Week 2 EDUC 6990 Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

There are two local organizations that have been appealing to me. The first is the Southern Adirondack Child Care Network (SACCN). The second is the Capital District Child Care Council (CDCCC). The SACCN and CDCCC both appealed to me because I have worked with them through my current position at Head Start to setup trainings. All of the trainings I have attended have been phenomenal and the trainers are people who I could see myself working with on a daily basis as they are friendly and extremely knowledgeable.

SACCN states that two purposes that appealed to me (Southern Adirondack Child Care Network, n.d.). The first purpose is to inform the community on child care issues. The second purpose is to recruit, assist and train child care providers (Southern Adirondack Child Care Network, n.d.). The SACCN unfortunately does not have any job openings and does not have a directory of staff members and positions. I would imagine there are many opportunities where I could become a trainer and I would be interested in a position in this category.

The CDCCC mission is “The Capital District Child Care Council is a resource and referral agency dedicated to promoting quality, accessible child care for all the Capital Region’s diverse communities.  The Council assumes a leadership role in supporting children, parents, child care professionals, and employers through referral counseling, training and advocacy” (Capital District Child Care Council, 2015). The position that appeals to me is the infant or toddler specialist. I am familiar with this position as I have worked closely with a trainer who is in this position. Unfortunately I do not know what the qualifications are to fulfill her role. I do know that she travels to many different child care programs and works directly with the staff to share her wealth of knowledge on infant and toddler development.

My third organization I would like to join is actually a community of practice. This is the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). I am currently a member and receive their newsletters, but I have not had time to become an active member. My goal is to become more active once I complete this Master’s program. NAEYC is a community of practice that works to promote high-quality early learning for all young children, birth through age eight (National Association for the Education of Young Children, n.d.). To be a more active member of NAEYC I would like to attend their conferences to study the most recent research in early childhood education and collaborate with other programs at these conferences.

References

Capital District Child Care Council. (2015). About the Council. Retrieved from Capital District Child Care Council: http://www.cdcccc.org/page/about-the-council-68.html

National Association for the Education of Young Children. (n.d.). About NAEYC. Retrieved from NAEYC: http://www.naeyc.org/content/about-naeyc

Southern Adirondack Child Care Network. (n.d.). About the Child Care Network. Retrieved from Southern Adirondack Child Care Network: http://www.saccn.org/about/