It’s never too early to start sharing positive reflections by sharing diverse stories with your children. It is important for children not only to see themselves, but others represented in the books we read to them. Reading books with your little one is a fun and easy way to help introduce them to new cultures, experiences and events in history.

Tips for Parents:

1. Explore your child’s emotions together and engage them in imaginative play to learn how to express those feelings so that they can better manage their emotions before starting preschool.
2. Teach your child that it’s okay to have whatever feeling they are having: anger, frustration, embarrassment, fear, even rage, but that it is not acceptable for their actions to cross over and affect someone else negatively.
3. Teach your child that it’s good to try to understand why someone else is having negative feelings. There may be a very good reason for their friend or acquaintance to be feeling angry or afraid.
4. Teach your child that it’s never okay for them or anyone else to use their feelings as an excuse to verbally attack someone. And that when someone does this, it is time to get an adult into the situation.

You as a parent play an important role along with your child’s teachers in laying a strong foundation for social-emotional skills that will help your child to form healthy relationships. It is important for the adults in your child’s life to model positive behaviors and set clear rules.

Make a We Care Center

The We Care Center provides a way for family members to express caring and empathy for others. Fill your We Care Center with supplies like minor first aid items (Band-Aids, wet wipes, hand sanitizer, scented lotion), card-making supplies (preprinted cards, paper, crayons, sentence starters), and a tiny stuffed animal for cuddling.

When a friend or family member is ill, hurt, or having a hard time, your family can go to the We Care Basket to find a way to show that person they care. At first, parents might need to suggest how and when to use the We Care Center, but your children will quickly understand the intent. In this way, the We Care Center encourages the development of empathy by providing a means for children to offer caring and thoughtfulness to others every day.

Children's Books on Racial Healing

One of the best ways to help your child learn is through reading. By choosing books that affirm the identities and backgrounds of all children you and your child can have an open dialogue about recognizing and celebrating differences. Here are book recommendations from our early learning experts to read aloud with your little one to learn about racial healing:

• The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld
• The Other Side by Jaqueline Woodson
• When We Were Alone by David A. Robertson
• Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle
• Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
• Mixed: A Colorful Story by Arree Chung
• Whoever You Are by Mem Fox
• You Matter by Christian Robinson
• Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena
• All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold

Key Recommendations

National Models

• Create curriculum, program materials, and use language that is more inclusive and representative of all caregivers, including gender non-conforming or non-binary caregivers, male caregivers, and caregivers who are not parents.
• Embed and allow for more individualization in service delivery to meet families’ needs; prioritize new and strengths-based measure of the quality and effectiveness of programs, such as parental efficacy and length of retention.
• Reduce educational requirements and create additional flexibilities for programs to hire individuals without a Bachelor’s degree, including developing guidance for how to hire former parent participants, in order to address vacancies and to reflect competency-based skills.

Federal Agencies & Funders of Home Visiting

• Coordinate federal funding streams and offer states added guidance on braiding across different sources (e.g. Head Start/Early Head Start, Title IV-E, TANF, Medicaid, etc.) for more efficient state home visiting systems. The Office of Head Start and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) should coordinate on allocation of funding, funding timelines and program requirements to ensure that state systems are able to plan around the braiding of these funding streams.

Illinois Agencies & Funders of Home Visiting

• Identify opportunities to extend and individualize services to engage a broad array of family needs and desires, including creating cross-model guidance on enhancements and modifications for priority populations.
• Align funding mechanisms and administrative requirements to alleviate the burden on programs, including streamlining data collection, compensation, monitoring and other requirements.
• Increase supports for programs surrounding workforce recruitment and retention, including implementing cross-funder compensation targets, hiring supports including sample job descriptions, pay differentials for bilingual staff.
• Increase access to supports including infant and early childhood mental health consultation.

Helping children to create routines within their daily life is one of the best ways to teach confidence, self-discipline and cooperation—skills that later lead to the development of strong coping mechanisms. Such skills enable children to more easily navigate unexpected changes and adjust to unfamiliar environments.

• Visit the School or Center. Children act out stresses from separation anxiety in a number of different ways. One way to reduce separation anxiety is to introduce them, in advance, to the school or child care center they will attend. If the school or center allows for pre-school year visits, take advantage to get your child acclimated. It’s also helpful to establish the route that you will use to get to the classroom each day and to repeat it a couple of times with whatever mode of transportation you will use. If you can walk to the center, walk the route several times so that that the child becomes familiar with it. Even with infants, repeating this route while they are in their stroller can help them to become familiar with scenery that will eventually signal that they are on their way to a safe place.
• Establish a Goodbye Ritual. Goodbye rituals in the classroom at the start of the day play an important role in making a child feel safe, and will lessen the opportunity for nervousness and panic to arise when the parent leaves for the day. When you bring your child to school or child care center, give yourself enough time to pick out a book to read with your child, or sit down with them while they draw a picture. Once it is time to leave, talk to the child in an energetic tone about what’s in store for that day. Emphasize that you will be back to pick them up in the afternoon, and will be excited to hear about the day at school.
• Say Goodbye. Never leave without saying goodbye. Sneaking away only heightens your child’s worry that they cannot trust you or trust in your return.
• Bring a Token From Home. Send your child to school with something that connects them to home and family, such as a photograph or a favorite toy. Having this reminder close-at-hand can help to calm children down if they become upset or experience a moment of panic during the day.
• Volunteer in the Classroom When You Can. Spending time in your child’s classroom as a volunteer has many advantages. You can learn more about your child’s teachers and the learning styles they apply in the classroom and develop a more meaningful relationship with them. A child who sees their parent interacting in their classroom with their peers will feel safe and welcome in that setting. Children are much more likely to feel secure in an environment where they know their parents are safe and welcomed, too.
• Practice Calming Exercises With Your Child. If children have a particularly difficult time adjusting to their new environment in the first weeks of the year, there are several calming exercises that you can practice with them. This is a great way to teach children how to take control of their own emotions and calm down so that they are ready and prepared to take on the day.

