Tag Archives: Technical Assistance

Spotlights on Innovative Practices: Learning Management Systems— Sharing and Accessing Professional Development Resources

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Tuesday, April 24, 2018

3:00–4:00 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)

Register on line now.

This webinar will outline the benefits of developing a repository of course modules designed for early learning professionals and the ways in which administrators of state learning management systems (LMS) can join the effort. Listen to representatives from Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island as they discuss their respective LMSs, involvement with the repository, and a description of currently available materials. Join the webinar to see how your state might get involved! 

Who Should Participate

This webinar will be of interest to professional development system leaders, LMS administrators, and related staff members.

Viewing the Webinar

Select this Web link to register for the webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Questions

If you have questions, contact the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning at ecdtl@ecetta.info or call (toll-free) at (844) 261-3752.

Submit Your Proposal to Provide Technical Assistance in Building Healthy Child Care & Communities

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February 8, 2018 | by | Advocacy & Public Policy, Breaking News, Child Care, Early Childhood Education, Families / Programs, Health and Safety

With the support of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) is pleased to offer technical assistance (TA) to states on projects that support development or maintenance of quality child care settings that promote child health.CCAoA will select up to six (6) organizations to participate in this nine-month project, based on the strength of their applications. Please submit your proposals by 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday, February 28, 2018. 

During the Healthy Child Care, Healthy Communitiesproject period, the selected organization will determine which element of healthy child care will be its priority and will develop and implement a TA plan to achieve a goal articulated in this application. This goal must be a SMART goal—a goal that is Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time bound. We are interested in supporting statewide, regional, or local organizations with these initiatives through intensive TA that supports systemic changes to state or local policies or practices through one or a combination of the following levers for change:

  • Policy Development and Analysis
  • Advocacy
  • Research and Community-Informed Practices
  • Family and Community Engagement
  • Workforce Capacity Building Activities

Elements of a successful application include:

  • Participation in or building of a broad-based coalition focused on addressing health in child care settings.
  • Expressed interest in using data and data visualization to answer a research question or to solve a problem related to healthy child care settings.
  • A description of the types of support activities offered by CCAoA that it plans to use to support the equity-rooted policy and practice levers selected.
  • Preference will be given to applicants who are willing to enter into data partnership agreements with CCAoA,
  • Total number of points that may be obtained through evaluation criteria is equal to 100 points. Maximum point values for each question are listed.

Get further information about this opportunity here. Questions about the process or the submission may be addressed to Krista Scott, Senior Director of Child Care Health Policy at Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA).

View the Proposal

Submit Your Proposal
(Which includes goals, requirements, scope of work and criteria)

 Deadline: February 28, 2018

Project Duration: March 15, 2018 to December 14, 2018

Webinar on Introducing the National Center on Tribal Early Childhood Development

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We are pleased to invite you to participate in a webinar on Tuesday, December 20, from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time [ET]) to introduce the new National Center on Tribal Early Childhood Development (NCTECD). NCTECD is funded by the Office of Child Care, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to provide training and technical assistance (T/TA) to assist American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) grantees with the implementation of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014, including the promotion of early childhood (EC) program best practices and effective EC systems in AI/AN communities.

During this webinar, Melody Redbird-Post, the NCTECD Project Director, will provide an overview of NCTECD, its staff, and upcoming T/TA opportunities. There will be plenty of time for discussion and questions and answers. If you would like to participate in the introductory webinar on December 20 from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. (ET), please register via this Web link.

NCTECD will also host virtual listening sessions in January 2017. During the listening sessions, we hope to gather your input on T/TA priorities for AI/AN CCDF grantees. Please look for an e-mail invitation in the near future.

We hope that you can join the introductory webinar and upcoming listening sessions, and we look forward to working with all of you on behalf of children and families!

 

National Center on Early Head Start Child Care Partnerships (NCEHS-CCP) Evaluation

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10/27/2015

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded 275 Early Head Start expansion and Early Head Start-child care partnership grants (EHS-CCP) in 50 states; Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; and the Northern Mariana Islands. These grants will allow new or existing Early Head Start programs to partner with local child care centers and family child care providers to expand high-quality early learning opportunities for infants and toddlers from low-income families.

NCEHS-CCP will support the effective implementation of new EHS-CCP grants by disseminating information through training and technical assistance (T/TA) and resources and materials. NCEHS-CCP is primarily targeted to T/TA providers working directly with the EHS-CCP grantees (including Office of Head Start (OHS) and Office of Child Care (OCC) National Centers, regional training and technical assistance (T/TA) specialists, and implementation planners and fiscal consultants). State and federal agencies (including OHS and OCC federal staff, Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) administrators, Head Start State and National Collaboration directors), as well as EHS-CCP grantees will also find helpful information on partnerships through NCEHS-CCP’s resources.

