As part of Start Early’s commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB), we strive to nurture and embrace racial, cultural and linguistically diverse teaching and learning environments. We know these diverse and inclusive environments unify our field and ensure equitable access to high-quality early childhood experiences. We are embarking on a journey to translate our professional development and research into languages other than English, starting with Spanish. Our goal is to be more inclusive of early childhood educators, parents and leaders that represent the populations we serve and who strive in their own role to support those who need us the most, our youngest children.
Over the past many years, my bilingual colleagues and I translated documents and resources into other languages (including Spanish), to meet the linguistic needs of the participants we support and serve. Nevertheless, the translations themselves, the process and the extra workload were not sustainable and needed to improve. Having multiple experiences with schools, centers and organizations throughout the early childhood field, we know these challenges are not limited to Start Early.
We launched a project to increase the accessibility of our training materials to better serve adult learners and support their professional development. The purpose of our project was to develop a process to translate trainings, materials and resources to increase Start Early’s ability and capacity to serve linguistically diverse customers. In addition, we designed a process to ensure the quality of the translations and the sustainability of the process itself. We kicked off the project with Start Early’s Essentials of Home Visiting – accredited online courses and webinars to support home visiting in any model.
