Children in households where domestic violence and child abuse occur are profoundly affected cognitively as well as emotionally (Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families, 1994). In families affected by substance abuse, physical illness, mental illness, children experience day to day life with unresponsive or absent parents. As a result, the burden of care often shifts to caregivers outside the home. The caregiver frequently takes on added significance for children contending with trauma, delays in development, who crave consistency, nurturance, and a safe haven where they can play and learn and focus on more age-appropriate tasks of development.

Based upon the findings of The National Center for Early Childhood Work Force report in 1997 that conclude that accredited programs are six times more likely to be rated as good to excellent than unaccredited providers, the Gold Seal Project was conceived.  Accredited providers typically have better educated staff, higher rates of pay for employees, better benefits, smaller group size and lower staff to child ratios for children. To assure quality of services for children birth to five in South Sarasota County, Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice supported the Gold Seal Project to significantly increase the number of accredited facilities in South Sarasota County.

II.                What is needed to bring newly accredited facilities to excellence in professional caregiving?

The Gold Seal Project staff has implemented a second phase (Gold Seal II) from October 2001 to September 2004 to provide on site training in the classroom environment and/or home to newly accredited sites after they have completed the first year of the Gold Seal Project.

Program Goal:

To significantly improve the skills of early care providers and parents at Gold Seal sites, creating a nurturing care environment supporting infant/toddler social/ emotional and cognitive growth through responsive care giving.

To enhance the existing high quality services, consultants will supplement and strengthen the skills of caregivers and parents through a coordinated approach of training and modeling effective techniques. The professionals who will provide those services will be a Mental Health Professional and an Inclusion Specialist with a Special Education background. Together with the staff in the Gold Seal accredited sites and the parents of children with unique needs, these professionals, will provide on site training in the classroom to create an environment of responsive caregiving supporting the social and emotional growth of infants and toddlers.

OBJECTIVES:

·        assure that they have the tools to provide support to children

·        problem solve about individual children & families

·        guide staff and parents to solve collective problems

·        help staff and parents to recognize and celebrate their hard work and importance to the children

·        model alternative approaches and behaviors for caregivers

·        offer guidance to families, facilitating referrals it necessary

·        help staff respond to crisis such as violence or family divorce, death or disasters help to restart the healthy growth process for young children who have experienced damaging early relationships and experiences

It is apparent that the classroom staff cannot make systemic changes to the program in which they work without training both their Directors and their peers.

Staff will also adopt the following enhancements to the Gold Seal Project:

1.   Re-design and expansion of the CDA Equivalency Program

2.      Training of the Directors to assure a cohesive philosophy of care

3.      Train Directors to provide continuous quality improvement