Child Care Provider Education

A long term objective was met. A day care center director in Lea County uses the Better Kid Care series as a new employee teaching tool and believes that the school has a higher teacher retention rate because of the initial training teachers receive, versus no training at all.

Short term goals were met. 89% of participants (of counties reporting evaluation data) increased their knowledge level on the following topics: child development ages & stages; immunization & infectious diseases; reducing stress; child abuse prevention; Child & Adult Care Food Program; encouraging healthy eating and physical activity; community resources; special needs children; marketing your business, food allergies, infants & toddlers; literacy; scheduling & transitions; toys; school age programming.
These topics met state child care licensing regulation competencies.

451 child care providers from Lea, Chaves, Eddy, Otero, San Juan, McKinley, and Roosevelt counties attended workshops at 6 centers and 2 Regional Child Care Conferences. They acquired 43 continuing education credits, thus a total of 19,393 continuing education hours were provided by Cooperative Extension.

Programs and child care centers served include: the Navajo Nation Child Care & Development Program; Kidz First Child Care Center; Fort Defiance Regional Child Care Providers Agency; Connections Agency Day Care Providers; Project Success (Gallup/ McKinley County Schools Child Day Care Providers). Collaborators included local Training and Technical Assistance Programs and Regional Early Care and Education conferences.

In 2011, the agent continued to work with Kidz First Child Care center in Farmington to plan and implement the child care provider training to the providers at Kidz First. Seven training workshops were scheduled during the 2011 school year. Ten child care providers attended these seven educational workshops planned and presented by the agent consisting of two lessons each session. Information was presented by the agent through the use of handouts, videos, and discussion of child care topics. A comparison of pretests and post test scores showed that 100% of child care providers improved their knowledge of these two topics. Continuing education credits have been earned by each participant. The agent has also worked with the local TTAP program to implement such trainings at San Juan Community College through the TTAP education program. Interest in these trainings has been shown by many other child care centers home centers throughout San Juan County, that need will be addressed in the coming year.

Child Development Ages and Stages
The need for child care providers to attain 6-12 hours of continuing education credits to keep their home day care in compliance with the state and federal program regulations and policies is accomplished through monthly trainings in several areas such as nutrition, health, food safety, child development, etc. The home economist provided Child Development Ages stages training for 37 Day Care Providers from the Navajo Nation Division of Social Services. Knowing how children develop provided day care providers to understand children’s behavior and how to help them learn. A per survey was administered before the lesson and was followed by the post survey at the end of the session. Participants learned what influences a child’s development, what does developmentally appropriate mean, and what are the 4 areas of child development? Each participant gained knowledge and were given 4 hours credit for attending the presentation.

Child Care Development Fund Program Training
Part 2, of Child Development for Navajo Nation Child Care Development Fund Program Training and 40 participants attended and received a certificate of completion for the 2 part training. Participants watched a video on Cognitive Development, they were given a work sheet that all participants filled out as they were viewing the video and were provided with a per and post evaluations which were turned in to the home economist at the end of the training. Results showed that more training is needed in this area also needed are activities that providers can use to help the children with their development.