Looking forward, OCDEL anticipates additional grant and award opportunities in the coming months. To ensure certified child care providers receive complete information on these opportunities, certified child care providers should visit Provider Self Service (PSS) and confirm their contact information is up to date as soon as possible.

Specifically, certified child care providers are asked to visit their Licensing Location Profile(s) in PSS and check to ensure all Location Information is accurate, paying special attention to the Email Address field. 

For help with PSS, certified child care providers should contact the PELICAN Provider Help Desk at 877.491.3818 (select option #2 twice), or by email at ra-eln@pa.gov. 

Early childhood education professionals interested in attending college for summer semesters beginning May or June should apply to T.E.A.C.H. now!  T.E.A.C.H. applications must be complete and submitted with all required documentation/ information by Friday, April 8, 2022, to be considered for a summer semester. PACCA will continue to accept applications on an ongoing basis, however, incomplete applications and applications received after this date will not receive priority for consideration. New scholarship awards for the Summer 2022 semester will be dependent upon funding availability.

Interested applicants should also begin the college admissions process now and contact an ECE advisor at their college/university. This helps ensure scholarship applicants are admitted to their college/university and can register for courses if/when they receive a T.E.A.C.H. scholarship. T.E.A.C.H. can provide contact information for ECE advisors at partnering institutions if needed – just contact T.E.A.C.H. and ask to be connected with a T.E.A.C.H. Counselor.

Need more information? Click here to view recent webinars. (Webinars for ECE professionals & employers are available.) Ready to apply? Click here to download a scholarship application. Questions? Click here to contact a T.E.A.C.H. Counselor. 

T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® PENNSYLVANIA is supported by the Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) of Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services (DHS) and Pennsylvania’s Department of Education (PDE). For more information, visit dhs.pa.gov and education.pa.gov. 

The Let’s Talk Quality Series includes three-monthly activities – Let’s Talk Quality Blog, Let’s Talk Quality Webinar, and the newest, Let’s Talk Quality Spotlight. Each month the PQA team publishes a blog article, creates a webinar, and offers a spotlight session--all that focus on a monthly topic. Check out the Let's Talk Quality Blog, for the blog post related to this month’s topic. While there, check out all the other great blog posts! 

Those who own or plan to open a child care center and want to ensure children and staff are protected from preventable environmental hazards are invited to take the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Choose Safe Places survey. Providers who participate in the survey can receive a certificate of acknowledgment to display at their business. For more information about Pennsylvania’s Choose Safe Places Program, please visit the PA Department of Health website or contact choosesafeplaces@pa.gov.

Proposals are now being considered for ZERO TO THREE’s Virtual Conference presentations ranging from 10–75 minutes featuring content relevant to professionals working with children under 5 years old (including those in the prenatal period) and their families, grounded in the domains from the ZERO TO THREE Competencies for Prenatal to Age 5 Professionals, and focused on addressing and advancing equity.

Find out more about submission guidelines on the Call for Proposals submission site. The deadline to submit a proposal is March 11, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. PST.

Cities Connecting Children to Nature (CCCN) invites cities to apply to receive support and technical assistance to implement strategies that connect young children to nature more equitably. 

The LEGO Foundation has launched a $143 million challenge to fund “bold, transformational ideas” that support children’s learning, well-being and holistic development worldwide. The Build a World of Play Challenge is accepting proposals focused on children from birth to age 6 that address global social issues.

Research organizations, nonprofits, NGOs, and for-profits can apply on their own or collaboratively. Read more about the challenge here and submit applications here.

Pennsylvania’s Head Start program is a critical part of early childhood education. This research brief, Head Start Collaboration and Partnerships to Support Families Experiencing Homelessness from the Center for Schools and Communities, reports on ways that collaboration can enhance the Head Start experience for children and families experiencing homelessness. The brief states, "Based on the analysis of PIR and survey data, it is clear that increased partnerships and collaboration to address housing is necessary. Additionally, more training is needed to ensure staff have sufficient understanding of Head Start goals and identification of families experiencing homelessness."

A recent research article, The implementation of a multi-level reflective consultation

model in a statewide infant & early childcare education professional development system: Evaluation of a pilot, found that following completion of the 12-month reflective consultation pilot, consultees demonstrated a reduction in burnout. The 12-month pilot of a US statewide reflective consultation group model included IECMH consultants, grant specialists, supervisors, and program managers and their group reflective consultants. The pilot evaluation provided an opportunity to design a study that assessed the impact of RC on infant-early childhood professionals. This unique pilot provides an example of an organizational approach to instituting reflective consultation with a broad spectrum of infant early childhood professionals and yields valuable information about the impacts of reflective consultation models on such professionals’ work experience and professional practice.

The newest research, Association of Child Masking With COVID-19–Related Closures in US Childcare Programs, from The Zigler Center finds that child care programs that practiced mask-wearing among children early on in the pandemic experienced a 13% reduction in program closures during the following year. Programs that continued child masking through the one-year period of study saw a higher reduction in program closures, at 14%. This groundbreaking study has important policy implications for families, providers, and early care and learning programs as they grapple with the impacts of COVID-19 on young children and education in the U.S.

A new report, Child Care Usage in the U.S. and Across States, by the Committee for Economic Development, the public policy center of The Conference Board (CED), provides an analysis of who uses paid child care and the percent of household income spent on child care by families who pay for it. The study found that, despite declining numbers of children under the age of 15 in recent years, both the number and share of children in paid child care has increased over the past two decades. Growth in paid child care usage as a share of population is taking place, suggesting increased relative demand for paid child care services. The report details who uses paid child care, what percent of household income is spent on child care for those families who pay for it, and what characteristics are associated with families who pay for child care (e.g., maternal labor force participation, reported expenditures for child care, household income, level of education, and age of children in paid care) across states.

A new highlight from Child Trends and the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation summarizes recent research on child care accessibility using four dimensions to measure access: the effort child care takes to find and reach, affordability, supportiveness of child development, and ability to meet parents’ needs. This research highlight can help policymakers develop child care and early education policies that better meet the needs, preferences, and constraints of local families.  

Research shows that reading aloud is the single most important thing families can do to help their young child prepare for reading and learning. Did you know reading aloud for only 15 minutes per day is enough to make an impact on a child's brain development and build literacy skills? There are plenty of good books, but if you're looking for a place to begin, PA's Promise for Children has printable book lists for young children. Print the book list and take it to your local library and find a new favorite book!

Learn what the key elements of program quality are and how to infuse them in every aspect of your program with the help of Michigan Afterschool Partnership's Summer Learning Toolkit. Get the latest scoop on how to get the word out about your summer program, and how to grow it for maximum community impact. 

Play contributes to sturdy brain architecture, the foundations of lifelong health, and the building blocks of resilience, yet its importance is often overlooked. In this podcast, The Brain Architects: Building Resilience Through Play from the Center on the Developing Child, explore the role of play in supporting resilience with a panel of experts on play. Andres Bustamante, Erum Mariam, Laura Huerta Migus, Lynneth Solis, and Michael Yogman share their ideas and personal stories about applying the science of play in homes, communities, and crisis environments around the world.

Are you a teacher looking for physical literacy teaching resources? Active for Life invites you to download these physical literacy lesson plan modules for free in PDF format. 

The February resources from Camille Catlett are now available. The February edition of Baby Talk includes information on A Year of Play, Babies Sleep Can Be Interrupted and more. The February edition of Natural Resources shares free resources for Delivering on the Promise of Effective Early Childhood Education for Black Children: Eliminating Exclusionary Discipline and Concentrating on Inclusion, Supporting Positive Racial Identity Development in Black Children and more.