Julia L. Mendez

Discover a brief that describes child care subsidy program staff's perspectives on engaging Hispanic families during COVID-19

Over recent decades, the demographic composition of children in the United States has rapidly shifted, culturally and linguistically. Concomitantly, there has been an increased need for early childhood education (ECE) teacher preparation programs to develop a culturally competent ECE workforce who are equipped to provide equitable learning experiences for culturally and linguistically diverse children and families. Given increasing attention and calls from education researchers, policymakers, and other partners to develop a culturally competent ECE workforce, the current study sought to explore program faculty’s cultural competence, specifically their culturally and linguistically responsive (CLR) teaching practices, and its association with feelings of work burnout and perceived teaching efficacy – two factors likely to be influenced by such heightening demands and to impact pre-service teachers’ own teaching competencies. Using structural equation modeling, the current study examined survey responses from 117 program faculty measuring their cultural competence and its association with feelings of work burnout and teaching efficacy. Analyses indicated that, overall, program faculty with higher levels of cultural competence reported minimal feelings of work burnout and higher teaching efficacy, and vice versa. Findings from the current study provide important research and practice strategies for the field of ECE teacher preparation.

UNC Greensboro’s vision is to be a national model for how a public research university can achieve access and excellence to transform students, the institution, and the community. With origins as the segregated Woman’s College (WC), our evolution as a southern metropolitan public university reflects race, place, and their intertwined historical legacies. Embedded inclusive excellence, as a heuristic, frames the intentional, synergistic, and organic processes we engage to advance faculty diversity, and a more inclusive learning environment. Specifically, borrowing a central concept from economics, we illustrate cultural, structural/institutional, and social “embeddedness” that has supported significant and positive changes at our university.

This paper describes how training school and clinical psychology graduate students in early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) has the potential to fill gaps in the ECMHC workforce, enhance the capacity of early care and education (ECE) providers to effectively support the mental health needs of children and families, and help ECE programs provide equitable services to children and families. We first present the need for explicit ECMHC training in school and clinical psychology doctoral programs, and how didactic coursework and practica could align with national competencies for high-quality ECMHC. We then illustrate how graduate programs might aspire to greater impact by 1) shifting to promotion and prevention, systems- and organizational-based practice orientations, and equity and cultural competence principles; and 2) leveraging ECE programming to infuse ECMHC practice. We conclude with a call to action for graduate programs to address this need for mental health professionals with specialized ECMHC competencies.

Research is accelerating toward a deeper understanding of early childhood education (ECE) environments as protective experiences for Latino children; however, more work remains. This paper provides a review of the evidence that ECE environments benefit Latino children and mitigate the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and other poverty-related risks; however, Latino families face numerous barriers to accessing ECE opportunities for their children. While enrollment by Latino children in ECE programs has grown in prior decades, further increases in access to ECE are needed to benefit Latino children, who are disproportionately impacted by poverty. In addition, ECE programs, especially high-quality and dual generation–focused programs like Early Head Start and Head Start, are in a strong position to help offset the risk for poor educational and mental health outcomes due to Latino’s children’s exposure to stressors such as discrimination and ACEs. Gaps remain in how well ECE is serving Latino families due to a combination of factors including parental work schedules, heritage language and cultural factors, and the lack of affordable and available ECE programs in Latino communities. To remedy these gaps, researchers must continue to further elucidate the needs, preferences, and gaps regarding access to early care and education opportunities for Latino children. For those studying trauma and ACEs among low-income children, greater attention to how preventative interventions or treatments that are embedded in ECE settings serve Latino populations is warranted, as this has the tremendous potential to mitigate the long-term impact of ACEs on Latino children. The paper concludes with a set of early childhood practice and policy recommendations for enhancing protective experiences for low-income Latino children.

This paper describes the development of the Guilford Parent Academy (GPA), which is a school district-community collaboration developed to promote parent engagement and to assist families by providing online and face-to-face access to resources to help raise a successful and healthy child. Evaluation results over a four-year period suggest that the GPA innovative strategies and programs for reaching parents are increasingly effective within this large, culturally diverse school district. For example, GPA uses free online user accounts to allow parents to access a variety of resources to assist their children's academic and social development. GPA on the Go offers face-to-face workshops at places of business or community settings that broaden the reach of parent engagement programs beyond the confines of the school. Lastly, Parent Ambassadors are working to create peer-to-peer parent networks to engage families and share resources with schools receiving Title I funds. Workshop offerings, online user accounts, and parent participation increased over a four-year period since this initiative was founded. We discuss the utility of the conceptual model and potential for replication of Parent Academy initiatives in other school districts, as well as future research directions.