Child care and early education: Training

The Center for Inclusive Child Care provides free relationship-based professional development including support, modeling and resources to child care programs throughout Minnesota. A coach will partner with your program to provide support focused on the successful inclusion of children with special needs or challenging behaviors, implementing health and safety best practices and/or supporting the unique needs of infants and toddlers in your care.

Guide to Creating Inclusive Child Care Spaces
There are easy steps and resources child care providers and early educators can take to make their spaces more inclusive to children with disabilities. Creating Inclusive Child Care Spaces is a guide to help providers think more inclusively about children with disabilities, and provides easy to access steps and free resources to improve care for children with disabilities. Creating inclusive spaces is especially important for children with disabilities, whose families often struggle to find care who meet their needs. As an educator you can positively impact these families and grow your business by providing quality child care. Learn more by reading the guide. 

A professional development advisor can help with career planning. Find one by visiting Child Care Aware of Minnesota or calling 1-888-291-9811.

Develop, Minnesota's Quality Improvement and Registry, offers professional development and quality improvement tools to support early learning and school-age care. Visit Developtoolmn.org to:

• Search for training opportunities
• Search for coaches, consultants and mentors
• Create professional development plans
• Design quality improvement plans
• Track and verify employment, education and training history
• Document achievements, including accreditation and Parent Aware ratings.

• Child Care Aware regional grants are available on a competitive basis, helping child care programs improve the safety and quality of their programs. For more information, visit Child Care Aware's grant program website, or contact the local grant administrator using the Child Care Aware's Local Resources website. 
• Child care providers may be eligible for higher education scholarships through the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood Minnesota program. To learn more, visit Child Care Aware's T.E.A.C.H. website, or call the Child Care Aware Coordinating Office at 651-290-9704. 
• Child care providers may be eligible for scholarships to earn a Child Development Associate credential. To learn more, visit Child Care Aware's CDA Scholarship website or call the Child Care Aware Coordinating Office at 651-290-9704. 
• Financial bonuses are available through the R.E.E.T.A.I.N (Retaining Early Educators Through Attaining Incentives Now) program, aiming to keep strong, well-trained child care providers in the field. For more information, visit Child Care Aware's bonus reward website.

Contact Achieve, the Minnesota Center for Professional Development, or call 855-378-3131 to:

• Set up individual and organizational accounts on Develop 
• Find and connect with trainers
• Plan and print a learning record
• Become an approved trainer
• Offer approved training
• Find career planning tools
• Search for educational opportunities.

The Minnesota Department of Education guides work on high-quality learning in early childhood education. 

Early Childhood Indicators of Progress (ECIPs): Minnesota's Early Learning Standards, are a shared set of expectations of what child can know and do. 

• ECIPs for Birth - 5 are on the Minnesota Department of Education site
• Minnesota's Learning Guidelines, School-Age Indicators of Progress (DHS-6398) (PDF) are here. 

The Knowledge and Competency Framework for Early Childhood Professionals combines what an early childhood educator needs to know about research and theory, and the skills needed to work effectively in the field. Translated versions of the framework and corresponding Companion Guides are now available for download in Hmong, Spanish, Somali, and Vietnamese. 

Resource for trainers and coaches are available through Child Care Aware of Minnesota and Achieve, the Minnesota Center for Professional Development.

An accompanying document to the Minnesota Department of Education's Knowledge and Competency Framework, Minnesota's Knowledge and Competency Framework for Trainers (DHS-5294) (PDF) is here.

Eager-to-Learn is an innovative, community based, e-learning program of Child Care Aware of Minnesota. Courses are designed to provide quality, accessible, educational opportunities for child care professionals.