Reflecting on Early Childhood Systems

When I reflect on what I knew about early childhood systems and public policies, it all seems from rules and regulations, because of my past experience as a family childcare provider. My major concern was making sure I was in compliance with what was required by my state licensing agency, which was Bright from the Start (BFTS). When I was a family childcare provider in the 1990s' there were not any early childhood systems and public policies that provided financial assistance to family childcare providers that I knew of.

After I stopped family childcare and proceeded into the position of an Early Care and Education Specialist at a resource and referral (R & R) agency, I learned that the R&R agency were granted federal funding to assist family child care providers with accreditation, developmental appropriate materials, and professional development training classes; however the agency would recruit family childcare providers by telephone in order to reach their quota. With that type of procedure in place, if a family childcare provider was not contacted they were basically not in the pool for the benefits. In some instances funding would be offered to the same set of family childcare providers due to past experience. Personally, I did not think it was fair to give the benefits to the same family childcare providers over and over again. I took it upon myself to advocate by making sure to recruit different family childcare providers regardless of their status. My reason for doing so was to give family childcare providers an opportunity of creating their childcare program into a quality childcare program.

Presently in one of my roles as an independent state approved early childcare instructor for my nonprofit company, I have the pleasure of meeting and interacting with family childcare providers and childcare center staff. Three goals that might assist me in becoming more effective in my professional role consist of connecting with state agencies that would grant federal funding to my company, so I could offer free professional development training to family childcare providers and center staff. To accomplish this goal, I would have to navigate The Early Care and Education Systems that embraces the full scope of early childhood care and education setting such as family childcare. The goal of including technical assistance to family childcare providers into my services would give me the opportunity to assist them in creating a quality program by applying what they learned from their professional development training classes. Since Quality Rating is evident in the State of Georgia, by navigating the Quality Rating and Improvement Systems, I am able to assist family childcare providers with developing high quality childcare services and environments that parents are able see. Another goal that would not only benefit the early childcare educators that are seeking services from my company; are the benefits, which involves myself seeking professional development in order to provide quality services to my participants. Professional Development in Early Childhood Systems would be navigated for the trainee and the trainer as well. As instructors we too have to seek knowledge in order to teach knowledge. Being current with rule, regulations, and policies allow me to guide family childcare providers in the path that is required by the state in order to provide quality services to children and their families.

Build Initiative. (2013). Early childhood systems building. Retrieved

fromhttp://www.buildinitiative.org/TheIssues/SystemsBuilding.aspx 

Kagan, S. L., & Kauerz, K. (Eds.). (2012). Early childhood systems: Transforming early

 learning. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.