The Center has identified high-quality resources that address race and racism. The resources are grouped by audience, with listings that are appropriate for families, staff and children.
You can now access the session, Completing Your COVID-19 Plan for Re-opening Child Care, anytime. No need to register. Providers can access a 1-hour recorded help session whenever they need guidance in filling out the required DHS documentation. Sessions are available in both English and Spanish.
Ahora puede acceder a la sesión de asistencia técnica Completando su Plan COVID-19 para la Reapertura de Cuidado Infantil Familiar en su horario. No se tiene que registrar. Dueños de programas de cuidado infantil familiar pueden ver esta sesión de 45 minutos de asistencia técnica cuando necesiten ayuda para completar los documentos requeridos por DHS.
Earn up to 2 PD hours with these pre-recorded webinars. Each session includes an assignment to complete and an hour-long narrated webinar to view.
Help Me Explore! Using Quality Materials for Play and Learning with Infants and Toddlers
Learn how to use movement, the natural world, and open-ended materials to optimize young children’s learning and development.
Executive Function Skills in Early Childhood: The Basics
This 1-hour webinar will explore recent research about the foundational skills that children need to become confident and competent learners, known as executive function skills.
The Center has released a new line-up of online PD opportunities for all early learning professionals — administrators, teachers, teacher assistants, and family child care providers. Classes begin on June 23rd!
For Administrators
3-D PD: Data, Design, and Delivery
Do you want to improve your program’s system for supporting staff professional development? Using program self-assessment strategies and an in-depth review of high-quality PD resources, this series will help administrators develop and strengthen their program’s comprehensive system for Program-level Professional Development.
Strengthening Business Practices: A Series for Administrators
Build your business acumen with this PD offering for center-based administrators. This series will support administrators in strengthening their foundational knowledge of business practices in the areas of finance, marketing, and human resource management.
Using the CLASS® PreK to Improve Program Quality
Help staff to improve their interactions with children during every moment of the day. Directors, education coordinators, and supervisors will learn all about the CLASS® PreK assessment tool and best ways to assess the quality of teaching practices in their program.
Supporting Social and Emotional Development: The Preschool Years
Build your understanding of social and emotional development in young children with this 3-session series. Learn how to build relationships, create nurturing environments, foster self-esteem and positive social behavior, and promote problem solving skills.
Mind in the Making (Offered in Spanish)
This series explores three essential life skills that all children need in order to be successful in school and in life: Focus and Self Control, Perspective Taking, and Communication. This offering is developed from the larger professional development program called Mind in the Making of the Bezos Family Foundation.
Helping Children Grow and Learn in Your Family Child Care Home (Offered in both English and Spanish)
This multi-session series provides an overview of several DHS regulations for family childcare settings. Sessions will examine the regulations related to communication with families, daily schedules and routines, planning and implementation of curricular activities, and behavior management.
The Center has released a new line-up of online PD opportunities for all early learning professionals — administrators, teachers, teacher assistants, and family child care providers. Classes begin on May 6th!
For Administrators
Creating an Employee Handbook
Writing an employee handbook is quite an undertaking. What should you include? How can you ensure it will be useful and used by your employees? This two-session mini-series will walk through what an employee handbook is, offer tips on how to write one, and give you an idea of what to emphasize and include.
For Infant-Toddler and Family Child Care Providers
Help Me Explore! Using Quality Materials for Play and Learning with Infants and Toddlers
Tune in for an hour-long webinar about how to use movement, the natural world, and open-ended materials to optimize young children’s learning and development. This one-hour PD “Short” will explore both the characteristics of high-quality materials that inspire play and learning for very young children, and the caregiver’s role in supporting interactions with these materials.
Autism Thinking: Perspective of the Child
Autism Spectrum Disorder affects 1 in every 59 children. Most early learning professionals have had a child diagnosed with autism or a child with autism-like characteristics in their classroom. This series–offered in partnership with The Autism Project– will help teachers better understand autism thinking, developmental disabilities, and sensory processing disorders, and learn strategies to support children’s learning and development.
Family Engagement: Culturally Responsive Approach
Developing respectful, reciprocal, and responsive relationships with families is essential for engaging them in their children’s education. This series will explore strategies for building strong relationships with families and engaging them in their children’s development and learning.
Beyond Colors, Shapes, and Numbers: Planning and Implementing Appropriate Curriculum for Toddlers
This series will support teachers in creating high-quality learning experiences for the unique needs of young toddlers and two-year-olds. Sessions will focus on evidence-based practices that highlight the use of interactions, materials and play to extend learning for this age group in a developmentally appropriate way.
