Exploring Roles in the ECE Community- National and Federal Level

This week I have chosen to highlight three organizations that are dedicated to providing early childhood educators with professional development opportunities. They have created innovative teacher training programs that are convenient and affordable. These organizations are doing the work that I believe in, which is ensuring that all children are taught by highly qualified, well-trained, and well-educated early childhood professionals.

National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies ( NACCRRA) http://www.naccrra.org/

This organization is devoted to making sure that quality care is available to all young children in every local community in the United States. They train child care professionals regarding the best practices in early childhood education. Specifically, they have a training academy that makes available affordable training to child care professionals online. Furthermore, their conferences and publications equip educators with the information they need to improve their work and the education that young children receive.

The position that interests me within this organization is the chief of member relations and services. The responsibilities of this job include creating a valuable and engaging experience for members. One must maintain communication with local and state staff and members. The skills and qualifications for this job are at least ten years of experience as a manager and five years as a member of the organization. In addition, this position requires one to have knowledge about the NACCRRA and excellent written and verbal communication skills. The educational requirement is a bachelor's degree in early childhood education, child development, family studies, or business and public administration. However, a master's is preferred.

HighScope Educational Research Foundation http://www.highscope.org/

This nonprofit organization conducts early childhood research and provides training to early childhood educators. They believe that they can promote high quality education by developing early childhood curriculum, publishing materials, presenting conferences, operating a demonstration preschool, and a training program. They pride themselves on offering training that caters to the diverse learning styles and interests of adult learners. No matter what curriculum teachers use, this training program can be useful to their practice.

The job that is of interest to me within this organization is the center for early education evaluation research assistant. The responsibilities of this job title include processing data for researching projects, conducting child assessments, classroom observations, and staff and family interviews. This job requires individuals to have a four year degree in education. They must also have experience with data entry and 1- 2 years experience in a child care setting.

Child Care Services Association http://www.childcareservices.org/

Child Care Services Association is a nonprofit organization that is working to ensure that all young children have access to high quality early childhood education and care. They offer technical assistance to early childhood programs and provide educational scholarships and salary supplements to education professionals. They provide workshops throughout the year for early childhood professionals to improve their quality. Their annual Advancing Skills and Knowledge conference is an all day event that offers over 100 training and workshop sessions for educators to choose from.

The job that is of interest to me within this organization is specialist-infant, toddler. The specialist works with quality improvement staff and early childhood providers to improve quality of care available to infants and toddlers in a specific region. Some other responsibilities are collecting data on availability of quality care in the region, disbursing needed materials to programs and families, and attending local, state, and agency meetings. The requirements for this job are a bachelor's degree in early childhood education and three years experience working with infants and toddlers OR a master's degree with two years experience. One must also have effective communication skills, the ability to handle many tasks at once, and the ability to work with diverse individuals.