Join us for a conversation to learn how Mrs. P, the beloved and recently retired longtime director of West Side Child Care Center, was able to use her personal experience of growing as a professional to recognize, support, and amplify the individual gifts and talents that her staff brought to the center. Many of the staff who initially joined the team as high school students stayed on for years beyond graduation to continue working with this dynamic leader. Discover how she celebrated their unique interests and abilities and encouraged them to bring their full selves into the classroom.

Have you ever thought about returning to school to earn your CDA or teaching certification? Discover how colleagues at the Technical Assistance Center North, Darline Dowdy, and Melissa Rivera-Serna, created their own support networks to earn a degree while working and managing parenting responsibilities. Scholarships through NJCCIS are helping many early childhood professionals successfully earn credentials. Join us to reflect on how you can achieve your educational goals!

Where can early care and education professionals who support front line staff access high quality professional learning for themselves? If you’re a Director, Head Teacher, Quality Improvement Specialist, Infant Toddler Specialist, Lead Trainer, or Technical Assistance Specialist, you’ll want to learn more about Rowan University’s Certificate of Graduate Studies in Early Childhood Coaching and Technical Assistance! Join us for a conversation with Jen Cortes, M.S., Assistant Director of the Early Childhood Leadership Institute, to learn about this innovative program, created to be accessible to learners around the world.

Early Care and Education Topics with Early Childhood Champions

Today we’ll talk with GNJK TAS staff members Ashlee Saro and Valentina Malfa-Arango, They are both moms of toddlers who began looking for child care for the very first time during the pandemic. Learn how they each began to explore their child care options; factors that influenced their decisions around choosing child care, and once they chose a provider, how that provider continued to keep them engaged and raised their confidence level as working moms.

The pandemic has upended the business of many child care programs. Centers that had been full with waiting lists for decades are currently struggling to enroll new families. The need to be seen by more families looking for child care has never been more crucial. Staffing, a challenge before the pandemic, has become even more difficult. Thankfully, there are resources available with encouraging, innovative ideas.

Join Lori Harrje, Puja Mathur, and Andrea Targonski, Grow NJ Kids Technical Assistance Specialists from three different regions, as they discuss some of their favorite marketing, enrollment, and staffing takeaways from childcare business thought leaders. Learn some new strategies you can adopt today to help you succeed in taking your business to the next level, even during the pandemic. You’ll receive a comprehensive resource handout with clickable links to learn more about the articles, documents, webinars, and podcasts they share.

Have you heard the phrase ‘infant and early childhood mental health and wondered just what that means? Or are you familiar with the phrase but curious to learn when and how you can access these consultation services for your program?

Today we welcome Jean Budd, Assistant Director of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) Consultation of SEFI (Socio-Emotional Formation Initiative) at the Center for Autism and Early Childhood Mental Health. She’s here to share with us some exciting news about the availability of infant and early childhood mental health consultation services in New Jersey. She’ll discuss examples of situations where programs might want to reach out for IECMH Consultation, the expected outcomes of the collaboration, and how programs can access the services.

As we begin to tentatively tiptoe our way out of a worldwide pandemic, there has never been a better time to learn more about these freely offered but incredibly valuable services available to the early childhood community.

Do you get frustrated when you don’t see positive changes after sending your staff to training, after training, after training? Join our conversation with Constant Hine, a frequent speaker at NAEYC conferences and author of the book, Transformational Coaching for Early Childhood Educators. Learn how Constant’s experience as a high-quality professional development provider led to her epiphany that training without coaching does not help teachers become better at teaching. The strategies she discusses with us and outlines in her book will help you to employ transformational coaching practices, the secret sauce that can take the information presented at staff meetings and trainings and turn it into positive changes in teachers’ classroom presence. Transformational coaching is effective for everyone, from brand new, inexperienced staff to seasoned, credentialed staff. For more information about Constant Hine, transformational coaching, and her virtual professional learning experiences, visit her website - https://constanthine.com/