Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: National/Federal Level

1.  The National Child Care Association

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.
I choose this organizations because the NCCA acts as the voice of the licensed, private early childhood care and education community. Their members include both individual owners and multi-state companies, all with the same goal- providing young children & their families with quality care and education.

There were no job opportunities posted to their site.

2.  National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is a professional membership organization that works to promote high-quality early learning for all young children, birth through age 8, by connecting early childhood practice, policy, and research. We advance a diverse, dynamic early childhood profession and support all who care for, educate, and work on behalf of young children.

The association comprises nearly 70,000 individual members of the early childhood community and more than 300 regional Affiliate chapters, all committed to delivering on the promise of high-quality early learning. Together, we work to achieve a collective vision: that all young children thrive and learn in a society dedicated to ensuring they reach their full potential.

Reliability Manager

NAEYC is seeking a Reliability Manager to support the work of our Accreditation System which administers a national, voluntary, professionally sponsored system to help improve the quality of care and education provided for young children in group programs throughout the US.  The Reliability Manager works as a member of the national team overseeing the process of accreditation for early childhood programs.

The Reliability Manager supervises a team of 3-4 Reliability Specialists. Working under the supervision of the Director of Program Standards and Assessment, the Reliability Manager oversees activities supporting the NAEYC’s ability to conduct reliable, valid accreditation site visits. Major tasks include design, development and modification of reliable and valid accreditation tools and processes, and ongoing monitoring their reliable use by NAEYC’s nationwide team of site visit assessors. The Reliability Manager and team collect, compile and analyze data on system performance and use it to inform continuous system improvement.

A minimum of a BA in Early Childhood Education/Child Development is required; a MA degree is preferred. Three (3) years of experience in the field working with young children in an early childhood program and a sound understanding of its ECE practices is required. Three years supervisory experience leading staff, contractors, and/or volunteers is desirable. Experience with high quality programming and NAEYC accreditation and evaluation systems, or other program quality assessment systems used in educational or early care settings is required. Excellent oral and written communication, analytical, MS Office and database skills are also required. Must be able to meet deadlines, work in a team and in a fast-paced environment. Travel is required.

3.  National Association For The Education Of Homeless Children and Youth

NAEHCY is the only professional organization specifically dedicated to meeting the educational needs of children and youth experiencing homelessness. They provide professional development, resources, and training support for anyone and everyone interested in supporting the academic success of children and youth challenged by homelessness. They also engage in federal policy advocacy to strengthen policies and resources for homeless children, youth, and families.  They are a grassroots membership organization that continually strives to meet the dynamic needs of our members.  Members includes local homeless education liaisons, educators, school counselors, social workers, registrars, nurses, child advocates, shelter staff, state and federal policy specialists, and partners from community-based and national non-profit organizations.

NAEHCY did not have any jobs listed.

References

http://www.naehcy.org/educational-resources/early-childhood

http://www.naeyc.org/content/about-naeyc

http://www.nccanet.org/

The three local or state organizations that appealed to me are:

(1) Mississippi Building Blocks is a state-funded program designed to assist existing childcare centers in improving the school readiness of children. This is accomplished by improving teaching and learning in licensed child care centers and strengthening parenting skills.  I picked this organization because I would love to help other childcare owners and directors to improve the quality of their programs.



This organization does not currently have any open positions; however, I do know that there is a position of a business advisor this person helps the director get her office organized, understand budgets and financial statements, leadership skills, and payroll etc.  although the position only pays around $45,000 annually I would be interested in it since I hold a Bachelors degree in business management as well as my Masters in Early Childhood.

(2) The Early Years Network supports high quality early care and education
experiences for Mississippi’s children. As a one-stop shop, the network provides cohesive education, outreach, and services based on scientific research, established best practices, and practical, hands-on approaches across the state.


Instructor/Coordinator  - Coordinates, teaches, advises, coaches, and provides other services to The Learning Center, and in particular, works to promote retention and academic success for students involved in Learning Skills classes.
The job requirements are a master's degree in curriculum and instruction, elementary or secondary education, counselor education, educational psychology, or student development or closely related field. Excellent oral and written communication skills are required. Have a strong interest in retention, teaching and advising undergraduate students.

(3)  The Council for Professional Recognition.  Their mission is to promote
improved performance and recognition of professionals in the early childhood education of children aged birth to 5 years old.