Click below to see these offerings and more!
The Center will provide the same great, high-quality PD, just online. Stay tuned for more PD listings in May.
Using the ECERS-3 to Improve Program Quality and Using the ITERS-3 to Improve Program Quality
Continue to plan for quality improvement! These two online offerings will guide administrators through the program self-assessment process using the new ERS-3 tools. Each series provides participants with an in-depth look at the new items in the tool and the opportunity to analyze the strengths and areas for improvement in their program.
Understanding the Impact of Trauma on Young Children
Back by popular demand! This series will help educators understand the impact of stressful experiences early in life, such as the current pandemic, on children’s growth and development. Participants will gain a comprehensive overview of the impact of toxic stress and trauma on young children and learn effective strategies for working with these children and their families.
Executive Function Skills in Early Childhood: The Basics
Sign-up for a PD “Short.” An hour-long session on Executive Function.
This one-hour session will explore recent research about the foundational skills that children need to become confident and competent learners, known as executive function skills. This session will focus on defining and understanding the three components of executive function and ways educators can promote the development of these skills through learning experiences and interactions.
Click on the link below to see all our April offerings, including PD for Family Child Care Providers and PD in Spanish.
Due to high demand, we have added an additional session of our ITERS-3 series for infant and toddler teachers and our ECERS-3 overview for administrators and experienced center-based preschool teachers.
What Infant and Toddler Teachers Need to Know about the ITERS-3 educates teaching staff on the new ITERS-3 tool and on how to assess quality through the lens of the tool. This series is held at a high-quality BrightStars-rated program where participants will explore ideas that can be used in their own settings.
It will be held Mondays, March 16th, 30th, and April 6th from 5:30pm–8:00pm at Progreso Latino, located at 626 Broad Street, Central Falls, RI.
The ECERS-R vs. the ECERS-3: What are the Key Differences? provides administrators with an overview of the key differences between the ECERS-R and the most current revision version, the ECERS-3. In this session we will discuss strategies to prepare for a BrightStars ECERS assessment within your program.. This session is also open to center-based preschool teachers who have familiarity with the ECERS-R and have had a previous ECERS-R observation in their classroom.
It will be held on Wednesday, March 18th from 1:30pm–3:30pm at the Center for Early Learning Professionals, located at 535 Centerville Road, Suite 201, Warwick, RI.
Happy New Year!
There is still time to register for our Winter professional development offerings. Classes begin on Monday, January 13.
Highlights of this semester include:
Our website includes a new searchable database for finding PD that meets your individual or program needs. Before you register for a PD series, please check the dates carefully to make sure you can commit to attending all of the sessions.
If you need help finding or registering for a PD offering, call the Center at 401-736-9020
The Center is pleased to unveil our redesigned website to help early learning professionals in Rhode Island find the training and resources they need.
The new website allows visitors to search for high-quality professional development (PD) opportunities by their professional role, by the PD type (online or in-person), by language, by topics, and by keywords. The site also includes new information about required Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) trainings and national and state-based organizations that support high-quality care and education for Rhode Island’s youngest children.
Watch the video tutorial for a brief overview of the new site. Send your feedback to info@center-elp.org or call us at 401-736-9020.
We are pleased to announce that Brenda Potter has been named the Center’s Director, following the retirement of longtime leader Sue Washburn.
Brenda has served as a technical assistance specialist since the Center opened in 2014. For the past two years, she has led our technical assistance and quality improvement work with programs. She has extensive experience in higher education, center-based and home-visiting programs serving high-risk populations, public school inclusive early childhood classrooms, family engagement programming, and systems development.
Before joining the Center, Brenda was the Title I Program Officer of Early Childhood, Family Education, and Engagement and a Program Manager with the North Kingstown School Department Office of Family Learning for over 16 years. She is a Certified Family Life Educator, served as a professional development trainer and technical assistance consultant with the Rhode Island Department of Education for over 10 years, and was an instructor at the University of Rhode Island for 14 years.
Brenda holds an M.S. in Child Growth and Development and Early Childhood Education from Wheelock College.
In taking on this new role, Brenda is most excited about the Center’s distinction as the workforce development hub for the early care and education workforce in Rhode Island. She looks forward to working with the Center’s talented team of early childhood specialists as they continue to provide high-quality professional development and technical assistance to support our state’s early childhood administrators, teachers, and family child care providers. You can contact Brenda at 401-734-1282 or bpotter@edc.org.
We would like to thank Sue for her dedicated leadership over the past several years, and for her commitment throughout her career to improving early care and education for Rhode Island’s youngest and most vulnerable children. We wish her the best in her well-deserved retirement!
