Child Care Provider Education

Only one center has been using the Better Kid Care series from Penn State for new employees. Although, they may not be using the curriculum for educational certifications, the daycare center director, has been using the resource as a new employee teaching tool and has noticed that they have a better retention rate, because of the initial training they receive with the Penn State series versus no training at all.

Evaluation forms were completed by the participants and 61% of the forms were collected. The evaluations showed that 90% of the participants increased their knowledge of the sessions that they attended. Many of the comments from the evaluation forms were positive and expressed the amount of learning they gained while attending the workshops.

Within the last year, the Lea County Extension Service has provided a variety of training for 114 Childcare Providers in the surrounding area. As a result, the providers have been able to:
• Provide educational-type programs in their daycare centers and home based centers for the children of Lea County.
• Become knowledgeable of the resources, agencies and individuals available to help them in various situations.
• In working with the current agencies, 27% of the providers in the region, have returned to the annual workshop for educational credits towards their license. Providers coming from the workshop are from Lea, Chaves, Roosevelt and Eddy Counties.

One hundred four (104) providers attended the 2011 Child Caregivers Workshop. Speakers were recruited from the area to provide 13 workshops for the participants. The presentations were from five of the seven competency areas and included topics like, Special Needs Children, Marketing Your Business, Food Allergies, Infant & Toddler; Literacy; Scheduling & Transitions, Toys, Immunizations, School Age Programming; Physical Activity. An increase in participation was seen this year with only 104 participants registering for the workshop. As in past years, many of the participants were center-based providers. However, the home based providers showed an increased participation with 42% being new comers to the workshop. Generally, many of the home based providers are speak only Spanish, therefore, a separate track of Spanish-only workshops have been made available. In 2011, 32% of the participants attended a Spanish only presentation. A major drop was seen in the Spanish Only participants.

Child Care Providers who provide daycare services in their home are required to attain 6-12 hours of continuing education credits in order to keep their home day care in complieance with the state and federal program regulations and policies. On October 4, 2010, ten new child care providers attended a 3 hour orientation which was provided for them by the McKinley county home economist. Providers became familiar with the Child and Adult Care Food Program requirements, relationship between growth, development and feeding patterns, expand the family child care provider with knowledge of childhood nutrition, and assist the provider in selecting food items that are suitable to meed children's nutritional needs. Providers earned three hours of education and they were given a certificate of completion for the three competencies covered in

As a result of networking with Lea County Family Center, Economic Development Corporation of Lea County, New Mexico Department of Health and Family Resource and Referral, Lea County Extension Service has become a recognized source for educational programming and training for child care providers. 27% of providers have returned to the annual workshop for educational credits towards their license.

From 2006-2010 childcare providers in Lea County attended educational workshops. Workshop content ranged from “I CAN” nutrition education programs to general child care and guidance topics. Requests for programs came from the center itself or were requested by a licensing agency, such as Family Resource and Referral.