Know

In managing a child care or youth program, it is easy to become caught up in all the tasks that need to be completed. As the program leader, your role is also to model and demonstrate the values that you hold regarding relationship-based care for children and their families. Keeping the needs of the children and youth as your first priority can be challenging with so many responsibilities. Demonstrating that the children and youth are your first priority is an important way that you communicate the program’s mission and value of maintaining an emotionally supportive environment. As in any family, the tone set by adults influences the growth and development of the children. As a program leader, the children, families and staff will look to you to demonstrate how to react to difficult issues, make decisions, and interact with one another.

Creating and Maintaining a Supportive Environment

As the Program Manager, you are charged with creating and maintaining a supportive environment. Gathering feedback from staff and families about their perceptions of the program environment will be important in creating a supportive program.

Feedback can be gathered formally (e.g., checklists, formal rating scales) or informally (e.g., suggestion box, brief written surveys, exit interviews with staff and families). This feedback should be shared with staff and other key stakeholders, such as parent advisory board members, when appropriate to help address any needed improvements.

Maintaining a supportive environment includes building relationships with children, staff and families. You can do this by assisting staff in setting and meeting professional goals, welcoming and mentoring new staff members, and contributing positive comments and ideas that enhance staff members’ and families’ confidence and competence in their roles as caregivers and parents.

Creating a Supportive Environment

The physical environment is also a key priority for a Program Manager. Creating a supportive climate for work includes the following:

• Maintaining work and break spaces that support staff members in practicing healthy habits for their physical, mental and social-emotional wellbeing during the workday.
• Providing adequate supplies, practical furnishings, and professional-development activities. Create comfortable spaces for staff to meet, receive training, and work on materials for their classrooms and their own professional development.
• Creating staff workspaces (e.g., designating secure places for adults’ belongings to be kept while at work)
• Choosing spaces for staff meetings and professional development activities that are comfortable and conducive to adult learning.
• Including professional materials in staff lounges or/resource areas
• Ensuring there are private areas for staff and families to review resources and complete paperwork, or where they can conference confidentially and comfortably with staff.
• Prepare a “family corner” with a couch and comfortable seating for families (as well as staff) to review information about installation and community resources that may be of interest. It should also include information and resources for families in families’ home languages.
• Work with families, staff or volunteers to offer signage and resources in diverse languages.

There are many ways to create environments that support the social development of children and adults. As a Program Manager, it is your duty to think beyond classroom environments and really focus on all the spaces in your program that contribute to the overall atmosphere and environment. Listen as an early childhood expert outlines a few of the ways childcare programs can make their program spaces supportive for children and families.

Anti-Bias Environments

You have the important task of ensuring that the program environment is open and welcoming to all families and staff. Creating an anti-bias environment involves taking steps to ensure that all children and families can engage with program staff and spaces without experiencing unfair discrimination or difficulty. Staff and family handbooks should have written information about the program’s values and beliefs regarding acceptance across racial identities, ethnicities, languages, family structures, and disabilities. As a Program Manager, you can model appropriate conversations with families to learn about their cultural beliefs and practices with regard to child rearing and developmental milestones. Greetings in the languages that staff and family speak should be used. Literature and music should be representative of the cultures of staff and families, and program toys and materials should be inclusive of the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the staff and families. You will need to remain sensitive to issues that might arise concerning families’ beliefs about feeding, dressing, toileting practices, and child guidance and discipline. Your willingness to learn and ask relevant questions rather than make assumptions about a family’s culture and child rearing practices that is different from your own will be an important leadership trait.

The following are resources for more information on anti-bias environments:

• https://www.naeyc.org/resources/topics/anti-bias
• https://www.antibiasleadersece.com/the-film-reflecting-on-anti-bias-education-in-action/
• https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/books/anti-bias-education

What Role Does Culture Play in Social-Emotional Development?

