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Growing Ideas Tipsheets Benefit Young Children

Does the title “Growing Ideas” represent ideas that help young children as they grow? Or does it serve as a starting point for the growth of new ideas and knowledge? Both of these concepts are accurate, for the Growing Ideas tipsheets provide information that can benefit young children, their families, and caregivers, and also serve as the “seeds” from which additional educational projects are developed.

How did it all begin? The concept for the Growing Ideas tipsheets was generated in 2003 when a group of Maine Child Care Resource Development Center (MRDC) directors met with CCIDS. MRDC staff, providing resource and referral services to early educators across Maine, said they were receiving many requests for information about “hot topics” in child care. These high-interest subjects included how to respond to children with challenging behaviors and what kinds of activities are appropriate to offer young children.

CCIDS’ role as a consultant to the MRDC staff was to help identify ways to build capacity to respond to parents’ and providers’ requests for information. The tipsheet concept emerged as one method to make information available, and support the inclusion of all children in Maine’s early care and education programs.

To narrow the topical focus, MRDC directors designed a survey to identify the questions most frequently asked by parents and providers. Results informed the development of 12 tipsheet topics. Each topic was researched and a two-page, easy-to-read tipsheet, with accompanying resource list, was created. The tipsheets and resource lists are available for download at no charge at http://www.ccids.umaine.edu/ec/growingideas/.

During this time, CCIDS, as a member of the Coastal Alliance for Children’s Care, Education, and Supporting Services (ACCESS)—a regional collaborative of child advocates, early care and education professionals, parents, and businesses—was invited to participate in applying for a federal Early Learning Opportunities Act Grant (ELOAG) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Administration for Children, Youth and Families. ELOAGs are awarded to states to help local organizations increase, support, expand, and better coordinate early learning opportunities.

The CCIDS/Coastal ACCESS proposal, which received funding, included development of a toolkit to provide more in-depth resource material supporting tipsheet topics. In the toolkit, a laminated tipsheet, a selection of topical articles, books for educators, books for children, and an expanded list of recommended resources were compiled. Funding from this grant supported toolkits in the coastal region.

The tipsheets and toolkits helped address some informational needs, but other training issues soon surfaced. Nancy Darlington, education specialist at Midcoast RDC in Bath, described realities facing Maine’s family child care home providers, “Family child care providers are faced with unique challenges that include working in isolation from contact with other adults, having limited opportunities to leave the work site for training, networking, or support, and having little access to resource materials.  I know first-hand how difficult this can be, having been a family child care provider myself for several years.”

In order to address the need for training and technical assistance, the Growing Ideas tipsheets and toolkit work was expanded to include interactive, web-based mini-modules for family child care home providers, funded by another successful ELOAG grant with Western Maine ACCESS in 2004. Using a course management system called Moodle, theory presented in the tipsheets was connected with practice as family child care home providers considered how to use the ideas in their work and discussed the concepts with other providers in an online course.

Using the materials developed and lessons learned from this project, toolkits and printed tipsheets became part of CCIDS’ expanded work with the MRDCs and the Child Care Licensing staff through the Child Care Plus Maine (CC+ME) project in 2005-06. With funding support from the Maine Department of Human Services Office of Child Care and Head Start, completed toolkits are now available at all eight Maine RDC offices located in Presque Isle, Scarborough, Auburn, Ellsworth, Augusta, Bath, Bangor, and Sanford and in two regional child care licensing offices. CCIDS staff provided training and follow-up technical assistance to both groups to support their understanding and use of the materials.

A new Coastal ACCESS ELOAG, awarded in late 2005, is allowing CCIDS to expand the tipsheet collection while partnering with the Women’s Business Center at Coastal Enterprises Incorporated (CEI) in Wiscasset. The creation of a new tipsheet and distance education module entitled, “Caring for Young Children—Business Matters,” adds a new dimension to the tipsheet offerings. The new tipsheet focuses on helping providers develop skills to run a small business. CCIDS will also create two new tipsheets and corresponding modules on the topics of early literacy and social-emotional development.

Amie Lee, of Little Angels Daycare in Waldoboro, is a family child care provider participating in the current round of Growing Ideas Distance Education modules. Amie said that availability of the online modules provides the flexibility child care providers need. “[It is] hard to find time to do [training] outside of the home after working 62 hours and raising four children of my own. This gives me the education that I need and it is so convenient…I feel that this is the new way to get the knowledge to providers that we need. This is a great benefit to families also because we pass along the information that we find.”

Johnna Scott, owner of Dancing Hearts Daycare in Waldoboro, called the Growing Ideas modules “a godsend for child care providers.”

“So far this has been a great learning experience and is a great tool for communication with other providers in our area,” Johnna said. “Sharing ideas is a great way to learn and grow; to offer the best care possible for all children…I truly hope this type of learning tool does continue for the benefit of providers and families that use those providers.”

Nancy Darlington, also a Growing Ideas Distance Education course participant agrees. “The Moodle model creates opportunities for personal dialogue in ways that I haven’t seen in other online learning forums. Conversations can easily be shared between individual participants, or posted as general responses to discussion questions. Photographs of the participants personalize the responses. It makes a big difference to see the person you are talking to.”

“Each session also presents a wealth of resources including Web site addresses, journal articles, and interactive activities such as a “toy tester” for participants to try out new ideas,” she added.

The popularity of the Growing Ideas tipsheets inspired CCIDS to look more closely at low-cost, high-impact dissemination techniques, such as posting news about the resource to online listserv discussion forums, submitting citations in national magazines, and distributing copies at local and national workshops to reach a wider audience. As a result, the tipsheets were accessed over 20,000 times in the first 13 months they were available online.

What next? With the addition of new tipsheets, a new course, and continued development of a dissemination plan, it is anticipated that the usefulness of the Growing Ideas tipsheets will increase and inspire expanded professional development opportunities for child care providers.

“Family child care providers need a way to connect with each other and access professional resources on a regular basis,” said Nancy. “I can easily envision…an ongoing online discussion and resource forum sponsored by local RDCs. I believe that technology can be used to connect family child care providers into a wide professional community of ongoing and dynamic interactions. Having immediate access to personal support, professional insights, fresh ideas, and new friendships could bring profound changes to the way that providers view themselves and their work.”

— Bonnie Blagojevic
Jill Downs

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