In this blog post, Educare Learning Network member Drew Giles provides his perspective on how early care and learning administrators can support staff resiliency during rebuilding and recovery.

In spring 2020, Start Early partnered with the Educare Practice Advisory Committee, a broad group of Educare Learning Network members, to share our experiences and join in a conversation that is underway about the future of early childhood systems and supports in the United States. Through the Build It Back Better conversation, several consistent themes appeared, such as concerns about new ways to engage families, the increasing exposure of the digital divide and identifying equitable ways to address this major issue, and the need to prioritize self-care and wellness, not only for children and families, but also staff.

As a Northern California-based school director at Educare California at Silicon Valley, as well as a registered yoga teacher, I am constantly looking for ways to incorporate self-care strategies that support our organization’s climate and culture. The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a light on the lack of funding and positive treatment of early childhood educators, a fact that many of us already knew. While waiting for policymakers to address these issues, one small but impactful thing that I can do for the staff at my school is provide them with opportunities to practice self-care.

On flights, we’ve been trained that in the event of an emergency, be sure to secure your own mask before assisting others. The same is true for us as educators and human beings. We are often asked to do so much with fewer resources and time. In order for us to do this challenging — yet rewarding beyond compare — work, we must prioritize self-care into our program’s culture.

What is self-care, you might ask? According to PsychCentral, “self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional and physical health. Although it’s a simple concept in theory, it’s something we very often overlook. Good self-care is key to improved mood and reduced anxiety. It’s also key to a good relationship with oneself and others.”

In this blog post, I will share five free things that all administrators can do to ensure that we rebuild and recover in resilient ways.

1. Begin meetings with breathing exercises

Whether you’re having an informal check-in with a colleague or a formal meeting with your program’s staff, begin each meeting by bringing attention to your breath. You can do this by coming to a comfortable seat, gently closing your eyes or finding a soft gaze in front of you, and taking three collective breaths as a group. This helps to calm and reset the mind and bring awareness to the present moment.

2. Encourage mindfulness breaks throughout the day

Taking mindfulness breaks throughout the day is a great way to recharge your energy, improve focus and increase concentration. There are several ways to take a mindfulness break, such as meditating in a quiet space, doing a few yoga poses under a tree or taking a mindful walk around your school by consciously focusing on your breath or your senses. What do you hear? What do you smell? What sensations are coming up, and how can you acknowledge those feelings?

3. Create a schoolwide culture of gratitude

Robert Emmons, the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, has revealed that gratitude can improve our social, emotional, mental and physical well-being. There are several ways to develop a gratitude routine in your program by building in time at the beginning of each meeting for staff to share gratitude for any other staff member, family or person in our school community. If your organization is new to this practice, be patient and consistent. At first, it may feel uncomfortable for your staff to publicly share gratitude amongst one another, but eventually, it’ll become an important routine that your staff will enjoy! As a school leader, it is incredibly important that we model this practice with our staff. The following quote is my personal mantra for how I live my life, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it,” by William Arthur Ward.

4. Embed self-care strategies into PD opportunities

We may not know what the professional development (PD) structure will be like when we reopen. Will it be virtual or in small groups? As program leaders, we have the opportunity to create the conditions for our staff to thrive. One of the ways that we can do this is by embedding self-care strategies into PD events. As a former director of professional development for a large urban school district, one of my proudest accomplishments included adding yoga and mindfulness classes for our staff to participate in… for credit! Find out what fills your staff’s “happy” buckets and incorporate those passions into your PD opportunities. Whether it’s working with a master gardener who can show staff how to plant a garden, structuring your PD so that staff can break out in small groups and have walking discussions outside, or inviting a local yoga instructor to facilitate a trauma-informed learning session, there are plenty of ways that you can embed self-care into your PD plan.

5. Practice self-reflection

Self-reflection is a great way to learn more about yourself, process your emotions and grow positively as a human being. At Educare, “reflective practices require conscious time and intentional thinking about school procedures and classroom activities; they ground staff in their work and build competence and confidence by allowing them the opportunity to consider the “how” and “why” of their roles in relation to children, families and co-workers.” Keep a journal and develop a consistent routine to jot down what’s going on in your life and the world around you. This may help you to process and make sense of current events, challenges and opportunities.

