PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Children’s Village Learning Lab: Inspiring Best Practices

Benefit from our Learning Lab’s peer-to-peer learning, with participants sharing their experiences, successes, and failures;
and ‘real-world’ assignments that have real-time impact.

REGISTER NOW FOR SPRING 2024 TRAINING SERIES!

Children’s Village’s Learning Lab is offering an array of trainings in spring 2024, targeted for Center- and Family-Based Directors at every level of experience. The series are funded by the Early Learning Resource Center 18 (ELRC) and PNC.

Information detailing earning PQAS hours, series format, schedule, and requirements for each of the six different training series as well as the application are listed below:

Advanced Business Best Practice Series for Center Directors

Beginning Business Administration Series for Directors of Child Care Centers Cohort #3

Early Childhood Education Human Resources Series For Center Directors

Intermediate Business Administration Series For Family Providers

Children’s Village’s Mary Graham conducts trainings that address the business operations demands of both center- and family-based program directors — and cover operational issues made even more critical given the pandemic’s impact. The multi-week workshops build upon participants’ knowledge and are targeted for every level of experience -- beginning, intermediate, and advanced.

The Advanced Business Series culminates with directors presenting the new practices that they have implemented. Series’ participants completing the workshops’ requirements earn PQAS hours.

Mary leads some of the sessions via Zoom—but doing so does not diminish two of the hallmarks of the series: peer-to-peer learning, with participants sharing their experiences, successes, and failures; and ‘real-world’ assignments that have real-time impact.

Read feedback from participants on what they found helpful:

Beginning Level Series

• The transparency and honesty of participants. Being able to breakdown how to calculate a rate vs setting a rate.

• All the information was very informative. I learned about the Iron Triangle, Revenue Calculations, and much more that will help improve my business.

• The small group discussion, and learning about additional rules and regs along the way while being exposed to specifics such as budgets and how you can apply them to your own center.

• Clarity on tuition, enrollment tracking and creating systems to keep track of everything from income to expenses.

Intermediate Level Series

• Networking and extensive sharing of resources.

• The class went well beyond my expectations for learning what best practices should be in a child care setting. I have taken my fair share of business courses in my degree under Organizational Management and what I learned in just the few short weeks with Mary and Amy is invaluable.

Advanced Level Series

• I realized that the knowledge I received from my participation in each professional development session is priceless, there was so much that I didn't know that I needed to know. However, now that I know, I am going to use the information that was shared to restructure my entire organization.

•  The ability to practice using the concepts taught and receiving feedback

•  Everything was helpful, particularly getting to hear how other centers are managing and the opportunity to ask questions and continually reflect on our practices. Learning that we are not necessarily doing it wrong but that we can improve.

•  Salary Benefits Summary; other policy discussions; further development of FTE concept; Interaction with other center directors.

To read more feedback and testimonials relating to our trainings, please scroll!

What High-Quality Looks, Sounds, and Feels Like

Children’s Village is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children and is a Keystone STAR 4A program.  Our PQAS-certified educators offer firsthand experience and encourage workshop participants to share their perspectives. Our aim: to provide peer-to-peer guidance on best practice approaches to meet the needs of children and families.  To learn more, review Children’s Village’s Learning Lab Brochure.

Children’s Village is home to Philadelphia’s first hands-on Learning Lab for education professionals embedded in a high-quality early education program. Our Learning Lab’s state-of-the-art adult classroom spaces (equipped with Wi-Fi) are located on-site at our Center City Philadelphia location.

Professional Development Customized for Your Program—and Offered at Your Program

In addition to hosting workshops, we can provide training at your program, offering you greater convenience and cost savings. We work with you to customize professional development that is suited to the specific needs of your program.

OTHER HAPPENINGS in our Learning Lab!
Professional Development:  Covering a Wide Range of Topics

Here is a sample of topics, which are available across age groups–scroll down for testimonials from workshop participants.

Other Programming Offered through the Learning Lab

• Early Childhood Education (ECE) Best Practice Demonstration Program: A Day in a High-Quality Center

• Infant/Toddler/PreK CLASS & Danielson Framework Assessments

• On-site Course and Field Work
  

To learn more, email Huan Chen or review our Learning Lab Brochure.

MORE ABOUT OUR IMPACT:

Testimonials about the Advanced Business Best Practice Series

Beyond Checklists:  Understanding the ‘Why’
“I thought I knew it all as a director but the initial business training taught me just how much I did not know. Now, this advanced series has also opened my eyes to the ‘why.’ For example, Keystone STARS requires programs to achieve benchmarks, which is a checklist of requirements. I am taking a hard look at these and making them work for my program. My Human Resources team and I are now creating a new HR manual and meeting weekly to brainstorm about payroll processing and other improvements,” says Tonya Davis, Director, Discovery Place Preschool.

Peer-to-Peer Learning
“Opportunity for impromptu discussion is built into the workshop, which is missing in on-line courses. The other directors and owners share their experiences, successes, and failures. My colleagues’ guidance and support allowed me to achieve a higher level of STAR quality than I ever could have on my own,” says Joyce Wescott.

To learn more about the impact of the Business Administration workshops:   
View Video Clips of Action Plan Presentation