知道

"Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved."- Mattie Stepanek

As you reflected on your abilities to manage day-to-day experiences or activities in your life, in the previous lesson, you probably acknowledged that working with others is to some degree part of your daily routine and helps get things done. We are by nature social beings and our relationships with others greatly affect our personal and professional lives. Think about your daily life and how working with others helps you when sharing household responsibilities, taking care of children, taking care of parents or other loved ones, or taking care of yourself.

合作是一个动态过程，其中个人聚集在一起，分享他们的知识，经验，资源和优势，以促进增长和发展。当涉及婴儿和幼儿时，这些人都是家庭成员，照顾者，喜欢你自己，相关服务提供商，管理员和社区合作伙伴。合作构建了该过程中每个人的专业知识，利益和优势。通过承认这些个人对提供有意义的事情，协作会创造设定目标和目标的机会，制定计划这些目标，监测进展和联合解决问题的计划。它假设“我们所有人都比我们的人聪明”的思考（Turnbull，Turnbull，Shank，＆Smith，2004，p。80.合作的目标是确保每个婴儿和幼儿的进展和增长最终，您的课堂和计划。

The Process of Creating Collaborative Teams

Like everything else we do, learning to work with others is a skill that does not develop overnight. On the contrary, it is a process that takes place over time. Just like when you are learning any new skill or experience you have to invest time and effort in getting to know information and practicing new things, being able to work well with others requires ongoing work, energy, and commitment. Remember that each person you engage with is a unique individual. In your daily interactions with infants, toddlers, families, and colleagues, you always bring who you are: your interests, your personality, your temperament, your background experiences, and your special abilities and talents. The way you view yourself as a team member can define your interactions and relationships with infants, toddlers, families, and colleagues. When you work together with colleagues and families, the time spent on collaboration can benefit infants, toddlers, their families, as well as yourself.

Building collaborative relationships takes time, effort, and attention, but often has meaningful outcomes in terms of enhancing the overall quality of your program. As you work with fellow infant-toddler providers, your T&Cs, or managers, you should have opportunities to share successes as well as challenges with each other. You may also see these experiences as opportunities to make new friends and network with others who have similar interests with you.

Two of the country's leading experts on building collaborative teams, Jacqueline Thousand and Richard Villa, identify five elements as critically important in creating a collaborative process. (Johnson & Johnson, 1997; Thousand & Villa, 1990, 2000, p. 258). As you read these, think about how they reflect your experiences with collaboration in your program:

1. Face-to-face interaction among team members on a frequent basis
2. 相互“我们都在一起”积极相互依存的感觉
3. 专注于信任建设，通信，领导，创造性问题解决，决策和冲突管理中小群人交际技能的发展
4. Regular assessments and discussion of the team's functioning in setting goals for improving relationships and effectively accomplishing tasks
5. Methods for holding one another accountable for agreed-on responsibilities and commitments

In your daily work, you make conscious, intentional decisions about how to interact in daily encounters with infants and toddlers, family members, and colleagues. Being part of a team requires that you enter partnerships with a positive attitude and commitment to ethical behavior. No matter how experienced you are, being part of a collaborative workplace should be central to your practice as an infant-toddler provider. Child-care settings are primarily people-centric workplaces. The biggest resources are people. The outcomes should be happy, secure infants, toddlers, and their families.

Collaborating with Families

家庭专业伙伴关系是您作为婴儿幼儿提供商的工作的中央部分。成功的家庭专业伙伴关系的一个关键特征是家庭成员和专业人士之间的平等感（Turnbull等，2004）。正如专业课程中强调的那样，直接与人类福利交易的个人有特别义务以使他们所服务的方式的方式行事。基于人际关系的专业的价值观是关心，同情，同理心，尊重他人，尊重和可靠性（Feeney，2012）。所有上面的有效婴儿和幼儿提供者都致力于为他们与之合作的幼儿和家庭的需求。您的计划的父母手册是与父母与父母的愿景，哲学和产品分享的理想场所。您的计划还应有明确的阐明共享特派团和哲学，这些使命和哲学由在该计划中工作的每个人都证明allstaff understand. You should familiarize yourself with this mission and philosophy.

