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"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus." - Alexander Graham Bell

In our daily lives, we may assume roles and participate in experiences that require management skills. Consider all the different activities you or your loved ones engage in on a day-to-day basis that require managing some kind of event or experience. These can include; deciding what ingredients you need to gather for a recipe, preparing for a trip to the grocery store, managing busy family schedules, and planning vacations or family gatherings. Take a moment and think about a few things that come to mind from your daily life that involve a form of management.

Now, think about what enables you to do these things well. Is it the fact that you plan ahead? Or the fact that you write down a set of steps or tasks that you need to follow? Is it perhaps that you work with others to get what you need done? Or that you take into consideration what is meaningful for the situation you are in? All of your descriptions and thoughts offer a window into your sense of management.

Consider the following definitions that Merriam-Webster's Children’s Dictionary provides for management: “the act of looking after and making decisions about something,” and “the people who look after and make decisions about something.” How do these definitions compare to your own definitions or ideas about management?

In this course, you will learn about what program management means for an infant-toddler professional and about the roles and responsibilities you can assume that contribute to the overall quality of your program. Program management encompasses a variety of tasks: establishing and maintaining relationships with children and their families, collaborating with others, planning and implementing curriculum, and evaluating program quality. This lesson provides a general overview of program management for infant-toddler professionals.

What does Program Management Mean for Infant-Toddler Providers?

As an infant and toddler care provider, you may not see yourself as a manager. Your program probably has an administrator who engages in management tasks like hiring, scheduling, managing budgets, ordering materials and equipment, or providing needed support to staff. Nevertheless, you and your fellow infant-toddler care providers are also managers; as you assume significant roles that impact the children in your care, and your work contributes to the quality of the program overall. For example, you manage the day-to-day planning of experiences and activities that meet the needs of each child in your group, while organizing intellectually stimulating and meaningful environments that promote children’s growth and learning. You manage when you create and develop relationships between yourself and children, their families, and coworkers in your program. And you also manage infants’ and toddlers’ development when you assess their progress and make decisions to promote and facilitate their development. With the guidance of Training & Curriculum Specialists (T&CSs), program administrators, and other mentors, you will strive to ensure high-quality developmentally appropriate practices that support positive experiences for all infants, toddlers, and families in your care. By doing that, you also contribute to your classroom and your program’s growth and success.

In your daily work, your greatest commitment is creating the best possible experiences for infants, toddlers, and their families. Your role is significant to young children’s development, and your daily encounters with children and their families leave a lasting impression on their lives. A child’s brain undergoes an amazing period of development during the infant and toddler years, producing more than a million neural connections each second. Who children will become has everything to do with their relationships and the experiences they have early in their lives; including the experiences they have while they are in your care. Outside of their families, you may be the one person that children will spend the most time with during these critical years of development. Optimum development is strengthened when young children engage in meaningful and responsive interactions with adults who adhere to high-quality professional standards. Remember that your words and actions should reflect your program’s mission when it comes to serving infants, toddlers, and their families.

Think about some of the experiences in which you participate in your daily work, such as:

• Interacting with infants, toddlers, and their families
• Planning and implementing developmentally appropriate experiences and activities
• Interacting with supervisors and your administrator
• Collaborating with fellow staff members
• Engaging with community partners
• Reflecting on your progress to continually develop the necessary skills, knowledge, and approaches to achieve the best outcomes for children
• Contributing to program success and quality

Establishing and maintaining high-quality practices is essential for every task you accomplish each day. This process continues to evolve and develop as you encounter new situations and as you become more experienced. This course will help you understand how your management of these practices contributes to the growth and development of children, their families, and the overall program quality.

Relationship-Based Care

Program management means that all members of a team have specific roles and responsibilities within the program. It is important to build relationships with fellow staff members, T&CSs, and administrators, so that there is an underlying basis of trust. Your relationships with your T&CS or program administrator are also critical for your own professional growth. Within these relationships you’ll get advice and constructive feedback on your practice and receive guidance when you’re having difficulties. Building strong relationships with your T&CS and administrator will also help support the care you provide children and families. When there is open and honest communication, you can easily work together to strategize the best ways to support children and families; especially when children and families face challenges. You, your T&CS, and your administrator all have different roles and responsibilities in working together to support children and families, but you complement each other’s efforts, and you value and recognize what each person brings to the team. You will learn more about working with others in upcoming lessons.

