Know

Welcoming Each Child and Family

你觉得在哪里欢迎？在一个让你觉得欢迎的地方发生了什么？

Spend a few seconds thinking about these two questions. Then consider all the things you do in your daily work to make all children and their families feel welcome in your program. How do you greet children and families in the morning and when it is time to go home? How do you ensure that children feel welcome, learn, and develop while having fun? How do you comfort them when they are upset or miss their loved ones? How do you ensure that families feel welcome and supported?

Successful family child care providers create positive, welcoming environments for the children and families they work with, and they strive for excellence in their interactions with others. Along with safety, some of the most important aspects of your work are the relationships you create and nurture with children and families. As highlighted in several courses throughout the Virtual Lab School, relationships form over time and require ongoing effort and commitment. Collaborating with others is a big part of your work, and whether you are a brand-new or a seasoned family child care provider, your success and effectiveness hugely depend on how well you work with others. Whether you engage with children, families, fellow child care providers, or family child care administrators, nurturing these relationships early on is critical to your success.

Young children’s development happens so quickly. When families and providers work together, communicate, and share what is observed and experienced, opportunities are created for better understanding to support this rapid developmental growth. Asking questions, communicating, and listening to families helps support continuity of care between home and the care setting.

了解儿童和儿童发展在您作为家庭儿童保育提供者的角色绝对重要。万博体育下载官方网站虚拟实验室学校中的个别课程提供了有关每个发展领域（例如，认知发展，物万博体育下载手机版理开发，社会和情感发展）的广泛信息，以及如何促进最佳增长的策略和实践思路。有关家庭儿童保育计划中儿童发展的全面信息，请参阅这些课程。万博体育下载官方网站随着儿童发展，关于安全环境，学习环境，健康环境，积极指导，虐待预防和家庭参与等主题的知识将加强您的能力，使您能够积极影响儿童和家庭的生活。狗万app怎么下载当您的护理中的儿童健康，情感安全和社会连接时，实现了最佳的发展。但是，除非您将儿童家庭和家庭文化放在您的工作前沿，否则无法实现这一发展。

When engaging with families of children with special learning needs, you should work with your family child care administratorsPUBor licensing specialiststo ensure that you have the resources and supports you need. Work collaboratively with your trainer, coach, family child care administrator, and family members to be sure that a child’s individualized education program (IEP) or individual family service plan (IFSP) outcomes are addressed in your program. Successful inclusion of children with dis/abilities requires careful planning, intentional teaching, and ongoing communication among all professionals that support that child. As highlighted in Lesson Two, building collaborative relationships takes time and attention, but will have meaningful outcomes for your program.

You should work with your trainer, coach, or family child care administrator to ensure that families are welcomed and supported at all times in your program. Just as you care about how the children in your program are welcomed, you have to pay attention to how families are included in your daily work, not only at drop-off and pickup time, but throughout their child’s day. In doing so, consider the following:

• 向家庭成员询问他们想要参与如何，并提醒他们他们对你很重要。
• Respect each child (and their family) in your care, and acknowledge diversity and individual differences in growth, background, values, and beliefs.
• Share information with families about the work you do with children in your care and, if needed, explain why you do things a certain way.
• Families can choose to be involved in various ways. For military families, it is critical to have flexibility in how they can participate in your program.
• 当家庭志愿者时，他们需要明确的方向，目的，并知道你的期望是什么。
• 家庭成员希望对他们的孩子有意义的对话。让他们定期更新他们的孩子在您的计划中的增长。承认儿童每天做的所有伟大事物，并经常与家人分享。正在进行的沟通和协作使每个人都受益。
• All families have strengths and all families have challenges. Focus on each family’s strengths and build on those.

Introducing Family-Centered Practice

Because families are central to their children’s development, particularly when it comes to the early-childhood years, they are partners, active participants, and decision-makers in their children’s education process. As a result,family-centered practiceis considered one of the indicators of quality in early-childhood education, programs, and services. At the heart of family-centered practice is the belief that families are the most important decision-makers in a child’s life (Sandall, Hemmeter, Smith, & McLean, 2005).

Family-centered practice also means that you understand the important effect all family members have on each other and on the children in your care. Each family member affects the other and the ways that the family functions. All family members are interconnected. From our families, we learn skills that enable us to engage in school and the workplace.

When considering family-centered practice, you view children as part of a larger system; and their family as a whole. You become aware of and sensitive to the interactions and relationships that take place within the family, as well as outside interactions and supports that affect them. In an effort to maintain relationships and to work effectively together, you learn, respect, and understand characteristics of each family and its support system. Try to also consider the characteristics and stressors that may affect a family’s involvement in your program. What affects one family member can affect all family members. A family is a complex system in which no one member can be viewed in isolation.