When discussing family-professional relationships, Janice Fialka, in her highly regardedThe Dance of Partnership: Why Do My Feet Hurt?(2001), compares collaboration with dancing. She reflects on her experiences as a social worker and as a parent of a child with disabilities and shares the complexities of the dancing-collaborating experience. At times, she notes, her professional partners and she do not seem to be gracefully moving together across the floor, their movements seem awkward, stiff, and uncoordinated, as if each partner is dancing to different music. Sometimes the partners may even step on each other's feet while trying to figure out what to do next. She notes, however, how important it is to have each partner's perspectives, hopes, dreams, and expectations be heard, valued, and respected at different times during the dance.

In your daily work, in order to truly get to know an infant or toddler in your care, you have to get to know their family. In this process, you need to be open-minded, flexible, and genuinely interested in order to make a difference.

There are several positive outcomes of collaboration between you and family members. During this process, families become active participants, share valuable information, and work with you to promote their infant's or toddler's optimum development. You get a window into each family's dreams, hopes, and aspirations for their young child and a better understanding of where they come from, what they need, and what their vision is for their young child and family.

反思自己的经验和实践

High-quality environments for children cannot be created unless these environments are also good for the adults who work in them. Education professor Lilian Katz, inTalks with Teachers of Young Children(1995)urges professionals to ask themselves the questions below. As you read each of these questions, think about how things are in your own work environment.

On the whole, are relationships with my colleagues:

• Supportive rather than contentious?
• Cooperative rather than competitive?
• 接受而不是对抗性？
• Trusting rather than suspicious?
• Respectful rather than controlling?

Effective infant- toddler providers value collaboration and acknowledge it is important to work together with families, other staff members, and supervisors to be successful. They know it is important to critically think about their practices with infants, toddlers, and families, and to make changes when needed. They also know it is important to celebrate successes and acknowledge the efforts of others, like family members and colleagues, in their daily work. Your program may plan joyful events that build community at different levels: among the staff, as well as among staff, children and families (e.g., acknowledging individual staff members during staff meetings, celebrating staff birthdays and life events with potluck suppers, attending a professional conference together, organizing family nights, inviting families to participate in classroom and program experiences, inviting families to spend time with children in the classroom).

While working with others is one of the most rewarding parts of your job, it can also present challenges. It requires dedication, commitment, problem-solving skills, and a willingness to learn, change, and be flexible in order to address the multiple and often complex needs of those in your care. It is your responsibility to maintain professional conduct and seek the advice of your T&C or manager when faced with difficult situations you are not sure how to deal with.

看

Working as a Team

Do

花点时间审查下面列出的实践，这突出了作为一个团队，以照顾婴儿，幼儿及其家人：

• Respect each infant or toddler in your care and their families and acknowledge diversity and individual differences in growth, background, beliefs, and values. Invite and include each family in planning and decision-making about their child's development and learning. Make sure every family has an opportunity to share their views or ideas with you.
• Meet regularly with colleagues to plan experiences for infants, toddlers, and their families. Regular meetings allow you to discuss children's progress, plan experiences, and make necessary changes.
• 在不确定某事时澄清问题。误解可能导致不必要的挫折感，延迟完成事物，以及负面的气候。作为团队成员，确保您对程序，规则或法规明确了解，并在怀疑时始终与您的T＆C或主管交谈。
• Share ongoing observational information on each infant and toddler in your care with colleagues and family members and use that information to plan for individual children and your group. Invite families' input when planning.
• Provide a variety of developmentally appropriate choices and experiences for children in your care.
• 在处理具有挑战性行为时，对儿童行为具有发展的适当期望，并积极主动。
• Be open-minded and use creative thinking skills, like brainstorming, when planning or problem-solving. Be willing to see others' viewpoints and consider multiple options or solutions when tackling a problem or challenge.
• Most importantly, have a good attitude and demonstrate respect for each individual you collaborate with. Appreciate each member of your team and welcome the knowledge, experience, or expertise that each has to offer.