Filtering by
- All Subjects: Pilgrim's Progress
This document is the result of the convening of the Arizona Early Childhood Taskforce in the spring and summer of 2010. It defines the ideal system of early childhood development and health in Arizona and articulates First Things First's role within that early childhood system.
This report provides a model to help readers conceptualize the essential elements of a robust professional development system, and how they fit together. Drawing upon a comprehensive environmental scan completed this year, the report continues with a description of the current state of Arizona’s early childhood PD system, identifying gaps and opportunities. Finally, the report outlines a Two-Year Strategic Plan that represents the recommendations of the Arizona Professional Development System-Building Working Group.
This document stresses the importance of collective efforts among families, early care and education professionals, health care professionals, family support providers, community members, and policymakers in supporting the learning and development of young children.
Through surveys and interviews, this publication reveals that parents – regardless of income, education levels and ethnic background – basically want the same things from their child care providers: a safe, nurturing learning environment. The study also reveals that many parents face challenges in finding information about child care options in their communities, care that meets all of their expectations, and resources to pay for early learning programs.
This report marks ten years in which trends can be identified by comparing survey results from 1997 to 2007. Longitudinal findings in the areas of wages, benefits, length of employment, and education levels of the ECE workforce were analyzed.
For kids 5 and younger in early learning programs, success is largely determined by the knowledge and skills of their teachers, and by the quality of the interactions with those educators. This publication describes how Arizona continues to struggle in educational attainment, wages and retention of its early learning workforce. It also offers recommendations for parents, providers, policymakers and other stakeholders on how we can all better support those responsible for helping infants, toddlers and preschoolers get ready for school and set for life!
Designed to provide baseline measurement of the degree to which early childhood services work together in Arizona. The FTF Partner Survey will continue be administered on a yearly basis to evaluate ongoing progress toward FTF coordination and family support goals and improvements in early childhood collaboration.
First Things First is one of the critical partners in creating a family-centered, comprehensive, collaborative and high-quality early childhood system that supports the development, health and early education of all Arizona children from birth through age 5.
Under the four areas of focus--Ready Families, Ready Programs and Schools, Ready Teachers, and Ready Communities--projected outcomes include enhancing and developing methods to provide parent education; enhancing children’s social-emotional development and literacy skills; ensuring that families have access to health care, strengthening basic early childhood education infrastructure such as licensing, subsidies and market rate while working toward improving the quality of early childhood education; supporting adequate compensation for teachers; enhanced education and training for early childhood professionals; encouraging universities and community colleges to develop articulation plans for early education coursework; and encouraging the building of capacity of communities to implement high-quality early childhood education.