The NCEHS-CCP at ZERO TO THREE is proposing to conduct a descriptive study of NCEHS-CCP that will provide information that will document the activities and progress of NCEHS-CCP toward its goals and objectives. Findings from the evaluation will be translated into action steps to inform continuous quality improvement of NCEHS-CCP.

The proposed data collection activities for the descriptive study of NCEHS-CCP will include the following components:

Stakeholder survey. Web-based surveys will be conducted in the spring of 2016 and 2018 with key stakeholders (including OHS and OCC federal and national center staff, regional T/TA specialists, CCDF administrators, Head Start state and national collaboration office directors, and implementation planners and fiscal consultants). The stakeholder survey will collect information about the types of support they received from NCEHS-CCP in the past year, their satisfaction with the support, how the T/TA informed their work with EHS CCP grantees, and how support could be improved.

Stakeholder telephone interviews. Semi-structured telephone interviews will be conducted in spring of 2017 and 2019 with a purposively selected subgroup of stakeholders that complete the stakeholder survey. The interviews will explore in more detail the types of T/TA support participants received from NCEHS-CCP, how that support has informed their work with EHS-CCP grantees, their satisfaction with the support, successes and challenges, and suggestions for improvement.

This 60-Day Federal Register Notice covers the data collection activities for NCEHS-CCP and requests clearance for (1) the stakeholder survey, and (2) the stakeholder telephone interviews.

Source: Federal Register, Volume 80 Issue 207

Available at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-10-27/html/2015-27239.htm

Supporting High Quality Services for Children and Families

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10/2/2015

Operating on national and regional levels, the federal early childhood training and technical assistance (T/TA) system will support high quality services for children and families. All entities will:

  • Target services for children birth to age 5, and their families, with supports for expectant families and school-age children;
  • Promote the provision of comprehensive services and school readiness with strategies that are age, developmentally, culturally and linguistically appropriate;
  • Provide high-quality, evidenced-based, practical resources and approaches that build capacity and create sustainable early childhood practices at the regional, state, and local levels;
  • Scaffold timely and relevant guidance, training, materials and professional development activities to account for different stakeholder needs and levels of readiness;
  • Emphasize use of data for continuous quality improvement, coordination, and integration across the broader early childhood sector;
  • Build upon previous evaluations and lessons learned from the Office of Head Start and Office of Child Care T/TA; and
  • Include evaluation of the quality of the assistance provided and the degree to which early care and education programs, staff, children and family’s needs are met.

Source: Early Childhood Development, Administration for Children and Families

Available at: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ecd/interagency-projects/ece-technical-assistance

New Infant-Toddler Training and Technical Assistance Projects

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October 17, 2014

By Linda Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary and Interdepartmental Liaison for Early Childhood Development; Ann Linehan
, Acting Director, Office of Head Start; and Shannon Rudisill
, Director, Office of Child Care

It seems we learn more and more every day about all that our youngest children can learn. Research shows that a tremendous amount of brain development happens in the very first months of life. By the time children are three years old, the structures of their brains that influence later learning are mostly formed.

Millions of infants and toddlers across the country spend a significant part of their days in early care and education settings, including child care and Early Head Start. At the Offices of Child Care OCC and Head Start OHS, we have a responsibility to ensure that those children, their families, and their teachers get the best support we can offer. We have increased our focus on the youngest children in recent years, and we’re pleased to announce that OCC and OHS are co-administering two new training and technical assistance T/TA projects that focus on infants and toddlers in early care settings.

The National Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership T/TA Center

This center will support the effective implementation of new Early Head Start-Child Care (EHS-CC) partnership grants that provide comprehensive high-quality services for infants and toddlers. The Center will provide training, resources and materials to federal staff, OHS and OCC T/TA partners, and CCDF Administrators so that all are equipped to meet the needs of new EHS-CC partnership grantees. The Center will work collaboratively with OHS National Centers and the OCC Technical Assistance network to develop and present a series of orientation sessions around the country for the new EHS-CC partnership grantees. This Center will also recruit and train a team of Implementation Planners and Fiscal Consultants who will be able to provide T/TA at the grantee level. The cooperative agreement for the EHS-CC Partnership TA Center is with ZERO TO THREE, in partnership with Child Care Aware of America, FHI360, Training and Technical Assistance Services at Western Kentucky University, and Mathematica Policy Research.

