Exploring Roles in the ECE Community:Local and State Levels

The three local and state ECE organizational that I picked are Head Start, the Florida Educational Department, and the National Child Care Association. I picked these organizations because they care and help young children and their families. They do want every they can to make sure that children and their families get the support, the education, and the opportunities they need to be as successful as they can.

HEAD START:
 

Hillsborough County’s Head Start and Early Head Start programs provide early childhood development and education; medical, dental, and mental health; nutrition; parent involvement opportunities; as well as family support services specific to men, women, relationships, and expectant mothers.


Head Start and Early Head StartHead Start and Early Head Start are early childhood programs for low-income families with children ages 0 through 4, including those with special needs. Classrooms have an excellent teacher to child ratio: 1 teacher to 10 children in Head Start, and 1 caregiver to 4 infants/toddlers in Early Head Start. Staff members screen children to determine their overall level of development, and make ongoing assessments to monitor each child’s progress. Each child is provided with experiences that maximize his or her total development.


Day CareHillsborough County operates and contracts with full-day, full-year daycare centers for parents who are training, working and/or seeking jobs. Head Start contracts with Hillsborough County Public Schools for part-day daycare in elementary schools during the school year; with the Tampa YMCA and Lutheran Services to provide full-day, full-year daycare with licensed childcare providers working out of their homes (Family Child Care Homes).

Children Services

About the Children's Services Division
The Children's Services Division is committed to empowering youth and families to be successful, healthy, and self-reliant through education, care, and support in a safe and nurturing environment.

Vision
Our vision is to be recognized as the nationally acclaimed premier provider of comprehensive, innovative, and efficient services for Hillsborough County’s youth and families.

Values

• We are committed to providing the highest standards of quality services to the Hillsborough County community.
• We believe in being fiscally responsible for ensuring that all employees are good stewards of money, time, and resources.
• We believe in providing a level of services that holds us accountable to the needs and expectations of our community.
• We are committed to providing a safe, caring, nurturing, learning environment.
• We promote teamwork through ongoing dialogue, training, and educational opportunity.
• We demonstrate ethical treatment of youth and families by acknowledging individual strengths, needs, and diversity.
• We value differences among all. Although our youth come from very difficult circumstance, we recognize that every person starts from a different place.
• We believe in providing an atmosphere that is inclusive rather than exclusive and that admits to mistakes and models by doing.

Theory of Change
Our staff and the youth we serve need and deserve to be treated with respect and given opportunities for self-exploration and to develop a sense of belonging within an environment that is safe and nurturing.

Effective Change
Effective change occurs through developing positive relationships and stress modification. A consistent, safe, sensory-calming environment for both youth and staff will promote healthy social and emotional functioning.

Holiday Giving

Help Make A Child's Holiday Happy and Bright with donations from the Holiday Giving Guide.

Donations of gifts or money are greatly appreciated by Friday, December 19, 2014 and can be mailed or dropped off to Board of County Commissioners Children Services Division, 3191 Clay Mangum Lane, Tampa FL 33618.


NATIONAL CHILD CARE ASSOCIATION:

NCCA supports policies that are beneficial to children

Too often regulations and policies are mandated with good intentions but have consequences that make them impractical to implement in real time situations. While they may sound and feel good they are often an impediment to delivering quality. NCCA in conjunction with our members will work to generate information based upon our years of experience of best practice to deliver the highest quality along with what is most practical for our members. Before we decide to promote or support policy or regulation, the first question will always be; Is this good for our children?
School Choice
The members of NCCA are ECE professionals and advocates. They may be center based providers, providers of professional development to the ECE community, business owners who provide goods and services, or student and individuals that have an interest in early care and education. We all compete for our clients, many times against each other. Competition makes us all better. Parents should have the options to choose among the best programs for their children’s needs. This is good for children and it is good for families. The Child Care Subsidy programs in most states are in fact voucher programs. NCCA supports expanding these choices for all families in all cases.
Equal Participation with regard to funding for all providers of Early Care and Education Birth through 5
Why shouldn’t the current community of center based ECE providers participate in all aspects of federal and state funding of early care and education programs? The history of ECE began with private citizens that provided a service to working parents. Regulations administered by the state were put in place to ensure the safety of children in care. As more research stressing the benefits of ECE became known, government and providers worked together to improve the quality of delivery and facility. We have the experience. It is not necessary to break down the current system by unfairly funding some at the expense of others. This is not good for competition, choice or for children.
Regulations should be equitable, across the board, for all providers, public or private.
If it is good not to have drivers ignore red lights then it is good for everyone. We could not have some people stopping and others allowed to go through. It would be chaos. Everyone should follow the same rules. Therefore some ECE providers should not be held to a lower standard than others. If the care and safety of children matter with one provider it should matter to all. There should not be different regulations for different educator and care professionals of children.
 
Right to work environment for early care and education professionals
If ECE is not one of the most regulated sectors of the community, it is becoming such. Inspections from Departments of Public Welfare, QRS inspections, accreditation inspections, fire and more are commonplace. In addition, as with any employer, we all must adhere to Department of Labor regulations with regard to workplace rules and salary structures. There is enough ground covered here that there is no need for another entity to be injected. We all know that ECE professionals do not earn the same in salary and benefits that their counterparts in the public arena do. NCCA is committed to a high quality, skilled, and trained work force with the highest salaries and benefits based upon the free market place, demographics and competition

FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION:

Who Are We?

Part of the Florida Department of Education, the Office of Early Learning dedicates its people, time and energy to ensuring access, affordability and quality of early learning services for the state’s children and families.

What Do We Do?

Florida welcomes nearly 600 newborns every day and is home to more than one million children under the age of 5. As many as 700,000 Florida children attend some type of early learning program. We support these children, their families and the child care providers who serve them, through administration and management of 30 early learning coalitions across the state.