Early on in the pandemic, I came across a quote by florist Cecilia Tran that stuck with me, “Self-care means giving yourself permission to pause.” With so many changes and challenges coming at us, now — more than ever — we need to give ourselves permission to slow down as we focus on the basic needs and well-being of our children, families, staff and most importantly…our self.

Build It Back Better is a project of Start Early focused on identifying the critical questions that early childhood systems and services must ask as we rebuild after the COVID-19 pandemic. The writings that emerge from the initiative center the experiences and voices of those most directly and disproportionately affected by the pandemic’s impact on early care and learning.

Drew Giles, MA, RYT, is an author, kids yoga teacher and leader in early childhood education. Since June 2018, Mr. Giles has served as Director of Educare Programs at Educare California at Silicon Valley, an innovative early learning school that narrows the opportunity gap for low-income children ages 0-5 and their families and caregivers. Drew has a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education and a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism.

In this blog post, Start Early (formerly the Ounce) policy analyst Kayla Goldfarb, shares parents’ and caregivers’ perspectives on rebuilding and recovery post COVID-19, including specific thoughts on economic security, community mental health and parent advocacy and engagement.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on families and caregivers has been both broad and deep. The extent of economic, social and physical and mental health consequences, to name a few, is still unfolding, while daily life remains profoundly changed for families with young children at home. Yet, as a group of Educare families shared during a May 2020 Build It Back Better dialogue, despite the challenges presented, critical opportunities exist for the rebuilding of our early childhood system to better adapt to and support the needs and goals of families with young children.

Parents and caregivers continue to be concerned about economic security and the availability of both financial assistance and regulatory protections afforded as part of federal COVID-19 relief. As the broader economic effects of the pandemic have overloaded federal and local safety nets, families with young children who relied on public benefits prior to the health crisis have found it increasingly difficult to access supports and basic needs. For example, families who rely on the SNAP program, shortages at grocery stores and a strain on traditional community support systems like food depositories have created a barrier to receiving benefits. Similarly, for families struggling to pay rent, confusion over the patchwork of federal, state and local eviction-protections and the availability of legal recourse has left some families concerned over whether their landlords can still pressure them to pay rent.

For those enrolled in Medicaid, a lack of access to individual mental health services and other support systems has placed an added burden on the ability of families to cope with COVID-19-related pressures. Likewise, parents continue to be concerned about the developmental impacts and mental health needs of their young children who may not understand the changes to daily life. Reflecting on their current experience with early childhood programs, parents expressed a desire for more extensive community mental health services to attend to the needs of the whole family.

“I would like to see more community group therapy work because it’s not affordable when its one-on-one,” Janelle Jenkins, an Educare Denver parent, said. “There are a lot of families that could just use a boost, pulling out strengths and helping them to realize their potential — that’s all they need to get started and for their family to be successful.”

Additional concerns are top of mind for parents and caregivers as they contemplate the “reopening” of their states and return to work. The disruption of routine child care is particularly concerning for parents in essential sectors, like child care, who must now contend with where their own young children will be when they are required to return to work.

“The safety, financial stability, wondering where I am going to put my children in the event that I have to open up earlier, and they have a different tentative date to open?” Toshiba Davis, an Educare Oklahoma City parent and home child care provider, questioned.

While eager to provide support to families and children in their essential roles, reopening means risking the health and safety of their own families. This added, unique tension for caregivers and educators is exacerbated over uncertainty of what safety measures, including class sizes, PPE and business hours, will be in place when services reopen.

“When I do welcome the families back in, am I putting my own family at risk? Those are the things that worry me,” Toshiba shared.

As data continue to reveal the disproportionate health impact of COVID-19 on Black, Indigenous and Latinx communities around the country, we clearly see profound equity issues for the early childhood workforce, which is comprised almost exclusively of women, 40% of whom are people of color.1

Despite these pressing COVID-19 related concerns, parents and caregivers remain focused on the ways in which stronger two-generational supports can more holistically address the needs and desires of families, in times of crisis and beyond.