The Career Pathway Portal for Great Infant – Toddler Teachers

The Career Pathway Portal for Great Infant – Toddler Teachers project will create a web-based, one-stop portal of existing federally-funded, public domain, online training programs. This portal will support the child care and Head Start workforce as they progress on an established career pathway.  The work will span child care, Early Head Start, Head Start, Pre-K and early childhood mental health. It will have multiple points of entry from pre-service to master teacher, consultant or coach. The Portal will include research-based resources for higher education, state licensing, and credential agencies. The project will design a mechanism to assess how curricula and educators can better target positive caregiver/child interaction using a framework. The framework will be grounded in learning, reflective feedback, focused observation and planning for improvement. Professional development systems will be able to use a cost estimation tool to plan investments that support the infant/toddler workforce.   The contract for the project is with ICF International, and will be supported by subcontracts to ZERO TO THREE and NAEYC.

Parents and teachers work hard to care for and educate children from birth, and we’re eager to support them. We believe these projects are a key step in improving quality in infant toddler early care and education settings nationwide

Foundations of Inclusion Curriculum | CONNECT Modules

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7/22/2013

This 2-hour training curriculum is designed to be used by professional development / technical assistance providers in a face to face facilitated workshop for early childhood professionals. The curriculum includes a facilitation guide, the Foundations of Inclusion-Birth to Five video and PDF documents of all the handouts. All the documents can be printed or saved for your use and there is also a link to the video that you can download. You may also download all the handouts as one entire package.

Source: CONNECT: The Center to Mobilize Early Childhood Knowledge

Available at: http://community.fpg.unc.edu/connect-modules/instructor-community/module-1/Training-Module-on-Early-Childhood-Inclusion

Applications for New Awards; Technical Assistance and Dissemination To Improve Services and Results for Children With Disabilities and the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Program-National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

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Deadline: 8/19/2013

Purpose of Programs: The purpose of the Technical Assistance and Dissemination To Improve Services and Results for Children With Disabilities program is to promote academic achievement and to improve results for children with disabilities by providing technical assistance (TA), supporting model demonstration projects, disseminating useful information, and implementing activities that are supported by scientifically based research.

The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities program provides support to State educational agencies (SEAs) for a variety of drug-abuse- and violence-prevention activities focused primarily on school-age youths.

Priorities: This notice includes two absolute priorities. In accordance with 34 CFR 75.105(b)(2)(v), absolute priority 1 is from allowable activities specified or otherwise authorized in the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (see sections 663 and 681(d) of the IDEA, 20 U.S.C. 1463 and 1481(d)). We are establishing absolute priority 2 under the authority in section 4121 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended, and in accordance with section 437(d)(1) of the General Education Provisions Act (GEPA) (20 U.S.C. 7131; 20 U.S.C. 1232(d)(1).

Absolute Priorities: These priorities are absolute priorities. Under 34 CFR 75.105(c)(3), we consider only applications that meet these priorities.

Source: Federal Register

Available at: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/07/05/2013-16191/applications-for-new-awards-technical-assistance-and-dissemination-to-improve-services-and-results

Applications for New Awards; Technical Assistance and Dissemination To Improve Services and Results for Children With Disabilities-State Technical Assistance Projects To Improve Services and Results for Children Who Are Deaf-Blind and National Technical Assistance and Dissemination Center for Children Who Are Deaf-Blind

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Deadline: 8/15/2013

Purpose of Program: The purpose of the Technical Assistance and Dissemination to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities program is to promote academic achievement and to improve results for children with disabilities by providing technical assistance (TA), supporting model demonstration projects, disseminating useful information, and implementing activities that are supported by scientifically based research.

Priority: In accordance with 34 CFR 75.105(b)(2)(v), this priority is from allowable activities specified or otherwise authorized in the statute (see sections 663 and 681(d) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1463 and 1481(d)).

Absolute Priority: For FY 2013 and any subsequent year in which we make awards from the list of unfunded applicants from this competition, this priority is an absolute priority. Under 34 CFR 75.105(c)(3) we consider only applications that meet this priority.

This priority is:

State Technical Assistance Projects to Improve Services and Results for Children Who Are Deaf-Blind and National Technical Assistance and Dissemination Center for Children Who Are Deaf-Blind.

Source: Federal Register

Available at: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/07/01/2013-15715/applications-for-new-awards-technical-assistance-and-dissemination-to-improve-services-and-results

News You Can Use (NYCU) – Head Start

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The News You Can Use e-newsletter examines topics important to staff who work directly with infants, toddlers, and families, including expectant families (e.g., home visitors, teachers, family child care providers). Each edition focuses on one particular topic, provides information about the topic and, through use of vignettes, shows how the information can be used in daily practice.

Source: Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center/Early Head Start National Resource Center

Available at: http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/ehsnrc/Early%20Head%20Start/nycu/NewsYouCanUse.htm