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Early Relationships Matter! January 2011 |
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Quick Links: Celebrating Infant-Toddler Policy Achievements in 2010! Celebrate Children Foundation's Purchasing Consortium to Benefit WI Child Care Centers 2010 League of States Designing Effective Instruction for Young Diverse Learners: What Works and Why Attachments Past and Present Ask the Expert Upcoming Events Save the Date! Newsletter Submissions |
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Celebrating Infant-Toddler Policy Achievements in 2010! The Baby Monitor is the ZERO TO THREE Policy Network's free bi-weekly e-newsletter, focusing on policy and advocacy news about infant-toddler issues. The Baby Monitor features key federal and state policy issues, publications, online resources, advocacy tools and special articles for those interested in impacting public policies for babies and toddlers. Throughout 2010, ZERO TO THREE worked to keep you informed of important and innovative policy developments happening throughout the country. This past year included many historic ups and downs, but we all successfully worked together to advance and preserve policies that improve the lives of infants, toddlers and their families. This article highlights those policy achievements and recognizes the role that we all play in supporting our nation's youngest children. We celebrate the accomplishments of Big Voices for Little Kids across the country and look forward to continuing this work in 2011! |
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Celebrate Children Foundation Launches Purchasing Consortium to Benefit Wisconsin Child Care Centers
As of The Celebrate Children
Foundation is pleased to announce that it has established a
Purchasing Consortium to benefit child care centers throughout
Wisconsin. The purpose of the Celebrate Children Purchasing
Consortium is to provide considerable discounts on
everyday expenditures, like janitorial and cleaning supplies,
building and grounds maintenance, payroll processing and HR
solutions, first-aid and personal care items, and much more.
By leveraging the combined purchasing power of the state’s
early education and childcare industry, the Celebrate Children
Foundation is able to offer pre-negotiated discounts exclusively to
members of the Purchasing Consortium.
Additional benefits include:
The Celebrate Children Foundation is pleased to offer this program to all family and group child care centers throughout Wisconsin," said James L. Leonhart, the foundation's executive vice president. "The goals of the Celebrate Children Purchasing Consortium are to help early learning professionals save time, money and resources, so they can focus on what really matters: enhancing and enriching the lives of our children. We're committed to supporting efforts that positively impact early learning programs for children birth to age five in Wisconsin." For more information about the Celebrate Children Purchasing Consortium or to complete your free enrollment, visit www.celebrate-children.org/consortium today! |
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2010 League of States
For more information on the Endorsement System in Wisconsin, click here for a brief description. For a more in depth look at the Endorsement System, visit the MI-AIMH website. League of States Retreat in the Desert Sun
On December 6 – 7, 2010, the staff of WI-AIMH had the opportunity to participate in a unique learning experience. Tucked away in the Arizona desert between the mountain ridges, the Franciscan Renewal Center was the site for the 2010 League of States Retreat. The League of States is a group of individuals representing 14 states who are invested in adopting the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Competency and Endorsement System. The Franciscan Renewal Center offered a simple and relaxing location including hiking trails, a labyrinth, and a healing garden. The citrus trees were full of ripe fruit that guests could pick and enjoying eating. The sunsets were gorgeous as the sun dipped behind the desert horizon.
The Competency and Endorsement System was created ten years ago
by Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health. The purpose of
the League of States retreat is for individual states to learn
from each other and assist each other in promoting the
principles of infant mental health in their states.
This year the one and a half day retreat was attended by 42
people representing fourteen states.
The Wisconsin Alliance for Infant Mental Health is in the
process of implementing the Competency and Endorsement System in
Wisconsin. Wisconsin
will begin to accept applications in June 2011
Our first learning opportunity was a
presentation about the eASY system. The presenter was Nick Mata
who is the creator of the web-based system for the Competency
and Endorsement application process, which we will use in Wisconsin.
Future candidates for endorsement will be able to complete
their application on line and the advisors and reviewers will be
able to review the candidate’s material on line.
The system will add efficiency and ease for all of our
endorsement candidates, advisors and reviewers.
The next learning opportunity was to witness a live fishbowl of reflective supervision. Reflective supervision is an important component of infant mental health. Reflective supervision is a holding place for the practitioner to process their work and to be supported to find answers for some of the difficult situations we all face in the field. Bill Schafer from Michigan is a national leader on reflective supervision and he gave us the pleasure of observing him providing the real work of reflective supervision. The fishbowl experience helped set the tone for the remainder of the retreat.
Tuesday morning was another unique
opportunity to participate in the foundational work of a new
research project on reflective supervision.