Establishing and nurturing relationships should be at the core of your practice with infants, toddlers, families, colleagues, and supervisors in your program. When you build warm, responsive, and trusting relationships with children and their families you lay the foundation for healthy development. You build this trust by taking the time to get to know each family and child in your care, honoring and incorporating their customs and cultures in your classroom, and by inviting their input when you’re planning activities and experiences.  

Along the same lines, when you establish trusting professional relationships with colleagues, T&CSs, or administrators, you set the stage for your own professional growth and development. Just as you focus on the children’s strengths and talents, you should work with your T&CS to nurture and expand your own strengths and talents to help enable you in your personal growth and providing the highest-quality professional care-which also contributes to your program’s quality. Part of relationship-based care, in your professional relationships, is being able to ask for assistance and then being prepared to accept and implement guidance from others.

Culturally and Linguistically Sensitive Practices

As an infant-toddler provider, you are likely to encounter children, families, and coworkers from a variety of backgrounds and life experiences. As you manage your classroom, it is important for you to understand the significance of striving for high-quality practices while at the same time acknowledging diversity and individual differences. For example, a family member may not share the same beliefs as you when it comes to topics such as sleeping, toilet training, or eating independently. In your daily practice, you will need to be able to create welcoming, nurturing environments and provide infants, toddlers, and their families with culturally and developmentally sensitive care that will lay the foundation for later learning and development. This will also pave the way for successes in your own classroom and ultimately the overall quality of your program.

In your role you must seek to understand culture as an asset that helps connect children to learning. Students are more successful when teachers are supportive of families and communicate in ways that are appropriate for each family’s culture. It is important to recognize, honor, and promote each family’s unique knowledge by learning about each child and their family through family engagement. You will learn more about this in the Family Engagement course. As you learn about each child and family, you will be able to intentionally adapt and respond to every child’s strengths and needs.

Additionally, you will need to work with your fellow infant-toddler providers, T&CSs, and administrators to learn about the cultural and linguistic practices of the children and families in your care. You will work together in accessing resources that will assist in supporting families who are culturally and linguistically diverse. There are a variety of books, articles, DVDs, and webinars that address cultural and linguistically sensitive practices with children and families. You can also find more information and support in the Self & Cultural Understanding and �Թ���ing Language Diversity courses. Being sensitive to cultural practices and language differences demonstrates an openness to learning about an individual’s knowledge and beliefs. It is always best to ask questions rather than assume or do nothing, and your T&CS can help facilitate that process.

See

Do

Take time to review the following examples that reflect infant and toddler caregiver management roles and responsibilities. In your daily work as an infant-toddler caregiver, you can be an effective manager by:

• Getting to know each infant, toddler, and family member in your care; you should learn about their background, culture, language, interests, skills, and needs
• Learning about best practices in the field of early care and education
• Collaborating with others as a team (coworkers, family members, T&CSs, administrators, and community partners) to design and implement high-quality developmentally appropriate practices for each infant, toddler, and their family in your care
• Keeping ongoing information about each infant and toddler’s growing skills, changing interests, and experiences that might affect their learning and development
• Using information and feedback from others to improve your practice and strengthen your program
• Having a good attitude and being willing to learn new information to help with improving your practice

All these practices will help make you a better decision-maker within your own classroom and program. They will arm you with the information and strategies necessary to be a strong manager in the activities and experiences you want the children and families to have. By strengthening your own professional growth and collaboration with your T&CS and administrator, you will directly enhance the quality of care in your classroom and program.

Completing this Course

For more information on what to expect in this course, the Program Management Competency Reflection, and a list of the accompanying Learn, Explore and Apply resources and activities offered throughout the lessons, visit the Infant & Toddler Program Management Course Guide. 

Please note the References & Resources section at the end of each lesson outlines reference sources and resources to find additional information on the topics covered. As you complete lessons, you are not expected to review all the online references available. However, you are welcome to explore the resources further if you have interest, or at the request of your trainer, coach, or administrator.