Start Early recently received IACET accreditation for its professional development programs. In this blog post, we share our insights on how Start Early is building expertise and scaling its impact in the early childhood field.

Innovative thinking, commitment to excellence and a drive to improve: three key aspects of any organization determined to be the cream of the crop. Start Early is steadfastly pursuing all three, exemplified by our recent IACET accreditation of our professional development offerings.

The International Association of Continuing Education Training (IACET) accreditation is the gold standard in professional development. Receiving this honor is the ultimate validation of the quality training and learning experiences that we provide to the field. Start Early has always focused on tackling the challenges facing the field of early childhood education on a national scale, and this recent IACET accreditation will now allow us to do that with even greater impact.

If you’re new to IACET, you may be wondering why IACET programs are so highly regarded? The application process is rigorous, and requires detailed information and evidence supporting every facet of the program, from environments and support systems to record maintenance and follow-up evaluation of learning outcomes. The entire application process took us over a year, and we’re thrilled to say that we can now offer IACET Continuing Education Units to participants in select training programs.

Receiving IACET accreditation has been a long road for Start Early, and a road we continue to travel as we innovate additional professional development offerings for the field. Start Early’s commitment to impacting high-quality early childhood education has been recognized, and we will only go forward from here.

Start Early has been committed to serving parents and families directly for nearly 40 years, and we continue to grow our ability to impact families beyond our direct reach. Through high-quality professional development programs, we have taken the research-based methods applied in our programs and made them available to practitioners and leaders across the field of early childhood education.

We are proud to announce that we have received the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) accreditation. The IACET accreditation adds a level of validation to our training programs and provides early education professionals with learning experiences that demonstrate elevated expertise, help them continue advancing in their careers and expand their skill sets.

Our professional development offerings consist of in-person and online learning experiences focused on a range of aspects within early childhood education. These opportunities help early education leaders grow in their work and address their most crucial areas of need.

Currently, these programs have received IACET accreditation:

• The Essential Practices of Educare allows program leaders and practitioners to improve their skills and knowledge, leveraging the Educare Learning Network’s research-backed model to deliver stronger results for children and families.
• The Essentials of Home Visiting is a best-in-class online training program for home visitors. It includes innovative online courses and webinars for home visitors, supervisors, and family engagement professionals. These learning experiences were created by Start Early’s home visiting experts based on decades of leadership in home visiting throughout Illinois.

We are actively pursuing IACET accreditation for the following programs:

• The Essential 0-5 Survey is a unique measurement and leadership tool for early education leaders to address the core characteristics that contribute to the success of early childhood education institutions. The Essential 0-5 Survey provides in-depth analysis that allows teachers and organizational leaders to collectively improve the culture of their program and provide a stronger learning environment for children.
• The Essential Fellowship is an intensive leadership fellowship that provides leaders with the opportunity to learn how to build systems and routines that improve classroom instruction.

Our professional development programs provide the opportunity to share Start Early’s wealth of knowledge with early childhood professionals across the country, as well as learn alongside them to iterate, innovate and improve.

The latest study released by Professor Heckman has significant implications for the early childhood field. In this opinion piece written by Start Early (formerly the Ounce) President, Diana Rauner shares some of her insights on this new research and why it matters.

To break the cycle of poverty, start early

This week, Nobel laureate James Heckman released a groundbreaking study on the Perry Preschool Project, an intervention in the 1960s and whose participants are now in their late 50s. Long-awaited in the early childhood field, this research followed at-risk children from low-income families and the impact of early childhood education on their life trajectories. The conclusion is powerful: the improvements in life outcomes for the first generation leads to better life outcomes for their children and, one can expect, for future generations.

The promise of early childhood education has always been its long-term impact on the lives of those fortunate to experience high-quality education. During the first few years of life, children build the capacity to ask for and receive help, manage frustration, persist at tasks, and control their impulses. These skills are developed through interactions with others and lay the groundwork for more complex social and cognitive skills as children grow.

The ability to self-regulate, control one’s impulses and other social/emotional skills have led to better long term life outcomes for our youngest learners: greater high school and college completion rates, higher earnings, better health and less involvement in the criminal justice system, all of which have significant benefits to society as well.

During the two short years of preschool, the children in the Perry program learned skills that they then used in future years to build more skills. At every point of analysis, the Perry Preschool participants have been found to have greater executive function and a more positive outlook on life. By age 50, the participants had used these skills to become better citizens and employees and better husbands and fathers. Their children were therefore more likely to grow up in two-parent families.

Although our work has been anchored in scientific research for decades, Dr. Heckman’s recent findings validate what early childhood leaders clearly know and understand: starting early is the key to a lifetime of success.

The outcomes of the Perry study make it clear that access to high-quality early childhood education and interventions, parental resources, and systems of care are game changers. These experiences will have a positive impact on the long-term social/emotional development of our most vulnerable children and their families. When we get this right for our youngest learners, we create a pathway for them to develop the key skills they need to reach their full potential in school and in life.

So, why should society be as excited about this study as we are in the early childhood education field? We now have evidence-based research demonstrating that despite the pressures of poverty, high-quality early childhood education sets children and their families on a track to break the cycle of poverty for generations to come.