1. GOVERNOR’S BIRTH TO 8 SUMMIT: FIRST 3,000 DAYS IN THE FIRST STATE
#BIRTHTO8DE

2. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation
Albert Wat, Alliance for Early Success
Report and Report Brief available
for free download at:

3. Core Competencies
Commonalities between ECE and K-12 professional competencies
Areas for improvement
Content-specific pedagogy
Implications of poverty, stress, trauma on practice
Clarity on social-emotional learning, approaches to learning, executive function, etc., etc., etc.
Dual language learners – beyond respect
Technology – both for professional learning and for instruction
Areas for alignment between ECE & K-12
Assessment
Family engagement

4. Many Factors Contribute to Quality Practice
To achieve high quality practice that leads to the child outcomes we seek:
High-quality professional learning needs to support the knowledge and competencies of practitioners – and their leaders/administrators
Practice environment and working conditions that provide the resources and tools needed and that support the wellbeing of practitioners to enable them to exercise the competencies they have
Supportive policies for both professional learning and the practice environment
Together these all contribute to the behaviors/actions of practitioners, which leads to high quality in their relationships and interactions with children, families, and other professionals
All of this is driven by science of child development and early learning and supported by actions and systems for continuous improvement

5. Overview of Recommendations: A Blueprint for Action
Everything is built on the unifying foundation of the child development and principles to support quality professional practice (red at the bottom)
At the core are the most direct actions for professional learning systems (blue in the middle):
Qualification requirements
Higher education
Professional learning during ongoing practice
Evaluation and continuous quality improvement
To be successful, these need to be framed by supporting actions (different color blocks surrounding professional learning):
Informed, supportive leadership
Interprofessional learning and practice – children’s needs depend on different kinds of practitioners working together well within care and education and also with other sectors, especially health and social services
Coherent funding, policies, guidance, and standards – need to be adaptive and respond to changes over time
Models of how to successfully implement in ways that are comprehensive and tailored to local circumstances
Other ongoing knowledge generation – produces the knowledge that will prompt the need for adaptive changes over time
For these changes to be possible, coordinated actions are needed by multiple stakeholders, often working in different systems and at different levels. These need to work in synchrony (green collaborative systems change at local, state and national levels)
Solutions need to occur across multiple levels (local, state, federal), multiple sectors (ECE, K-12, health), using multiple levers (credential, preparation, higher education, ongoing professional learning supports, working conditions, leadership, evaluation) – See “gears” and “blueprint for action” graphic.
We need to come together in a collaborative way to change the systems and policies that are supposed to support ALL members of the workforce. (Not something that early childhood, or public education, or higher education, or the governor’s office can solve on their own.)

6. Select Recommendations
Lead teachers’ educational attainment
Competency-based qualifications
Higher education
Ongoing professional learning
Strategy for coherent guidance
Cross-sector implementation
Provide an overview –
Chapter 12 has the full detail
The recommendations in this presentation are abbreviated; see Chapter 12 for complete recommendations and implementation considerations.

7. Transforming the Early Learning Workforce
Birth to Age Eight
ACTION PLANNING
What strategies would you most like to see implemented in the next three years that you think will have the greatest impact on:
Building the quality of our birth to 5 workforce
Building the quality of our K-3 workforce
creating better alignment between birth to 5 and K-3 teachers and leaders in Delaware
GOVERNOR’S BIRTH TO 8 SUMMIT