In managing a child care or youth program, it is easy to become caught up in all of 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 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 the 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 parents). 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 responsibility for a manager. Creating a supportive climate for work includes the following:

• Providing adequate supplies, practical furnishings, and professional-development activities
• Ctreating staff work spaces (e.g., designating places for adults' belongings to be kept while at work)
• Furnishing staff meetings and professional development activities with comfortable chairs 
• Including professional materials in staff lounges or/resource areas
• Ensuring there are private places for staff and parents to discuss confidential matters
• Prepare a "family corner" with a couch and comfortable seating for families (and staff, too) to review information about installation and community resources that may be of interest

Anti-Bias Environments

You have the important task of ensuring that the program environment is open and welcoming to all families and staff. The staff and family handbooks should have written information about the program’s values and beliefs regarding acceptance across racial, ethnic, linguistic, and ability differences. As a 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 evident. 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. As a manager, 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. 

What Role Does Culture Play in Social-Emotional Development?

Children develop social-emotional competence within the context of their relationships with their teachers, caregivers, family, and culture. Children develop a communication style, learn socially appropriate ways of responding, 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 African-American and Hispanic 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 this culture
• 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 are 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:

Feedback and Growth as a Manager

As a 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.

Summary

Your role is to ensure that the program is a welcoming, friendly, and emotionally-responsive environment for the 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.