Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

I chose to search organizations in my current state of Pennsylvania. These are three organizations in my state that appealed to me:

Pa Child Care Association - PACCA.

What drew me to PACCA is why they exist “to be a strong and effective advocate for quality early care and education programs” (PACCA, 2012). I believe that whether our passion is curriculum, diversity, or management in early childcare we all want our programs and facilities to be exceptional and effective for our young children. The PACCA “strive to give leadership and support to those organizations that assist the early childhood education community, families and children” (PACCA, 2012).

They do have a job opening that is available at the moment which I would be very interested in having. The title is: Management of Early Care and Education (ECE) Center (Director of Early Child Care Programs and Services). For this particular job I would need a Master’s degree along with seven years of related experience (management in early childcare education settings). I would also need to be familiar with the sliding scale fee structure for childcare facility tuition, experience in research of funding opportunities, and CCAMPI (child care assess means parents in school) in order to manage this grant and subsidy program for student parents.  

Pa Partnerships for children – PPC

I enjoyed PPC because they are a “voice to improve the health, education and well-being of children and youth in the Commonwealth by advancing government policies” (PPC, 2015). With their mission being health, education, and well-being for children, I feel it covers all the bases. We all know that the early learning of children is extremely important but also is their health and emotional state of mind.

They currently do not have any positions available, although there is one position that caught my eye. The position is: KIDS COUNT Director. This individual serves as a liaison to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s national KIDS Count project. This project “seeks to enrich local, state and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all children and raise the visibility of children's issues through a nonpartisan, evidence-based lens” (PPC, 2015). For this job I would assume that I would need to be up to date on research regarding current issues in early childhood education and be versed in the evidence found that will secure a better future for children. Public speaking and advocacy are also skills I would need to possess in order to be an effective liaison and properly portray the necessary information needed to be brought to these discussions.

Pa Head Start Association – PHSA

I chose the PHSA because it works with economically challenged families and children and as stated on their website “embraces diversity” (PHSA, 2015). The PHSA’s mission is to “maximize the cumulative talents of Early Head Start/Head Start parents, staff, administrators and friends to collectively improve the future for economically challenged children, families and communities, by providing quality leadership, training, information and advocacy at the local, state, regional and national levels” (PHSA, 2015).

There are no job openings at the moment, although the position of Early Childhood Education Coordinator would be one that I would love to fulfill. When working in this position you are being a mentor, advocate, and trainer to provide the utmost efficiency in the school readiness of Head Start children. I would need to possess knowledge in culturally responsive curriculum and classrooms, be versed in agency resources and technology in order to answer questions and provide proper guidance to staff and parents, have the ability to collaborate with and have working knowledge of local community resources related to disability services, as well as possess the ability to meet the needs of all children.

References

 http://www.pacca.org/

http://www.papartnerships.org/

http://paheadstart.org/