Press Room

The Director’s Role in Supporting Staff Development
by Karen Chandler

A child care environment is only as good as the people working in it! That is, the quality of a program for children depends upon the attitudes, knowledge and skills of those who care for and educate them. Central to the development of competent caregivers are high quality training programs and opportunities for continual growth. Expanding skills and knowledge, developing fresh ideas and refining practice calls for a lifelong pattern of professional development.

How can directors help build toward top notch staff? Directors may feel they struggle enough simply trying to maintain staff in their early childhood care and education (ECCE) program. The demands of the director’s job perhaps keep some from considering their role in or from devising a conscientious approach to staff development. Yet even with the time constraints and challenges of the job, directors can do a great deal to encourage their staff to maintain and improve their skills.

The education and the professional development of staff need to be at the heart of discussions about quality programs for young children.

The Current Picture of Staff Development
Diverse educational routes are taken to become caregivers of young children. Preservice education enables future educators to gain a knowledge base and techniques for informed and effective practice before they begin work. Although almost 58 per cent of staff have a two- or three-year postsecondary credential, the You Bet I Care! study found that 11.4 per cent of child care staff lacked any specific training in ECCE with a high of 36 per cent in New Brunswick. Further, there is a relatively high turnover rate among practitioners.

Many occupational groups recommend or require ongoing professional development activities for members engaged in professional practice. The purpose of such development is to move the individual to the next stage of professional competence and to ensure he or she is aware of relevant new knowledge. Practitioners keep up to date with current research and pedagogical developments when they attend workshops and conferences, are members of professional organizations, and participate in inservice education programs.

You Bet I Care! examined the professional development activities of 42,000 child care centre staff who care for approximately 300,000 children across Canada. Although over 76 per cent had participated in some form of professional development in the preceding twelve months, most had participated in one-shot workshops or conferences. Less than 7 per cent had participated in a credit course.

Despite financial cut-backs experienced by many programs between 1991 and 1998, the extent to which programs supported the professional development of their staff had increased. Over half the staff who attended professional development activities reported that their employers paid their attendance fees. Just under forty per cent received paid release time to attend while 5.6 per cent were not paid. In a number of provinces, operating grants had been reduced or eliminated, which affected the centre’s ability to support professional development activities.

A number of factors were cited as barriers to participating in professional development activities. These included costs, not having relevant information on courses or workshops, not getting release time from responsibilities and the accessibility of appropriate learning opportunities. Additional barriers to continued growth included motivation levels, scheduling challenges, and mismatches between language/literacy expectations and skills.

Factors related to one’s personal life can also be a deterrent. Directors may be surprised to find individuals not leaping at the chance to take advantage of opportunities for career development, especially when money for enrolment has been allocated to support training. Practitioners have expressed concern that there are few financial incentives for investing further in ECCE training, investing only if they see it producing some chance to improve compensation. Relatively flat salaries are a disincentive and contribute to the perception that the field is a “dead end.” Occasionally, there is underlying peer pressure to not become involved in anything beyond what is required. Such individuals need to understand how professional development could benefit them — and the children with whom they work.

Taking the Lead
Directors need to create an environment in which the growth and development of all people is optimized. Some may need to take time to read and seek out ideas so that they themselves remain inspired and growing. Directors may need to examine their own participation in professional development, their activities as members of child care organizations, their participation in neighbourhood director’s groups and the use they make of a personal professional library. Directors serve as models of professionalism in the way they handle staff meetings and training programs, and supervise and assess staff problems. Such modelling facilitates and enhances the professional development of staff.

What do you think professional development is?
Let’s revisit the director’s role in and definition of staff development. A director may feel her role with caregivers is to help them learn more about themselves, children and the influence of values on best practices. She may see herself working with staff to better understand why they and the children behave and think as they do. A director may use a variety of one-on-one strategies and/or staff meetings to encourage thinking about the learning for children and themselves.

Professional development is part of lifelong learning, and of personal and professional growth. "Knowledge of how early childhood practitioners can grow as competent adults is the guiding principle for directors in finding ways to return wisdom, power and control to both individual and collective staff in order for them to become true professionals."1

Building in time and establishing systems are key to thinking about the learning process. Systems organize the many responsibilities of the director and help shape how staff feel about their workplace.

Performance appraisals
An effective job performance appraisal assists both the individual staff person and the director to pinpoint areas needing improvement and to individualize staff development plans. Staff members need to know they are valued and respected for the work they do. The director plays a vital role by supporting staff and by giving them open, honest and ongoing feedback.