The job I would like to hold with them is to be a CDA Professional Development Specialist.  The CDA Professional Development (PD) Specialist role brings the mentoring/coaching skills and ECE expertise needed to assess the Candidate's competencies and facilitate the Candidate's self-reflection during the Verification Visit. The role of the PD Specialist maximizes the skills, knowledge and experience of advanced early childhood professionals around the nation.


References:

http://www.cdacouncil.org/resource-center/early-childhood-organizations

http://earlyyearsnetwork.msucares.com/

http://msbuildingblocks.com/

Adjourning Stage

Adjourning: The process of "unforming" the group, that is, letting go of the group structure and moving on.

If a group has fulfilled its goals and objectives, it will move into the adjourning stage.
At this stage it is important to achieve closure for the group on a positive note. Group members may feel a sense of loss and their motivation may decline when the group's work comes to an end.

I think that the groups that made it hardest for me to leave were those that seem to put forth the most effort.  Not always were the group goals accomplished but the members put forth a great deal of effort so at the end of the experience it sometimes made it hard to leave the group.
I honestly must say that although I’ve had several classes with different colleagues here at Walden I’ve not built any close relationships.  For this reason I think that adjourning from this experience will be fairly easy.

Conflict Strategies

Throughout my adulthood I’ve always been in some type of management position.  I have had to deal with all sorts of conflict and have been challenged with finding solutions to conflict between others.  I recently had a situation where I had to terminate an employee of mine in my own personal owned business and she became very irate. It was very upsetting to me because although I have been writing her up for the past few months she acted as though the termination was a total surprise. I am not sure how I could have communicated any differently or handled the termination any differently but I will say that I feel that because of the way she reacted to be terminated made me act out of character as well. 

This weeks course work has helped me to look at different strategies to hopefully help me in the future when having to terminate employees.  One strategy I may try is the cooperative strategy.  When I sit down with an employee and am writing them up maybe we can come up with a solution together to the issues they are having and make them understand that if it continues that termination is the next resort.  The second strategy is understanding that although a person may get irate and upset me I must keep my cool and not become verbally aggressive and keep my focus on the facts and not the individual.

Who am I as a Communicator?

This assignment has really enlightened me because during the process of having a coworker and a family member complete the survey’s on how they feel I communicate we all scored within the the same categories for all three survey’s which tells me that I am able to understand how others feel about the way in which I communicate.

This assignment helps me to also realize that the way that others perceive your communication skills is also very important especially working with children and families.  It is very important to ensure that you maintain a good balance of respect and consideration for the viewpoints of others and to not be very aggressive and argumentative.

Communication and Culture

Yes, I think that I communicate differently with people from different groups and cultures.  In communicating with people from different groups and cultures I can honestly say that I base my communication style on who I’m talking to.  When I talk to friends and family I am able to speak without necessarily worrying about saying things that may offend someone or disrespect ones culture.  

The three strategies that I think would be useful in helping me communicate more effectively with the people and groups identified are:

1. To try and see things from their eyes and realize that everyone may not have the same type background and upbringing that I did.
2. Not judging others.  By listening and gaining understanding than I would get from a first impression.
3. Be aware of nonverbal communication.
   

Silent Communication

The show I watched was season 1 Episode of the sitcom Still Standing.  I had not only never watched this show I’ve never heard of it.  I was able to watch it on You Tube.  

The first seen was mother and daughter looks as though they were greeting each other in the morning.  The little girl then becomes  angry all of a sudden.   She then starts to look annoyed and when a man walks in she looks happy again.  They move over to the table and begin to start talking.  The mother and father seem to be amused while the little girl seems to be frustrated and using hand gestures to make her point.  She jumps up from the table and storms off as though she was upset.  When I listened to this part of the show I was pretty dead on the mom and daughter greeted each other in the kitchen and the daughter asked if she could get a belly ring when her mother says no she instantly got upset and shouting that it was unfair.  When dad walked in she thought she would win him over but he agreed with mom and that upset her so she go up and went to her room.

The second seen was the father walks into the sons room.  He walks over and leans in close to him while he was working on the computer.  They seem to be having a good conversation and dad then starts banging on the computer.  He gets up and they pull chairs together it appears that they are having a man talk they are smiling, shaking their heads and mouths are open.   When watching the show with words the father comes in and asks the son if he is going to blow up his school or do something crazy.  They then as I assumed started talking about girls.

This assignment has really enlightened me by helping me to see that body language can really tell a lot.  I was able to tell that the family was upset and what the men were talking about just by the way that they used body language.  The way that we use nonverbal communication can tell a story that we may not want told.  In my opinion it is very important that when using body language we are not giving the wrong impression of what’s being communicated.