News from Early Learning Coalition of Southwest Florida

The Board of Directors of the Early Learning Coalition of Southwest Florida and the staff join me in welcoming you to this new school year. We particularly welcome our partners and collaborators and everyone interested in children's wellbeing. A very special welcome to all of the ELC endorsed providers working with the Coalition in Collier, Lee, Glades and Hendry Counties.   I extend to you my best wishes for a highly productive school year and for continued success at having positive impact on the lives of young children. I also commit to you my ongoing, and, hopefully, ever improving efforts at "nurturing the young children of Southwest Florida and those who care for them!"

AREA MEETINGS (more info)
In this, the premier issue of our electronic newsletter, there is much exciting information to share. For starters, the providers in our four-county ELC area will now have the opportunity to meet locally in seven different places with specific Coalition and 4C staff members, who will serve as liaisons for child care professionals in those communities. These meetings, initially, will take place three times per year, click here for information on dates and locations.

CONTEST FOR PROVIDERS (more info)
Second, in the ongoing conversations about what is best practice in terms of early learning / early care staff sharing information with parents/guardians about children's development, ELC Directors decided that the practitioners in the field are best able to make such decisions. Therefore, in an effort to encourage the broad sharing of ideas, a contest is being initiated. Click here for more contest information about how to submit procedures for sharing information about students' development and achievement. The prize in this contest is a Day of Beauty for your center. This means that our consultant, Alvaro Dufflar, who is an extremely talented photographer, will come out and spend some time at your center taking top-notch photos of the intentional work that you are doing with children. These photos will be appropriately matted or framed and displayed to your specifications in your center. This way, the great work of our providers can be shared with parents / guardians, and guests.

CC.NET SUPPORT
Also, there will be more technology support for providers working with the cc.net. ELC staff has set-up five centers across the four counties that will each be open one day a week to offer early care / early learning professionals associated with the Coalition one-on-one or small group instruction in anything related to the submission of Creative Curriculum information.   The electronic format that the Early Learning Coalition has provided to our contracted facilities, in particular, offers enormous resources such as individual or class profiles, student portfolios, and parent / guardian newsletters.   We very much hope that these opportunities for on-demand, drop-in professional development will result in increased understanding and use of the capacities of this program. Locations, dates and times for drop-in professional development are also included in this newsletter.

VISION AND HEARING SCREENERS NOW ELC STAFF
There is much more to share, but here is one final piece of information for this issue. Vision and Hearing Screeners have now joined other Health and Developmental Services staff in the new, expanded ELC office space.   As many of you already know, our completion rate for the administration of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires increased significantly from 2007 / 2008 to 2008 / 2009, when these services came in-house.   Now, with the placement of this new staff within the administration of the Early Learning Coalition increases in the numbers of children screened for vision and hearing are also anticipated.

I hope that you will find the material in this first electronic newsletter helpful and informative. I will very much appreciate your feedback on these efforts. Please note that future newsletters will include highlights from some of our providers, biographical sketches of some of our Board members, and information on selected Early Learning Coalition projects and their impact on children.

LITERACY BUDDIES (more info)
Please do take the time to read more about this project. The Literacy Buddies Project will soon begin again. Applications blanks for adult buddies and teachers are on our website, click here for more info. Any help that you can offer in insuring that every child who wants a buddy gets one this school year will be very much appreciated.

Again, my best wishes for a wonderfully successful year.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Reynolds

CEO

Ages and Stages Developmental Screenings (ASQ)

The ELC-SWFL appreciates the efforts made by our Child Care partners in the ASQ screening process. Thanks to them, last year 3475 children were screened, and of those, 603 children were identified as possibly having a developmental delay. 87% of those children who remained in care were helped by the Individualized Learning Plan (ILP) that the providers and parents implemented. 111 children were given further help by the Inclusion Coordinator. Together, we are making a difference in the lives of our young children!.

Inclusion Coordinator

The ELC-SWFL's Inclusion Coordinator, Lana Johnson (239-267-4105 x58), is available to support Child Care providers and parents in our community who need assistance in understanding children's behavior/special needs and making teacher and classroom accommodations to help the child be successful.

Hearing and Vision Screening

Beginning with the 09-10 fiscal year, hearing and vision services for providers in Lee and Collier Counties will be offered directly from the ELC-SWFL office. Glades/Hendry Counties will continue to be screened by our contracted nurses, (Sue Reese - 863-674-4056 x166 and Danna Breeden -239-252-6022).