Professional support
To grow professionally, early childhood educators need to share ideas and concerns with other staff. A director may set up a coaching, mentoring or peer support system. This needn’t be limited to old-timers helping newcomers. We can all learn from one another. Some of the roles peers or mentors might play include: listening, observing, analysing teaching strategies, encouraging resolution of interpersonal conflicts, organizing space and materials, demonstrating techniques, encouraging new ideas, copying useful materials, discussing field-related articles, examining children’s work together, choosing a mutual topic for learning and sharing helpful web sites.

Staff meetings
Staff meetings could be used as a time to identify the strengths of each staff member. Assume that everyone at the meeting has something to offer and create opportunities for everyone to contribute. Include time for sharing highlights of an observation and collaborative hypothesising. Rotate schedules to give staff regular times to meet together. Provide opportunities to discuss articles or books people are reading and to share ideas that are influencing them. One way to get ideas flowing and to integrate training is to have a regular place where a question is posted and to which staff members respond, also in writing, within a certain time frame. Reading each other’s comments stimulates the flow of communication.

Training opportunities
Staff must feel a need to develop a knowledge and skill. Successful professional development means providing individualised training choices for each person’s different needs and interests. Topics frequently selected by staff include interventions with children with challenging behaviour, anti-bias curriculum and cultural diversity, and interventions for speech and language concerns. Clearly, many staff are looking to strengthen their skills and knowledge for working with children with special needs. Directors could facilitate this learning by setting up sessions on American sign language, or by scheduling training with a speech therapist, or with a physical therapist on sensory integration activities. To share costs, directors could pair with another program and offer joint sessions in areas of staff interest.

Professional development is often only seen as a workshop where a group of people share ideas and learn new ones. But consider what else professional development might be?

Enhancing the work environment
The You Bet I Care! study found that nearly two-thirds of teaching staff neither subscribed to nor regularly read any child care journal or newsletter. This number was even higher among assistants. From my own visits to child care programs, I can assess the learning culture by examining the bulletin board. Some centres post brochures about upcoming workshops and conferences, and flyers about post diploma programs. The coffee table may be stacked with copies of journals and newsletters such as Interaction, Child Care Information Exchange or Young Children. In one very small staff room, the director had created an efficient workspace for each staff member, who had a fold-down shelf for writing. When locked back up in position, it gave security to personal resources. This director sends a message that planning and preparing are an important part of the job. Compare this environment to one in which rooms are strewn with entertainment magazines and a large poster pin up boy is posted on the bulletin board. Relaxing from the physical and emotional demands of caring for children needs to balanced with fostering professional development.

Consider designing an adult learning centre for reading, viewing videos, listening to tapes, using a computer, thinking or sharing ideas. If space is limited, look for places where field-related magazines, books, videos and perhaps a laptop can be stored and checked out by staff. If your program has an underused staff development area, brainstorm with staff about ways to make it more inviting and the resources more beneficial.

Access to the Internet
Providing access to the Internet can prove to be a tremendous resource for professional development as staff research and discover sites. Staff can share their discoveries by bookmarking pages that they recommend others visit. Joining a listserv group or electronic discussion group is an exciting way to share expertise and is a place to turn to other professionals for help. People can communicate though email on a particular topic, find out about conferences, and much more. In itself, the experience of using a computer and learning about the Internet can be professional development. The Canadian Child Care Federation has recently posted Interaction on line. As well, Child & Family Canada (www.cfc-efc.ca) provides a wealth of information. Another key site is www.workfamilytips.com to share strategies for balancing work/family life.

Other programs, other experiences
People learn from each other within their own program, across town and beyond. Arrange for staff visits to other child care environments to encourage the exchange of ideas and information. In addition, community experiences with the children in their care can enhance staff development. For example, visits to art museums, theatre productions and sports facilities can broaden staff experiences.

There are countless ways to support professional development. Adult learning principles suggest that directors can foster professional growth by:
. being patient
. acknowledging that individuals need time to assimilate new ideas
. recognizing that making mistakes and occasionally failing are part of the learning process
. pacing the introduction of new knowledge and skills
. being specific
. recognizing that the thoughts and feelings of staff are important
. helping staff take the time to reflect on their performance
. offering a variety of strategies by which staff can grow

Through these strategies, directors can help staff to learn, change and gain greater satisfaction from their work.

Karen Chandler is a full-time professor in Early Childhood Education at George Brown College in Toronto. She worked on this article during her professional development leave. It will be part of a new textbook on Administration to be published by Pearson Canada in spring 2002. © CCCF 2001

Endnote
1. Carl Glickman, (1985) Supervision of Instruction: a Developmental Approach. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, p.95.