(Source: The National Academies Press, Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation, 2015)

Practices to Help Children Learn

• Understand the implications of child development and early learning for interactions between care and education professionals and children, instructional and other practices, and learning environments.

• Ability to keep current with how advances in the research on child development and early learning and on instructional and other practices inform changes in professional practices and learning environments.

Assessment of Children

• Knowledge of assessment principles and methods to monitor children’s progress and ability to adjust practice accordingly.

• Ability to select assessment tools for use by the professionals in their setting.

Fostering a Professional Workforce

• Knowledge and understanding of the competencies needed to work with children in the professional setting they lead.

• Ability to use knowledge of these competencies to make informed decisions about hiring and placement of practitioners.

• Ability to formulate and implement policies that create an environment that enhances and supports quality practice and children’s development and early learning.

• Ability to formulate and implement supportive and rigorous ongoing professional learning opportunities and quality improvement programs that reflect current knowledge of child development and of effective, high-quality instructional and other practices.

• Ability to foster the health and well-being of their staff and to seek out and provide resources that can help staff manage stress.

Assessment of Educators

• Ability to assess the quality of instruction and interactions, to recognize high quality, and to identify and address poor quality through evaluation systems, observations, coaching, and other professional learning opportunities.

• Ability to use data from assessments of care and education professionals appropriately and effectively to make adjustments to improve outcomes for children and to inform professional learning and other decisions and policies.

Developing and Fostering Partnerships

• Ability to support collaboration among the different kinds of providers under their leadership.

• Ability to enable interprofessional opportunities for themselves and their staff to facilitate linkages among health, education, social services, and other disciplines not under their direct leadership.

• Ability to work with families and support their staff to work with families.

Organizational Development and Management

• Knowledge and ability in administrative and fiscal management, compliance with laws and regulations, and the development and maintenance of infrastructure and an appropriate work environment.