“In order for our children to have hopes and dreams, parents need to have hopes and dreams,” Toshiba exclaimed. “I would love to see parents in my community get more education, […] so they can be advocates for their own children, because nobody can advocate for your child like you can. But, you’ve got to have the knowledge and the know how to do it.”

Parents and caregivers envision an expanded network of resources outside of the walls of their early learning and care environments, including after school and summer programming and robust math and financial literacy resources, to enable children to reach their potential from their earliest years.

“Financial literacy and education are very important — that’s my hope. It should be in all schools from the time they’re age 0 to 3”, Ealasha Vonner, an Educare Denver parent, said. “That’s my hope and dream because if we did have that in our schools, we would be better off right now.”

Build It Back Better is a project of Start Early focused on identifying the critical questions that early childhood systems and services must ask as we rebuild after the COVID-19 pandemic. The writings that emerge from the initiative center the experiences and voices of those most directly and disproportionately affected by the pandemic’s impact on early care and learning. Join the conversation at the Early Child Connector’s Recovery and Rebuilding Hub.

Kayla Goldfarb is a policy analyst at Start Early, focusing her work primarily on home visiting and providing staffing support to the Home Visiting Task Force, a standing body of the Illinois Early Learning Council. She holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

1 Austin, Lea JE, et al. “Racial Wage Gaps in Early Education Employment.” (2019).
https://cscce.berkeley.edu/files/2020/02/RacialWageGaps-Early-Education-Brief.pdf

In 2000, Start Early developed the first Educare school to serve children and families on the South Side of Chicago. At the time, the community was rebuilding after the demolition of the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest public housing developments in the country.

Since then, we’ve partnered with diverse communities and early childhood champions to build a national network of 25 birth-through-age 5 Educare schools and improve access to quality early education across the country. Our shared goal is to help our most vulnerable children enter kindergarten ready to learn. Start Early serves as the national coordinating office of the Educare Learning Network, providing strategic alignment and functional support to the Network and our partners.

To achieve our goal, the Educare Learning Network builds strong public-private partnerships across the country to create strong schools and longtime champions who will amplify our call for change. We collaborate as a Network to advocate at the local, state and federal levels for policies and programs that advance our mission and support quality improvement and supports for our youngest learners and their families in communities that are under-resourced.

Through our work on the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships (Partnerships) program — created by Congress in 2014 — reaches across policy, practice and research to improve early education nationwide. Through the program, grantees are able to provide local child care programs that agree to meet Head Start Program Performance Standards with a range of supports (e.g., infrastructure improvements, higher teacher pay). Partnerships grantees partner with local center-based and family child care programs and leverage community resources to expand access to high-quality early care and learning for families who are working but earning wages below the federal poverty level.

Currently, 13 Educare organizations in 12 states and the District of Columbia administer Partnership grants with a variety of partners including local child care centers, family child care homes, school districts, nonprofit organizations, homeless shelters, and other community organizations. The number and type of community partners vary by grantee, as do the number of infants and toddlers served (from 60 to over 600), geographic distances covered and the role of the Educare organization in the Partnership.

In addition to Educare organizations administering grants, the Educare Learning Network advocates to protect and expand this program at the state and federal levels and shares our best practices and policy recommendations with the field. In 2019, we partnered with the Bipartisan Policy Center and the First Five Years Fund to put forth a policy recommendation, titled “The Early Head Start – Child Care Partnerships: Flexibility With Accountability,” summarizing our shared Partnerships work across the country and program recommendations. In 2020, we launched an article series called “A Path to High-Quality Child Care through Partnerships,” featuring stories from Educare organizations’ Partnerships across the country and highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on Partnerships grantees, their child care partners and the families they serve. The series and offers our unique policy recommendations to maintain, improve, and grow our nation’s supply of quality infant toddler child care.

Visit EducareSchools.org

In this blog, Kristin Bernhard, Start Early senior vice president of policy and advocacy, identifies an innovative policy solution that is addressing our nation’s child care crisis. This approach, Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships, raises the bar for quality infant-toddler care. 

Our nation is in a child care crisis — particularly for infant and toddler care — and this issue is finally hitting the mainstream. Rarely a week goes by without a new article, report, or shocking statistic drawing attention to the sad fact that in its current form, the financing for child care in America is broken. The quality of services is inconsistent at best and most state- and federally-funded programs serve only a fraction of eligible families. This broken system is failing to promote the healthy development of our youngest learners and failing to support their parents, especially those who need child care so that they can work or go to school.

