Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

Teaching in Early Childhood Education has been my passion since 2010. I have had the opportunity to work with all age groups including: Infants, Toddlers, 2's, and Preschoolers. Today I work as a Head Start Preschool Teacher promoting school readiness daily for 3-4 year old children. Although my job is very fulfilling upon the completion of my M.S I desire to move outside of the classroom and into advocacy, administration, and/or home visiting. The three organizations I have choose to do that are below:

Ounce of Prevention-Chicago based organization supporting Early Childhood Education through programming including: Educare, Home Visiting, Doula Program, and Head Start/Early Head Start.
www.theounce.org

The Home Visitor 

Job Summary: Responsible for managing a caseload of ten to twelve children (caseload may include pregnant women), integrating the full range of Early Head Start/Head Start components into service delivery: child development and early childhood education, child health, safety, oral health and nutrition, mental health, and family services and social service support. The Home Visitor focuses on promoting the positive parent-child relationship, and collaboratively works with families of young children to identify strengths and needs. The Home Visitor serves as an advocate for families of young children, and builds the necessary relationships in the community to provide appropriate linkages and resources for further support.

ChildServ-Helps at-risk children and their families build better lives and reach their potential by providing community-based programs, including counseling, early childhood education, foster care and adoption services, residential group homes and community support to vulnerable children and families in Cook, DuPage, Kane and Lake counties.
www.childserv.org

Parent Coach - Chicago Southside

Job Summary: Under the direct supervision of the Clinical Supervisor, the Parent Coach is generally responsible for providing agency and community‐based parenting services, including parenting classes, assessments, and individual consultation. In conjunction with other foster care and clinical staff, the Parent Coach.

March of Dimes-Chicago Chapter raising awareness for prematurity.
www.marchforbabies.org

Development Specialist 

Job Summary: Responsible for coordinating and executing cost-effective fundraising events in order to meet fundraising objectives of the March of Dimes in the Chicago market. The position acts as a liaison between the March of Dimes and the community by recruiting volunteer and event participants as well as coordinating event logistics.

Some of the skill sets needed to fulfill these roles include:

• Develop logistics and manage events
• Communication Skills- Written and Verbal.
• Family support, parent engagement, and community partnerships files and/or database records, providing constructive feedback.
• Technology Knowledge
• Ability to manage a Case Load

Adjourning

High-performing groups are the hardest groups to leave because you not only go through all of the group forming stages but actually master all of the stages successfully. Respect and trust are the clearest established norms. Groups with characteristics of respect, trust, and smart work vs. hard work are the hardest to leave. I learned early in my career that smart work is favored better than hard work. Ex. I could work hard cleaning my classroom of painted tables and easel everyday but that wouldn't be smart. It would instead be smart to teach my students painting rules and cleaning tatics. 

In my last position as an Early Head Start Teacher was at a high quality school and I loved it. There was a extremely high morale and teachers/staff put children first. Having these qualities in a group made it hardest to leave. My closing with the group didn't take place because I went into premature labor but other closing rituals included reward ceremonies, baby showers before a maternity leave, and or socials with lunch b provided.

Now I have moved on and found a new group of colleagues. I imagine that we will adjourn from our group at the commencement ceremony. Making sure that we celebrate our accomplishments together.

Managing Conflict

The last major conflict took place 2 months ago with a private children's organization that I volunteered with as a creative arts instructor. Bi-weekly I would have an art project to coincide with a biblical lesson. In the beginning I was told that I had free range on what to create as long as it was in line with the lesson. The children were always excited to carry out the lesson but it seemed that the program leader was not. The conflict took place when it came time to carry out my part of the lesson. Right before carrying out the lesson I was bombarded with questions about what I was going to do in my lesson and even asked to make changes at the last minute. My frustration arose from this happening consistently. I felt that it was unprofessional to inquire right before but should be discussed earlier in the week or prior to teaching the lesson.. My thought process was not to discard constructive criticism altogether but instead receive constructive criticism in enough time to apply change. It was frustrating to make changes right before and created a hostile working environment for me.

After reading the lesson I learned two different strategies to resolve this conflict from our text book Real Communication:

1. I enjoyed reading the Steps to a Supportive Climate, which suggests to focus on facts, be open for discussion, ask for help, and be assertive in order to achieve a supportive climate. 

In my conflict I could have been assertive and asked for a review of my lesson instead of waiting on the program leader to inquire. This could have prevented frustration on the day of the lesson. 

2. Compromising, when both parties has to give something up is another concept that can be used to resolve conflict. 

In my conflict the program leader could have compromised by giving some free range of the creative arts lesson vs. the entire lesson. More control or structure could have been more gratifying.

Reference
O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J.  (2015). Real communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.   

• Chapter 8, "Managing Conflict in Relationships pg. 222-223"