Details are posted on the ELC-SWFL website. Thanks to the efforts of our screeners, parents and providers, in 2008-09, 4,930 children received hearing and vision screening from the ELC, with a total of 28,287 children screened since the onset of the program in the spring of 2002.

Disaster, Health and Safety Trainings and Consultation Coordinator

ELC-SWFL will continue to offer trainings and consultation for providers through the services of Sue Reese, RN (Glades and Hendry Counties) and Danna Breeden, RN (Lee and Collier Counties). This year, providers are required to have a facility disaster plan in place, and this is one of the nurses' specialty areas. Scheduled trainings are posted on the ELC website; however, individualized, on-site arrangements may also be made directly with the nurses. Last year, 64 trainings were offered to children and teachers, and 485 consultations were offered to parents and providers.

International Association of Continuing Education and Training (IACET)

The Early Learning Coalition of SW Florida is in the process of application for IACET approval for awarding CEUs. This involves a strenuous and thorough overhaul of the professional development delivery system and the evaluation of participants for CEUs. Through this change, we will improve the quality and efficacy of our trainings, as well as diversify our training methods. We hope to have the new system in place and ready for evaluation in September of 2009. For more information contact Gayla Thompson at 239-267-4105 x29.

Professional Development

Training can be informal or formal, with in-service hours, CEUs (Continuing Education Units) or college credits. The Coalition of SW Florida is currently reforming our professional development system using IACET (International Association of Continuing Education and Training) for our CEUs. We applied for the accreditation in August, and have already incorporated the standards into our trainings. This includes setting learning objectives, assessments and quality control of trainings. We have also instituted a set of ground rules that will ensure that participants and trainers are informed of the Coalitions expectations for training (available at our website www.elcofswfl.org on the registration page).
Each person has a personal pathway to their career goals. However everyone needs professional development to reach those goals. One of the Coalition's functions is to help our providers meet their individual professional development needs through the trainings offered, guidance, and some scholarship funding (as available).
We are re-opening the scholarship process. There will no longer be funding for conferences and workshops, however some funding is available for other certifications pursuits such as National CDAs and Director's Credentials. Currently, TEACH has funding available and we ask that you first try for a TEACH scholarship at www.fcforum.org, especially for AS degrees and FCCPC. The Coalition needs to be the last resort, so that we may maximize the scholarship dollars available within our state. The Coalition Professional Development Scholarship form may be downloaded at www.elcofswfl.org on the professional development page.

Literacy Buddy Project

The Literacy Buddy program at the Early Learning Coalition matches adults from the community with children from early learning facilities that are served by the Coalition. The adult buddy agrees to receive letters from a child and in turn, sends a letter and a high quality book to this child in response to the child's letter. This exchange may take place several times over the course of the year - from mid-fall to spring. The goal of this project is to teach children about correspondence, communication, and to instill appreciation of high quality children's literature. For some of our children, this provides the only opportunity for them to have books of their own at home. Children come to school better prepared to learn when they have experienced lots of modeling by adults who read, write, and converse with them. For more information, go to www.elcofswfl.org and click on the Literacy Buddy button. You can contact Jill Corbett for more info calling at: 239-267-4105 x59

Creative Curriculum Assessment System CC.net

The Early Learning Coalition of SWFL has now been using the Creative Curriculum Assessment System for 4 years. We are excited to see all providers using the online system, cc.net, this year. The response has been wonderful and in addition to recording assessment results, providers are utilizing the many tools the web site has to offer including the activity library, electronic portfolios and observation records, the weekly activity plan, family communications and group reports.

School readiness children enrolled by 9/1/09 with birth dates between 9/1/04 and 8/31/06 must receive a pre and post assessment. Many providers, however, choose to use this system to assess all children age 0-5 years. The assessment due dates are 10/29/09 and 5/31/10. If you have questions regarding child assessment please contact our Assessment Coordinator, Jill Corbett at 239-267-4105 ext. 59.

Save 20%	Now includes pre-school educators in their 20% educator discount program. Simply bring something with you to the store that proves you are a pre-school teacher and register. A pay-stub, business card, or school identification card will work. This Pre-K educator discount is good also for on-line purchases.

EARLY LEARNING COALITION OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA, INC.
5256 Summerlin Commons Way, Suite 201 - Ft. Myers, Florida 33907
Phone: (239) 267-4105 - Fax: (239) 267-4109

TOLL FREE: 1-866-863-1366 - Office Hours: 8am-5pm Monday - Friday