Voices from the Field: Building Policies and Practices That Strengthen Home Visiting

The last several years have only underscored the critical role that home visitors play in their work with families, programs, communities, and states. And yet, the home visiting workforce has reached a recruitment, retention, and well-being crisis point. Addressing workforce well-being relies on several factors and must include the voices of home visitors when making decisions that affect them. This plenary session will open with hearing stories from home visitors in the field as they discuss the successes and challenges they face in their work. The session will also address key areas of transformation focused on upstream systems and policy issues that impact home visitors, programs, and ultimately families.

Las voces del terreno: Creación de políticas y prácticas que fortalezcan las visitas a domicilio

Los últimos años no han hecho más que subrayar el papel fundamental que desempeñan los visitantes a domicilio en su labor con las familias, los programas, las comunidades y los estados. Sin embargo, la fuerza laboral de las visitas a domicilio ha alcanzado un punto de crisis en cuanto al reclutamiento, la retención y el bienestar. Abordar el bienestar de la fuerza laboral depende de varios factores y debe incluir las voces de los visitantes a domicilio a la hora de tomar decisiones que les afecten. Esta sesión plenaria iniciará escuchando relatos de visitantes a domicilio que trabajan en el campo mientras hablan de los éxitos y los retos a los que se enfrentan en su trabajo. La sesión también abordará las áreas clave de transformación centradas en los sistemas ascendentes y las cuestiones normativas que afectan a los visitantes a domicilio, a los programas y, en última instancia, a las familias.

Disaggregated Data: An Honest Conversation

There are varying opinions on disaggregated data’s function, purpose, and use. Methods for collecting data and mechanisms for protecting family information can create ethical challenges and practical barriers. This plenary provides an opportunity for a panel discussion to weigh the benefits and cautions of collecting disaggregated data, what systems changes would need to occur for it to be collected ethically and safely, and what role communities and families have in determining what data is collected and how it is used.

Datos desagregados: Una conversación franca

Existen diversas opiniones sobre la función, el propósito y el uso de los datos desagregados. Los métodos de recopilación de datos y los mecanismos de protección de la información familiar pueden crear retos éticos y barreras prácticas. Esta sesión plenaria ofrece la oportunidad de realizar una mesa redonda para sopesar las ventajas y las precauciones que supone la recopilación de datos desagregados, qué cambios tendrían que producirse en los sistemas para que pudiera realizarse de forma ética y segura, y qué papel tienen las comunidades y las familias a la hora de determinar qué datos se recopilan y cómo se utilizan.

New Tools for Listening and Supporting Households with Young Children

This plenary focuses on the need for new tools to facilitate early childhood practice, policy and advocacy in a world of rapid change and uncertainty. We will present information about the RAPID survey platform, which since early 2020 has been elevating the voices of parents with young children and the early childhood workforce about their experiences, strengths and needs. And present information about the FIND program, an evidence-based approach that employs video modeling and coaching to support practitioners, early childhood educators and parents. These 2 tools are designed to be complementary to existing programmatic and policy efforts, and to provide a context for continuous improvement of services to young children, parents and other adults in their lives.

Nuevas herramientas para escuchar y apoyar a hogares con niños pequeños (y a otros adultos en sus vidas)

Esta presentación se centra en la necesidad de nuevas herramientas para facilitar la práctica, la política y la defensa de la primera infancia en un mundo de rápidos cambios e incertidumbre. Estas herramientas son especialmente necesarias para configurar las visitas a domicilio y los servicios comunitarios relacionados con la primera infancia. Presentaremos información sobre la plataforma de encuestas RAPID, que desde principios de 2020 ha estado elevando las voces de los padres con niños pequeños y del personal de la primera infancia sobre sus experiencias, puntos fuertes y necesidades. También presentaremos información sobre el programa FIND, un enfoque basado en las pruebas que emplea el modelado en vídeo y el coaching para apoyar a los profesionales, a los educadores de la primera infancia y a los padres. Estas 2 herramientas están diseñadas para ser complementarias a los esfuerzos programáticos y de políticas existentes, y para proporcionar un contexto para la mejora continua de los servicios a los niños pequeños, los padres y otros adultos en sus vidas.