Page 6 - Gateways for Early Educators

Gateways for Early Educators
Inclusion (8.9%). The quality improvement plans focused on Adult-Child Interactions doubled from the prior program year.
Most career goal development plans targeted Educational Development (47.7%), followed by Career and Professional Development (14.7%). Some participants enrolled in college for the first time, obtained degrees, and applied for or obtained their permits. The numbers who sought out formal educational pathways was small and illustrates the fact that the population of Gateways participants is not the traditional center-based staff person seeking more formal education. Gateways is a program that serves to meet the needs of a very diverse workforce and some participants are interested in increasing their quality through means that are not linked to formal education. As part of each participant’s career development, coaches encouraged them to create and activate their ECE Workforce Registry account and 74.1% agreed to have their information shared with the Registry to create their account. More needs to be done to understand the reticence of the remaining 25.9%. The most common reason was a general feeling of not wanting to share the information, while others stated they did not fully understand the registry, did not trust electronic systems to be safe, privacy reasons regarding specific information, and others indicated they had already given their information to another program. The Registry Office in Los Angeles has been partnering with R&R agencies to continue their educational efforts in informing ECE professionals about the Registry. Leadership from R&R agencies has also been working closely with CCALA and the Registry Office to integrate the Gateways Passport into the Registry. The integration of the Gateways Passport into the California Early Care and Education Workforce Registry has the potential to attract many more early childhood educators given the great interest in Gateways training and earning a Karen Kaye Award of Achievement.
Gateways offered coaching to a local QRIS program coordinated by one of the program’s main partners, LA County Office of Child Care. When these participants were asked about how the program helped them, 83% or greater reported that the coach helped them understand what is required in the program, prepare their site for the rating, prepare documents for the rating, and helped with the mini-grant. In addition, these participants rated the foundations of the coaching relationship very high. Overall, this has been a very successful partnership.
Coaching was related participant outcomes. The important foundational elements of coaching (those needed to ensure a successful coaching program) were overwhelmingly felt by participants. The one area of exception was “Help with finding groups of professionals like me.” Given this finding for three years and the importance of communities of practice, it is recommended that this area be explored further.
A number of factors that might be related to coaching outcomes were explored. The number of programs (e.g., ASPIRE, Vistas, etc.) in which participants engage did not relate to program outcomes (scores of knowledge and practice change). Therefore it did
2016
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