Sharing Best Practices and Professional Development for Early Childhood Workforce: Practice-based coaching, professional development, technical assistance, and other workforce supports are provided to promote shared best practices and to ensure that early childhood care and education (ECE) providers are best able to deliver high-quality programs to children and their families. While several technical assistance opportunities currently provide supports to teachers and administrators, cross-program coordination still needs strengthening. To improve the ECE pipeline, this Activity includes three key activities.
Activity 4.1: Coaching Toward Mastery: Advancing the Early Childhood Education Professional
Provide Practice Based Coaching embedded within the early childhood educator’s job to advance the knowledge and skills of the individual, including trauma-informed care and social-emotional resilience in alignment with national Power to the Profession efforts and community college coursework. DCDEE will identify a partner to provide infant, toddler and preschool teachers with individualized and intensive, job-embedded coaching to help them improve their teaching practices and improve child outcomes. Ultimately 80% of participating teachers will demonstrate mastery of competencies to support improved outcomes for an estimated 1,170 children enrolled in 34 infant-toddler classrooms and 62 preschool classrooms.
Activity 4.2: Transition to Kindergarten
Continue collaboration with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to expand on work initiated to establish a standardized process of transition from preschool into kindergarten with a focus on professional development for 4,200 preschool and kindergarten educators, serving 10,000 children and families. This activity will leverage strategies and successes of Activity 6.3 “Data Platform to Support Transition,” using Teaching Strategies solutions including GOLD®, ReadyRosie™ and Creative Curriculum ® to provide formative assessment, family engagement and developmentally appropriate practices for young children.
Activity 4.3: Early Identification for Services
In partnership with the NC Infant and Young Child Mental Health Association, DCDEE will increase the capacity of the ECE workforce to support young children’s mental health and identify the need for more intensive supports as early as possible. Through the establishment of a state-level leadership team with the delivery of targeted trainings, 750 early childhood teachers will increase their knowledge of and confidence in addressing early childhood mental health issues, while 60 mental health professionals will increase their knowledge of evidence-based practices in early childhood mental health.