Throughout the Virtual Laboratory School, we consider family-centered practice as an umbrella term that encompasses the beliefs and actions of people in your program. Consider this table:

Family-Centered Practice Family-centered practice is a set of beliefs and actions that influence how we engage families.
Beliefs	Actions
Families are the most important decision-makers in a child’s life.	We learn about families’ ideas and preferences. We provide choices in programming. We involve families in program leadership. 我们涉及在决策中的家庭。
家庭是独一无二的,他们的分歧丰富啊ur programs.	We honor and respect diversity. We involve all the important people in a child’s life. We engage and involve families. We develop responsive and reciprocal relationships. We represent families in our programs.
家庭是有弹性的。	We learn about families' strengths, needs, and circumstances. We connect families with resources. We build families' strengths.
家庭是发展和学习的核心。狗万app怎么下载	We share information with families. We listen to families. 我们将家人视为孩子的第一任教师。 我们尊重家庭对孩子的专业知识。
Families are our partners.	We use respectful, responsive, and two-way communication. We reach out to families. We involve families in all aspects of our program.

Making an effort to understand the children you care for and their families can create opportunities for you to better support the young children in your care.

Family-Centered Practices

Honoring Diversity in Families

在早期的一些非常重要的学习涉及文化。狗万app怎么下载幼儿学习新词，与他人互动的方式，如何沟通，以及如何播放 - 所有受文化影响的东西。文化是指不同群体的共同经历和历史。文化差异可能包括家庭和社区观点，儿童期望，父母的角色以及教育的价值的差异。

文化是一个重要的factor in the way families raise their children and how you, as a family child care provider, care for young children. Examine your own cultural experiences and consider how these experiences affect your practice with children and families. Each provider brings specific values, beliefs, and assumptions about child rearing and development to her or his work. In almost every type of family child care routine you perform, your values about it were shaped by your childhood and training. As you work with children and their families, it is important to recognize your values and beliefs and the ways in which they are communicated. For example, a parent might expect a preschooler to never have a toileting accident, while you accept that toileting accidents do happen occasionally.

Sometimes, you might feel unsure about how to care for a child or how to engage families who have very different experiences and cultures, such as families who speak an unfamiliar language or who have unfamiliar religious customs. You can acknowledge differences and demonstrate an interest in the family in an effort to build relationships and learn ways to provide support to children in your care. For example, you can learn how families view sleep habits, which may be influenced by culture and affect development. When differences are viewed through the lens of culture, respectful conversations can lead to agreement in how these practices will be supported in a group early care and learning environment.

Early care and learning settings provide an environment where adults and children learn about and honor differences in values, beliefs and perceptions. Learning one’s culture occurs primarily within the family; however, in early care and learning environments, children also learn about others' culture and they experience relationships that influence their sense of who they are and who they will become.

To help children develop this sense of who they are and who they will become, you must honor and celebrate the diversity of families. Diversity exists in a variety of dimensions, including:

• Composition (who is a member of the family)
• Race and ethnicity
• Language
• Socioeconomic status
• Sexual orientation
• Ability or dis/ability
• Educational background
• 价值观和传统
• Child-rearing practices

Being a responsive provider means that you demonstrate sensitivity and consideration for the multiple backgrounds, experiences, values, and contexts in which children and families live.

Being a responsive provider also means that you are always professional and ethical when working with families. When it comes to sensitive information, you should practice the following:

• Keep information about children and their families confidential. This refers to any time that confidential family information might come up like reviewing child and family records, having conversations with other providers in your community, or engaging in conversations with other people you know in the community.
• When you know confidential information about a child or family, use that information to help them and not judge them.

See

In the video below you will hear family child care providers describe the importance of embracing diversity in their programs.

Embracing Diversity

观看这段视频，听到家庭幼儿提供者和管理员描述他们在万博体育下载官方网站确保有人/能力的儿童中的作用，通过照顾这些特殊儿童的关注旅程，如何支持家庭。

Working with Families of Children with Dis/Abilities

Do

There is a lot you can do to show that you value the families of the children in your program. Consider the following guidelines that reflect family-centered practice, and then think about how you can use these guidelines in your work with children and families:

• Recognize the family as the constant in the child’s life and that providers, teachers, coaches, and programs may come and go.
• Acknowledge that families know their children best, and learn to view them as partners and collaborators in your work. Reach out to them and invite their input.
• Facilitate collaboration between families and professionals.
• Encourage family-to-family support and networking.
• Honor and respect family diversity in all dimensions (cultural, racial, ethnic, linguistic, spiritual, socioeconomic, or in terms of family members’ sexual orientations). To do this:
  • Ask families about their家庭语言，共享关键短语they use at home.
  • 表现出对您所携手合作的每个孩子和家庭的真正兴趣，并努力了解它们。
  • 有family information and children’s books in the languages of each family.
  • Invite families to visit your program andsing songs, tell stories, and show books or pictures that demonstrate their culture, and, for children, introduce culturally specific foods.
  • Observe how a family interactswith their child.
  • Ask families tocreate a family or neighborhood storybook。
  • 定期见面with families to learn about their hopes, dreams and goals for their child.