Other Programs
Keystone babies
Keystone Babies is a voluntary, center-based program offered to Pennsylvania Keystone STAR 3 or 4 programs applying for a classroom of infants and toddlers who are enrolled in the Child Care Works program. Keystone Babies uses evidence-based approaches to fill gaps in early childhood services, to extend high quality learning opportunities to Pennsylvania's infants and toddlers, to promote all areas of child development (language, thinking, physical health and social-emotional development), and offer supportive resources to their families. The anticipated start date of the program would be in April 2010 with services beginning in May. Counties and cities eligible to apply were selected based on availability of STAR 3 or 4 providers, high poverty and low reach informed by the 08/09 Pennsylvania Reach & Risk Study. For more information about Keystone Babies:
Race Matters
General information
In an effort to promote racial and cultural equity in all programs, Pennsylvania, in partnership with the PA Build Initiative and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, will be implementing a strategy to better evaluate racial equity and diversity among OCDEL’s programs and the broader early childhood community.
Using the Casey Foundation’s Race Matters Toolkit, OCDEL will examine to what extent our programs, policies, practices, and communications are effectively serving all of Pennsylvania’s children and families; if there are discrepancies among various racial or cultural groups; and ways in which we can address those discrepancies.
OCDEL will encourage its partners and programs to implement racial equity tools as they examine the makeup of their organizations and leadership, access to services, communications, etc. The goal is to integrate the examination of racial equity into all of our work by training community engagement groups, providers of OCDEL services, and OCDEL leadership staff on how to use these tools in their work.
More information is available from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Keystone Kids go! and Keystone Color Me Healthy
Keystone Kids Go has a new home on the Pennsylvania Nutrition Education Network website.
To find upcoming Color Me Healthy Workshops, please log into the PA Key intranet and search the calendar.
A distance education professional development opportunity is available for those who are unable to attend a face-to-face Keystone Color Me Healthy training session. Keystone Color Me Healthy Distance Education lesson is designed for all child care professionals and includes an educational CD combining video and PowerPoint to enhance your learning experience. Earn 2 professional development hours upon completion. Training fee is $5.00 and includes CD, workbook and coupon for one assignment review. Order materials by calling 800-452-9108 or visit the Better Kid Care website. More information. Requirements to complete this lesson include: Color Me Healthy Kit and Supplemental Activites Resource (SAR) Manual, Windows Media Player 9; Windows 2000, XP, Vista; and access to the Internet to view related websites in the resource section.
Strengthening Families
By providing parents with connection to support networks and services, and by promoting the healthy social/emotional development in children, quality early learning opportunities can make families stronger. Parents become more involved in their child’s education, which, in turn, promotes a healthy family dynamic and can prevent abuse and neglect. The Strengthening Families Initiative of the Center for the Study of Social Policy has found that early learning programs can help build supports for families so that abuse and neglect is less likely to occur.
Mind In the Making
Mind in the Making (MITM) Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers was produced by the Families and Work Institute and conducted in Pennsylvania. MITM consists of 12 modules:
- Beginning a learning adventure
- Essential connections
- How learning begins
- How social, emotional, and intellectual learning are inextricably linked
- Building confidence and competence
- Understanding temperament
- How we learn to know others’ thoughts and feelings
- Encouraging curiosity and problem solving
- How to use language to make meaning form experience
- Memory and learning
- Stress and learning
- Creating communities of learners
These modules are based upon adult education principles and lead teachers through a reflective and experiential learning process that focuses on key learning concepts, such as:
- the importance of teachers learning about how children learn;
- the importance of relationships;
- how learning begins and continues in early childhood;
- seeing social, emotional and intellectual learning as integrated; and
- how to help children learn a variety of necessary concepts and skills (regulating their thoughts and feelings, using language to communicate, learning to solve problems, managing stress, encouraging children’s natural curiosity, and fostering a love of learning).