quality of educational and developmental services for all children from birth through age 8. NAEYC is committed to becoming an increasingly high performing and inclusive organization
• National association for family child care - http://nafcc.org/ The National Association for Family Child Care is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting quality child care by strengthening the profession of family child care. The goals of the Association are:
• To strengthen state and local associations as the primary support system for individual family child care providers.
• To promote a professional accreditation program which recognizes and encourages quality care for children.
• To represent family child care providers by advocating for their needs and collaborating with other organizations.
• To promote the diversity of the family child care profession through training, state and local associations, public education, and Board membership.
• To deliver effective programs through strong organizational management.
• Council for early childhood professional recognition - http://www.cdacouncil.org/ 
• Mission of the Council
• The Council for Professional Recognition promotes improved performance and recognition of professionals in the early childhood education of children aged birth to 5 years old
• Vision of the Council
• The Council works to ensure that all professional early childhood educators and caregivers meet the developmental, emotional, and educational needs of our nation’s youngest children.
• The Child Development Associate (CDA) Credential In keeping with its goal to meet the growing need for qualified early child care and education staff, the Council administers the Child Development Associate (CDA) National Credentialing Program. The CDA Program is designed to assess and credential early childhood education professionals. The Council recognizes and credentials professionals who work in all types of early care and education programs - Head Start, pre-k, infant-toddler, family child care, and home visitor programs. The Council sets policies and procedures for assessment and credentialing, publishes the Competency Standards and other materials used for CDA credentialing, and administers the assessment.
• Parenting and Professionals: the myth of having it all
• Tips and Tools on Child Care
• What I learned in Day Care
• Twins in child care
• Tips on helping prepare babies for first time with babysitter
• Thinking about child care as a setting for prevention of abuse and Neglect
• The future of infant-toddler child care
• Starting child care
• Socialization for toddlers
• Redesigning child care
• Primary care giving and continuity of care
• Preschool prep: how to prepare your toddler for preschool
• Parenting and professionalism: the myth of having it all
• Matching your infant’s or toddler’s style to the right child care setting
• Love the lovey?
• Finding child care
• Family, friends, and neighbor care (kith & kin)
• Early language and literacy development
• Choosing quality child care
• Changing practices in early childhood programs
• Caring for infants and toddlers in groups.

Family, Friend & Neighbor Care

• Supporting early brain development
• 2 to 6 months
• 6 to 12 months
• 12 to 18 months
• 18 to 24 months
• 24 to 36 months
• Turning in to temperament
• What is temperament
• Emotional Intensity and Reactivity
• Activity Level
• Sociability
• Coping with Change
• Frustration tolerance
• Encouraging school readiness skills
• Four Key Skill Areas
• Birth to 12 months
• 12 to 24 months
• 24 to 26 months
• Thinking about healthy eating from birth to 3
• Healthy eating from 0 to 3
• Feeding: birth to 12 months
• Feeding: 12 to 24 months
• Feeding 24 to 36 months
• Healthy eating habits to start (and habits to avoid)
• Nurturing early play skills
• Birth to 12 months
• 12 to 24 months
• 24 to 36 months
• Making good decisions about screen time
• Recommendations for screen time
• Television and obesity and the impact of background television
• Discipline and limit-setting: building self-control
• Birth to 12 months
• 12 to 24 months
• 24 to 36 months
• Caregiver-child activities
• Birth to 12 months
• 12 to 24 months
• 24 to 36 months
• Building strong relationships with parents
• Effective communication with parents
• Communicating with parents: 3 key steps
• Caregiver-parent communication tool

School Readiness Interactive Birth to 3

• Birth to 12 months
• 12 months to 24 months
• 24 months to 36 months

While reading the e-newsletter I came across this:

“My 2-year-old daughter's preschool teacher tells me that she actively participates during the planned activities but often seems unhappy during free playtime. What should I do?”

When you click on “What should I do?” it takes you to a link all titled “From Baby to Big Kid:  Month 30 What to Expect from Your Toddler’s Development”. It is a great resource on toddler’s development. The link that I had was for 30 months since my youngest child is 30 months. This chart tells you what your toddler can do and what you can do to connect with your toddler.

I feel that this section talks a lot on the issues of equity and excellence in early care and education. In the section there are wonderful articles that speak directly on that topic and there are resources for parents to ensure they have all the information they need to choose a child care setting for their child.

I found the list of questions for parents to ask a child care program while visiting was very beneficial and I will be sharing that with my home visitors so that they can share with our families. The links under the licensing Issues were very worthwhile as well. I feel that the National Association for Child Care Resource and Referral agencies site could be a great reference for our families. I really was interested in the Council for early childhood professional recognition website. That is a hot topic lately in the early childhood field. Some centers and Early Head Start programs are looking into the Child Development Associate (CDA) program.

References:

Council for early childhood professional recognition - http://www.cdacouncil.org/

National Association for Child Care Resource & Referral agencies - http://www.naccrra.org/  

National association for the education of young children - http://www.naeyc.org/  

National association for family child care - http://nafcc.org/

Zero to Three - http://www.zerotothree.org/