Dear Child Care Professional:

As you are probably aware, there is much emphasis being placed on not only children doing well in school, but also on being ready to begin school.  The work you do is an extremely important part of helping children prepare for school.  Each day you touch these young children.  By the experiences you provide for them, you help them to learn the many things they will need in order to succeed.

You do all of this, often with little thanks, not great pay, long hours, and little support.  While we can’t do anything immediately about the pay or long hours, we would like to offer you our thanks for the work you do and some very individualized support.

Child Care Choices, Inc. is pleased to announce an exciting new project, Steps to School Success funded by the Stearns County Family Services Collaborative.

Through the Steps to School Success project, specially trained staff from Child Care Choices, Inc. (CCCI) will visit your site, (home or center) one hour a week for 12-20 weeks.  We will work with you to arrange a convenient visiting time. 

Why would you want us to come into your setting and how will this help you?  There are a number of pieces to this project.  Our overall goal is to provide you with ideas and resources that will make your day run smoother and increase the quality of the care that you are already providing. 

How will we do this?

1.      We will bring Second Step: A Violence Prevention Curriculum into your setting.  The curriculum kit will be yours to keep so that you can continue to use this excellent resource for years to come.  Staff will introduce the children in your care to this curriculum doing one lesson each week.  It is geared for older 3 and 4-5 year olds.  Staff will work with you to help children use what they learn each week.  There is also a component of the curriculum that includes families and staff will assist you to find ways to involve your families.  This curriculum will help the children in your care understand and manage their feelings.  As a result you will find that this curriculum can easily become part of your day rather than just ‘one more thing to try to do’.

2.      You will receive training in how to use the Second Step: A Violence Prevention Curriculum.  Once you have received this training, staff will mentor you through your first few lessons until you feel comfortable using it on your own.

3.      You will receive information about other training opportunities, around such topics as promoting literacy (SEEDS), early signs of developmental delays (First Signs and Ounce Scale), the importance of observation (Work Sampling and Ounce Scale) among many others.

4.      Staff will provide you with a Resource Guide.  This guide will include information on a multitude of services/resources that are available for you and/or the families you work with.  The Guide will include services/resources available from Child Care Resource & Referral, your School District, Stearns County, and other community agencies and organizations. 

5.      Staff will help you locate other resource/services as needed.

6.      Staff will be available to answer questions, connect you and/or your families to resource, and assist you as possible with concerns or issues you may have.

7.      Staff will assist you to incorporate new tools and ideas into your day.  These tools/ideas might be from information you received at a training or in discussion with staff.

8.      Remember, our primary goal is to help you!

What do you need to do?

1.      The first step is to complete the enclosed application.  Please call if you need more information before applying.

2.      Once your application has been received and reviewed, staff will contact you with any questions and/or to set up times for visits.

3.      During the initial visit, staff will spend time observing/playing with the children and going over various forms with you.  These forms are necessary for us to have good data so that we will be able to prove the success of the program to potential funders.  Please note that we are doing all we can to make the data collection easy and painless.  Staff will also leave you with letters for parents.  Additionally, staff will talk with you more about how this project will work, its goals, and answer any questions you may have.

4.      Beginning with the second weekly visit, staff will begin using the Second Step curriculum with the children.  While staff are working with this group of children we encourage you to focus on the younger children in your care.  However, we would like you to remain in the same area so you are familiar with what the children are learning.

5.      In between visits you are to use the skills that were discussed in the previous lesson(s) with the children.  This will help to reinforce what they learned and will in the long run make your day run more smoothly.

6.      As soon as possible take the training on how to use Second Step: A Violence Prevention Curriculum.

7.      Once you have taken the training staff will mentor you as you begin to use the curriculum with the children.  This may mean providing tips, watching the younger children, or helping you as you go through the lesson.  Our goal is to make you as comfortable as possible as you implement this curriculum on your own.

8.      We ask that you be open to trying new ideas and/tools whether they come from staff or another source.

We are very excited to be able to offer this wonderful new project to a limited number of child care professionals in Stearns County.  Please call 800-288-8549 or 251-5081 ext. 29 if you have any questions or need more information. 

Jessica Baker                                    Marcia Schlattman