Workforce Development

Recent studies about children’s social, emotional, and behavioral health and development as well as anecdotal evidence from the field conclude that building the capacity of the early childhood workforce is a critical component in promoting young child wellness. In fact, a March 2009 Institute of Medicine report, Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People: Progress and Possibilities, recommends that national, state, and local leaders pursue workforce training strategies across the health, education, and social work disciplines. States have begun to explore a number of training strategies to meet these needs.

Workforce Development in Project LAUNCH

Implementing any of the five required Project LAUNCH evidence-based interventions (see Strategies) requires that staff have training and expertise in the social and emotional development of young children. Sometimes this training exceeds the basic training requirements of their profession. For example, pediatricians and other pediatric colleagues often report that their pre-service training in pediatric mental health did not adequately prepare them for the social and emotional challenges that some children in their practices present. The issue is often the same for classroom teachers and for mental health professionals who may not have specialized early childhood expertise.

Project LAUNCH grantees are tackling the social and emotional skill gaps among early childhood professionals in their communities in a number of ways:

• Several states are using evidence-based training programs to provide teachers with new strategies for promoting children’s social and emotional development.
• One state is training all home visitors on the TouchPoints curriculum to enhance the competence of parents and build strong family-child relationships. Another grantee is using a culturally adapted version of the program to enhance the competence of parents and build strong family-child relationships.
• Some grantees are embedding postdoctoral psychologists in several pediatric medical practices to assist pediatricians and staff with screening, assessment of, and intervention with children in social and emotional distress.

By assessing the effect of these interventions on staff competency, state, tribal, local, and District of Columbia Project LAUNCH programs and early childhood professionals can begin to address broader questions about pre-service and in-service staff development, such as:

• How can pre-service training for teachers, pediatricians and pediatric nurses, and mental health professionals be improved to prepare them to more effectively support young children’s social and emotional development?
• How can the state use mechanisms such as early childhood endorsements or credentialing to recognize professionals with expertise in serving the social and emotional needs of young children?
• What types of ongoing support (e.g., training, reflective supervision, resources) do early childhood professionals require to be current on evidence-based practices that support young children’s healthy development?
• How can states and communities build on existing efforts (e.g., Head Start’s Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning, and the Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD) program sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund) to expand the pool of professionals with expertise in social and emotional development?