Two national researchers, Paul Spicer from University of
Oklahoma and Walter Gilliam from Yale University are researching
what are the elements of reflective practice and what impact or
outcomes reflective practice has
on the children and families served by someone who
receives reflective supervision.
We broke into small groups and rated a
videotaped session of reflective supervision.
There were some overall repeated themes from the groups, 1)
reflective supervision is a process and not a product 2) each
supervision has unique elements dependent on the participating
individuals and 3) effective reflective supervision requires
consistent mentor relationships over time. The findings from
this experience will be reviewed and analyzed by the researchers
and it is hoped that it will create enough evidence to secure
funding for a full research project on reflective supervision.
The next activity was another unique
learning experience. Shelley Mayse from Kansas was our
facilitator for using creative expression through art media on
reflective supervision and practice.
Using clay, crayons and paper as our media, we were mindfully
taken through looking at reflective supervision using the right
sides of our brain.
The list of themes found in reflective supervision generated
from the tactile media experience was amazingly similar to our
previous cognitive research experience, but was felt on a more
emotional and personal level.
Shelly is an early childhood professional who uses art media to
support professionals in the field in helping them reflect and
process their work with children and families.
The retreat ended with a panel presentation and discussion from a cross section of states on three topics of infant mental health. States presented on how each topic of 1) funding, 2) training and education and 3) policy and service delivery was accomplished in their state. Therese Ahlers sat on the panel and presented on policy development in the state of Wisconsin. There was opportunity for questions and discussions with the panel and all the information will be written up and distributed to the League of States participants. There was so much to be learned from each state’s struggles and successes in bringing infant mental health practices alive in their state.
It is amazing to experience how so much
energy, learning, sharing and relationship building can happen
in a short amount of time.
The retreat gave the participants the renewed capacity to
return to work in their individual states knowing they are
connected to a larger national network of committed individuals.
The Competency and Endorsement System is helping push the
infant mental health field forward by influencing our practices,
policies, and systems, with the end result of integrating
relationship based practices into the day to day activities or
all who touch the lives of infants, young children and their
families. Each
League state will continue their work throughout the coming year
and look forward to gathering together again in December 2011. |
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Designing Effective Instruction for Young
Diverse Learners: What Works and Why The 7th JoLynn Beeman Memorial Lecture Series will feature Linda M. Espinosa, Ph.D., author of "Getting It RIGHT for Young Children from Diverse Backgrounds: Applying Research to Improve Practice". Linda's current research interests include professional-development and teacher-preparation systems and their relationship to effective early childhood teaching practices. Dr. Espinosa has worked extensively with low-income Latino children and families throughout the state of California.
Who should attend?
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Attachments Past and Present: Research-Based
Strategies for Helping Parents Find the Best Within, Whatever their
History An Event for Professionals in the Community from the University of Wisconsin Infant, Early Childhood and Family Mental Health Program Attachment research demonstrates that it is not so much how a person was treated in childhood that determines later parenting behavior, but how that person has come to think about those past relationships. Drawing on 35 years of longitudinal research and 24 years implementing and evaluating attachment-based, strength-focused strategies, Marti Erickson, PhD. will offer a theoretical framework and evidence-based, strength-focused strategies. For more information, please visit the information handout. Registration is available here, by calling Carrie at 608-263-5000. On site registration will be accepted. |
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Ask the expert Do you have questions or concerns regarding social-emotional development or your work related to infants, young children and their families? Ask the expert! E-mail jhack@wiaimh.org with your questions related to infant mental health policy, research, practice or resources. We may edit questions for space and clarity for inclusion in this newsletter and on our Web site. Names will be used only with permission. For more information and to see an archive of previous questions, see: http://www.wiaimh.org/ask_the_expert.htm. |
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Upcoming events
Strong Foundations Conference:
State of a Baby: Using a Developmental Lens
Attachments Past and Present:
Research-Based Strategies for Helping Parents Find the Best Within,
Whatever their History; An Event for Professionals in the Community
Designing Effective
Instruction for Young Diverse Learners: What Works and Why Links to more information about these events can be found on our web calendar at: http://www.wiaimh.org/education/calendar.htm. |
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Save the Date!
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WI-AIMH
welcomes submissions for publication in this newsletter. Our staff
will review and select articles based on the suitability and
timeliness of the subject matter presented. Articles on activities
related to infant mental health in various Wisconsin communities, as
well as policy updates, especially are welcome. If you have
something to contribute, please call (608) 442-0360 or e-mail
admin@wiaimh.org. |
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