What is Getting Started?
Getting Started is an introductory course to help early care and education professionals get their careers off to a great start and make a positive impact on young children’s lives. Participants will learn about child development, responsive interactions, safe and effective environments, health and nutrition plus abuse and reporting.
This training satisfies the Department of Human Services' basic child care requirement for licensed centers, school-age programs, preschools, groups, family child care programs, and self-declaration providers. This training must be completed within the first three months of becoming licensed or employed. The Department of Human Services, along with licensers and other early childhood specialists, carefully considered the core knowledge that every early care and education professional needs for a good start.
Using This Guide
We highly recommend that this training be completed as part of your orientation process to give staff the foundational knowledge that guides your program policies and practices. The following outline provides you with information to align the Getting Started training with the policies and practices that may be present in your program. The outline identifies key topics within the training session to guide your discussions with staff, as well as suggestions for demonstrating the practices learned in the training.
This guide also provides information about the importance of professional development and gives you tools to help your staff become more engaged in their career.
Development and Responsive Interactions
Children are happier and healthier when you, as their early educator, understand child development and engage in responsive interactions with each child. In this course you will learn how children develop and how you can support their learning through responsive interactions.
Overview
Much of a child’s brain development happens after birth. Development is greatly impacted by early experiences. Sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch are the brain’s first learning tools for most children. Play and responsive relationships help to nurture these senses. It is important to know how children of all ages develop. In addition to knowing where children are now, you need to know where they’ve been and prepare them for where they’re going next.
There are four main domains, or areas, of child development:
- Social-emotional: Social-emotional development is the base of all other development. Social-emotionaldevelopment includes the way children feel about themselves, how children understand their feelings, and theirability to regulate their emotions and express them appropriately.
- Cognitive: Cognitive development is the way children think, develop understanding about the world, and solveproblems.
- Physical: Physical development includes children’s gross motor and fine motor skills.
- Language: Language development involves children’s ability to listen, understand and express thoughts, needs,and ideas.
Discussion Questions
- What does typical development look like?
- How can you help if a child is not developing typically?
- Why is it important to understand the individual differences of each child?
Review the licensing regulations, policies and procedures for your program related to this course
- Expectations for caring for or teaching children with special needs
- Serve developmentally appropriate nutritious foods
- Policy for guiding children’s behavior
Demonstrate practices related to this course
- Complete a Milestone Checklist for each child
- Create developmentally appropriate goals for each child