Children develop social-emotional competence within the context of relationships and culture. Children develop a communication style, learn socially appropriate ways of interacting, and become more independent from their caregivers, families, and communities. For example, some cultures teach children to avoid eye contact while communicating. However, other cultures view eye contact as an essential component of a social interaction. Expectations about developmental milestones also are driven by cultural values and priorities. In some cultures, children are not expected to feed themselves until they are 3 or 4 years old. In other cultures, children are expected to start feeding themselves in late infancy and early toddlerhood. Culture also influences parenting practices and ways of dealing with emotions, including handling stress and coping with adversity. Family priorities affect social-emotional competence. For example, some families might place a high value on talking about and expressing emotions as they happen. Children might learn to say exactly how they feel, when they feel it. Also, many Black and Latinx families may prioritize family and encourage their children to share and play with others at a very early age. Conversely, many white families are more likely to encourage their children to be independent; they might expect their children to independently eat, get dressed, and play. Instead of judging whether a behavior is bad or good, Derman-Sparks and Edwards (2010) suggest that we:

• Respect the cultures of others
• Encourage others to appreciate the richness of cultures
• Recognize our own assumptions about culture and challenge biased assumptions
• Embrace, celebrate, and honestly discuss difference and similarity

How Can Staff Members Support the Needs of All Learners?

Research shows children with disabilities are less likely to develop friendships than their typically developing peers. Many young children with disabilities have difficulty with peer interactions. Delays in social interactions are characteristics of many developmental disabilities, including autism. If these social delays and friendships skills are not addressed when children are young, they will be at risk for social isolation, rejection, and social-emotional delays.

You can teach staff members specific strategies for supporting the needs of all learners. A variety of strategies are provided below.

Possible Supports for Children with Social-Emotional Concerns or Delays

• Set up “buddy” activities and pre-arrange so that two children are intentionally paired up and go to an activity or center together. Pair a more socially competent peer with a peer who is working on social skills, or pair two children who are developing a friendship.
• Children with social delays often have delays in play skills as well. If the child has difficulty playing with toys or materials, focus on teaching the child to play with toys and materials.
• If a child is having difficulty completing a task, ask another child who has finished to help or give clues for finishing.
• If a child has difficulty with transitions or self-care routines (e.g., hand washing, getting dressed), pair the child with another child for help.
• Use visuals to support social interactions, for example, have a card for “Ask a peer to play” and support the child in asking the peer to play.
• Embed the child’s interests or preferences into social games or activities, and support the child in taking turns, sharing, and talking to other children. When appropriate, use the child’s interests as reinforcement for play (e.g., “The balls are for two children to play with. Let’s ask a friend to play with you!”).
• Use a classroom-wide reinforcement system. Avoid reinforcement systems that focus on the behavior or accomplishments of individual children.
• Give the child classroom jobs or roles that involve social interactions (e.g., passing out props during circle, asking children, “What are you going to play with” after circle time, and giving choices during snack: “Do you want a cookie or crackers?”).
• Some children might need specific verbal cues (“Ask your friend Molly for the red truck”) or suggestions for play (“Jane, you can be this baby’s mommy and Shannon, you can be the doctor”).
• Encourage families to arrange play dates for their children and other children in the classroom.
• Have family days or invite parents to the classroom and support or encourage friendships between families.

Supervise & Support

Feedback and Growth as a Manager

As a Program Manager, you will set goals and develop a professional growth plan with individual staff members to facilitate their professional development. Self-reflection is an important skill to have as a leader. Using your journals and self-reflections, you may want to meet with your administrator (or a trusted peer who does not work in your program) to set your own professional goals and develop an action plan to address your growth as a manager. Receiving feedback from staff members and your supervisor is important to facilitate your development as a leader. Even those who have been managers for many years find that self-reflection and goal setting are important to their continuous growth as a professional.

Your role is to ensure that the program is a welcoming, friendly, and responsive environment for children, families, and staff. Your vision of a welcoming environment is evident through the care you demonstrate for the physical and emotional comfort of the children, families, and staff (e.g., comfortable furniture for adults, posters depicting cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the children, families, and staff, the selection of games and materials for classrooms) have an impact on building an emotionally responsive environment that indicates all are welcome in this caring community.