Early Childhood
Beginning with family childcare providers nearly a decade ago, and later evolving to include childcare centers, Simple Interactions in Early Childhood now takes shape at every level of the system.
Early childhood efforts at the provider level have taken the form of workshops for individual centers, sustained sessions and filming with groups of providers, and large-scale professional development built into research grants.
At the program and system level, recent efforts in early childhood include supporting coaches in their work with childcare providers. The same foundational learning sessions for early childhood providers help to develop the kind of coaching conversations that can take place in the context of supporting the work of providers. Through efforts with coaches and technical assistance providers, we have adapted the “Simple Interactions” approach to support the coaching, training, and technical assistance teams in statewide and regional resource teams. Our activities and tasks include trainings, workshops, convenings, and formative and qualitative needs assessments (for coaches and other TA providers) that can better inform the quality system. Ultimately, the goal of the Simple Interactions team is to build up regional and community-level capacity to integrate a relationship-focused approach to the coaching, monitoring, and evaluation activities of early childhood quality systems.
Most recently, the messages of Simple Interactions and the lessons learned at the provider level have been carried to policy audiences. These early childhood efforts together have the central goal of focusing conversations at every level of the early childhood quality system – provider, training, coaching, evaluation, and monitoring – on the essential question of whether our practices, programs, and policies are evolving to "encourage, enrich, and empower the relationships and daily interactions between children and their helpers, as well as between caregivers (parents, teachers) and those who support the work of early childhood (coaches, trainers)?" We believe it is possible to link nearly every program or system decision and discussion to this central question, and that a consistent and concerted effort to incrementally improve these relationships and interactions will grow quality in a substantial and sustained way.
Early childhood efforts at the provider level have taken the form of workshops for individual centers, sustained sessions and filming with groups of providers, and large-scale professional development built into research grants.
At the program and system level, recent efforts in early childhood include supporting coaches in their work with childcare providers. The same foundational learning sessions for early childhood providers help to develop the kind of coaching conversations that can take place in the context of supporting the work of providers. Through efforts with coaches and technical assistance providers, we have adapted the “Simple Interactions” approach to support the coaching, training, and technical assistance teams in statewide and regional resource teams. Our activities and tasks include trainings, workshops, convenings, and formative and qualitative needs assessments (for coaches and other TA providers) that can better inform the quality system. Ultimately, the goal of the Simple Interactions team is to build up regional and community-level capacity to integrate a relationship-focused approach to the coaching, monitoring, and evaluation activities of early childhood quality systems.
Most recently, the messages of Simple Interactions and the lessons learned at the provider level have been carried to policy audiences. These early childhood efforts together have the central goal of focusing conversations at every level of the early childhood quality system – provider, training, coaching, evaluation, and monitoring – on the essential question of whether our practices, programs, and policies are evolving to "encourage, enrich, and empower the relationships and daily interactions between children and their helpers, as well as between caregivers (parents, teachers) and those who support the work of early childhood (coaches, trainers)?" We believe it is possible to link nearly every program or system decision and discussion to this central question, and that a consistent and concerted effort to incrementally improve these relationships and interactions will grow quality in a substantial and sustained way.