Iowa State University Extension

Problem:
Child Care Directors struggle with how to train new staff quickly, consistently, and inexpensively. Retention of staff, once well- trained to do their job, is a continual struggle in Iowa 's child care centers. Providing paid release time to attend general, off-site basic training events also does not ensure that new staff share a clear understanding of their own new center's policies procedures and job expectations. Many directors search for practical training beyond the basics that will enable them to earn Quality Rating System (QRS) point(s) or continuing education credits for retention of the National Administrator Credential (NAC).

Response:
State Empowerment funds enabled two Families Specialists in Southwest Iowa to provide Iowa-customized New Staff Orientation training events for 50 child care directors/assistant directors/school-age child care site supervisors in 3 locations in March/April 2007(Council Bluffs, Red Oak, and Harlan) State Families Specialists in Iowa, with the aid of agency partners and center directors in Iowa, customized the Pennsylvania Better Kid Care DVD-based training consisting of 30 DVD scenes and workbooks for each participating staff member. This training series was originally created "by directors for directors". Center directors were required to attend the 6-hour Director's training workshop to receive the curriculum and DVDs for use with their own staff.

Impact:
Pre/post evaluations completed by 48 of the 50 participants document the intended plans of the attending administrators: 45 of the 48 responders planned to use this training with both new staff and experienced staff. All 48 participants planned to implement this training as an individual study program for each staff member and/or will use the NSO DVD's to provide group training for my staff. The regional Head Start staff trainer attended one of the sessions and reports that she is implementing a written plan for newly-hired staff at each of her over 30 sites over this current program year, bringing in old hires to participate with the new staff, and is making this a requirement for all new staff. 12 of the 50 Southwest Iowa Directors participating in one of these NSO trainings sent in 8% (95/1177) of the total workbooks from around the state of Iowa .

The training impacted 5,338 children and 670 staff. Sample written comments include:

• “excellent, interesting and informative training”
• “this program will be beneficial to new staff starting in my center as well as a great refresher for my more experienced staff”
• “GREAT TRAINING! It will be useful and easy to implement at my center; may even be better if this was a longer training (maybe a couple of days) to go more in depth into the program”
• " ... this was well-organized and designed to cover a lot of material in a limited time – I felt it was very successful due to Mary and Pat”
• “Excellent … encouraging to see the development of early childhood education and professional development”
• “thank you both for the creative “classroom” involvement and LISTENING to us”
• “I'm very excited to begin working on this with my existing staff because it covers the basics really well…”

 

Other Staff Involved:
Patricia Anderson, 712-366-7070, pander@iastate.edu

Other Team Members:
Community Partners:Child Care Resource and Referral, Southwest Iowa

Contact:
Mary Hughes
West Pottawattamie County
3501 Harry Langdon Blvd, 2nd Fl-Careers Bldg
Council Bluffs, IA 51503
712-366-7070