What’s more, child care providers in every state make near-poverty wages, while parents, especially those earning low wages, cannot afford to pay what it costs to deliver the high-quality early care and learning that research tells us sets the foundation for academic achievement, health, and well-being later in life.

However, this crisis is not purely a money issue. Current cries for additional funding for “child care for all” are shortsighted if they do not take into account the limitations of our current market-based system and the time and effort needed to make the necessary improvements in quality in order to truly realize the two-generation impacts of early childhood education. Access to child care alone is not sufficient if attention – and funding – is not also paid to improving the quality of the care provided and reshaping the way these services interact with families.

While the federally-funded, locally-run Early Head Start model was created in 1994 to address the comprehensive needs of children under age 3, the seemingly high costs per child, consistently low levels of federal funding, and increasing rates of child poverty have limited the program’s impact. As of 2017, less than 10% of eligible children nationwide were served by Early Head Start.

That is why the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships (Partnerships) are one promising policy solution that should merit serious consideration by those tackling the child care crisis across the country. The Partnerships launched in 2014 as a new approach to delivering the Early Head Start model by supporting traditional early childhood centers and family providers in meeting and delivering early education and wrap around supports at Early Head Start standards.

This innovative approach allowed Early Head Start to extend beyond a limited number of centers and expand to community-based providers. As part of this effort, children enrolled in a community-based program received the wrap-around supports and comprehensive services, regardless of the funding stream paying their slot. Teachers in such programs also received enhanced professional development and coaching, resources to complete postsecondary education, and support in implementing research-based curricula — all while being paid a worthy wage.

Start Early has been involved with the Partnerships since the first funding was authorized. Six years later, it is important to tell the story of the Partnerships’ effectiveness; not just their influence on families and child care providers, but also their impact on state early childhood systems that adapted and innovated to support the success of the program. To tell this story, we interviewed a variety of state leaders to understand the impact the Partnerships had in reshaping infant-toddler child care in their states.

We found that the Partnerships raised the bar for high-quality infant and toddler care, as expected, but that they also served as an important impetus for systems-level change. The full story can be found in our report, Expanding High-Quality Child Care for Infants & Toddlers: Lessons from Implementation of Early Head Start — Child Care Partnerships in States.

So what do these findings mean for our current child care crisis? There is growing momentum around finding new and innovative solutions to this problem, which is certainly cause for optimism. However, as our nation pulls together to put new solutions for child care on the table, the lessons learned from the implementation of the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships should be at the center of the conversation.

The Partnership for Pre-K Improvement (PPI) was launched in 2017 to learn together with states about how to build quality, equitable pre-K systems that ensure children succeed in school and in life. The initiative’s unique approach fosters partnerships across program, advocacy, and research organizations in support of a common vision for pre-K systems improvement.

Through the initiative, three states — Washington, Oregon and Tennessee — are partnering to strengthen the program policies, infrastructure, and resources necessary for high-quality pre-K that will result in improved classroom quality and outcomes for children.

State partners are supported by the following organizations, who work together and in concert with other national and state program, advocacy and research partners. Start Early acts as the backbone organization, facilitating collaboration.

• Start Early engages state government leaders to create strategic plans to build the system capacity and infrastructure needed for continuous improvement of quality pre-K.
• The Alliance for Early Success supports advocacy organizations to build advocacy capacity to ensure the policies and resources essential to quality pre-K are in place.
• Cultivate Learning at the University of Washington engages local researchers to build research-practice partnerships with states and generate data for continuous quality improvement of pre-K.

Leaders in each state have made meaningful improvements to their systems, including data, professional learning, and instructional leadership infrastructure that contribute to continuous improvement of pre-K. Additionally, local organizations in each state have built strong partnerships across program, advocacy and research to sustain pre-K systems improvements long into the future.

Based on this learning, PPI partners are collaboratively creating tools and generating knowledge to help other states and communities apply this program, advocacy, research approach and thereby continue improvement beyond the life of the project.