Seamless delivery from day one in New York City

Bruce Gilbert Tammie Miller spent years as a family child care provider in New York City and remembers how these professionals often feel like they are on the outside looking in. Although there is universal agreement that what happens with children before they reach preschool is key to their chances for successful learning later in life, child care providers all too frequently are excluded when it comes to outstanding professional development and collegial support that could help them make the earliest years a chance to prepare children for school success.

Today, Miller is chapter chair for family child care providers represented by New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, which puts a premium on closing that professional breach between prekindergarten teachers and the more than 20,000 child care providers across the city. “Making that connection with the pre-K teachers is going to open a world of resources and knowledge that providers have never had,” says Miller. “Children can only benefit in that climate.”

The UFT, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, is helping child care providers across New York City understand and teach early literacy development by using a curriculum adapted from the PBS learn-to-read television show “Between the Lions.” PBS affiliate WGBH produces the award-winning show—long a staple of learning in preschools around the country—and worked with the UFT last year to develop a curriculum modified to help even younger learners gain early literacy and oral language skills. The goal is to give 3- and 4-year-olds a solid foundation for preschool and kindergarten, and the work is supported through a grant from the American Federation of Teachers Innovation Fund.

Bruce GilbertTammie Miller, who spent years as a family child care provider in New York City, now helps address the professional needs of providers as a chapter chair for the UFT.

“The curriculum is the ‘what,’ but more interesting is the ‘how,’” stresses Innovation Fund grant coordinator Rita Danis. The project is training child care providers in the Bronx and Brooklyn to serve as a network of coaches for colleagues in their neighborhoods who are using the modified curriculum. The coaches regularly visit the homes of child care providers, meeting and conferring, modeling and observing, answering questions about learning activities, and identifying opportunities to enrich learning at the home-based centers. And relationship building between coach and provider is a paramount concern, says Danis, who describes the coach’s role as “a guide on the side” who can reinforce and enrich many practices already in place.

Many providers, for example, will offer “circle time” reading at their centers. Coaches will typically work with them on strategies for selecting stories, introducing background knowledge and coaxing children to answer questions about stories that go beyond one-word answers. “It’s about helping them think through the opportunities they have throughout the day,” Danis says of the family care providers working with coaches.

Bruce Gilbert

Interest in the project is growing. Informational meetings that the UFT holds regularly in the two project boroughs have been well-attended, and the response has been enthusiastic.

Child care providers, who earn a stipend for participating in the project, see it as an opportunity to enhance their skills and to “break through the professional isolation,” Miller says. Coaches, who are compensated for their extra duties, also meet regularly to discuss their work. In doing so, they begin to see the project as an exciting opportunity to become path-setting instructional leaders in their field.

In 2012, the UFT plans to extend the project, adding new providers and coaches to the network, which currently encompasses 10 coaches and 50 providers. The project also is looking for opportunities to loop in schools, “building the dialogue between family care providers and pre-K” through regular discussions between child care providers and prekindergarten teachers who use the traditional “Between the Lions” curriculum in their classrooms, Danis says.

The project is just one way that the UFT is working to help providers meet the professional demands of working in child care settings.

Bruce Gilbert The UFT also holds early childhood education conferences each spring, drawing together teachers, paraprofessionals, home-based providers and administrators for training and discussions. Conference attendance typically tops 400, and the participants constitute “a complete mix” of members of the early learning community in New York City, says Catalina Fortino, UFT vice president for education. Topics range from differentiated learning to using smart boards in early childhood education. And “there is always a piece of the conference that we tailor specifically for child care providers,” keeping them involved as respected members of the professional community, says Fortino.

Conference follow-up and reinforcement are key. Many home child care providers who attend the spring event also go on to participate in the UFT’s professional development for educators. These twice-monthly afternoon courses give home child care providers affordable, high-quality vehicles for meeting licensing requirements.

“Alignment has traditionally been missing between family care providers and educators serving older children,” Fortino says. “What we’re finding is that you can build bridges and do it through professional development. It’s a new way of looking at things, and we’re excited to be one of the groups in the forefront of this commonsense approach.”