is in
Our Hands
Currently over 60% of mothers with children under the age of three are employed in the U.S.
The current and ever-growing need for care and new government policies are circumstances that together are creating
an explosion in the demand for quality infant and toddler care and education.In the U.S. Recent research indicates that
most of our existing non-parental child care is considered "poor" in quality. Early childhood educators are very
concerned about how best to prepare to meet the demand for increasing numbers of infants and toddlers in early care
and education especially when we are not even responding well to our current need.
The Infant & Toddler Quality Initiative will focus on a number of issues that are related to the
provision of quality care and education.
Providers will have an opportunity to develop an understanding of the developmental and learning
needs of infants and toddlers and the importance and means for meeting those needs for individual
children and their families, by examining:
- The unique responsibilities inherent in the group care of infants and toddlers.
- Healthy growth and development in all domains in typically developing infants and toddlers.
- What caregivers need to know about how to facilitate healthy growth and development in
atypically developing and otherwise at risk children.
- The importance of the relationship among caregivers, babies, and parents in early care
- Emergent literacy and its implications in early care and education.
- How to access resources about infant and toddler care and education to help yourself,
your early childhood education program, and parents.
- How to plan, implement, and evaluate developmentally appropriate care and educational
environments for infants and toddlers.
Pat Burke
pburkeccr2004@yahoo.com
Infant & Toddler Specialist