Over the course of its history, CCW developed several training models to enhance leadership and organizing skills for child care teachers and providers, to offer strategies and tools to improve staff turnover and retention in child care programs, and to provide a framework for child care programs to assess a good work environment for the adults taking care of young children in child care centers or family child care homes. The trainings include:

• Leadership Empowerment Action Project (LEAP)
• Taking on Turnover
• Creating Better Child Care Jobs
• Lifting the Lid on Child Care Wages
• Getting Training in Your Community

Leadership Empowerment Action Project (LEAP)

LEAP is a training model that facilitates the development of leadership and community organizing skills for child care teachers and family child care providers.

First developed by CCW in 1994, LEAP training helps teachers and providers work more effectively for improvements in compensation and working conditions, in order to provide the best possible care and education for children. The training is built on participants' own personal and professional experiences, using an interactive style that includes storytelling, discussions, demonstrations and debates. LEAP examines the social, political and economic dimensions of child care employment, providing knowledge and skills that can lead to policy analysis, direct action and community organizing. Participants leave the training with strategies for action for their own workplaces and/or communities.

Topics covered in LEAP training include:

• Sharing of Child Care Work Experiences
• How Society Views Child Care Work
• Creating a Vision of Good Child Care Jobs
• Criteria for Supportive Work Environments
• The Economics of Child Care
• Developing and Analyzing Initiatives to Improve Child Care Jobs
• Effective Grassroots Leadership
• Types of Community Organizing

For more information about LEAP training, contact Gretchen Ames at Child Care Resource Center, 617-547-1063 x 236 or by email at massleap@ccrcinc.org.

Taking on Turnover

Taking on Turnover training was developed from the 1999 CCW publication, Taking on Turnover, which was developed to help teaching staff and administrators explore together how to make their child care centers a place where they and their co-workers can grow and develop as practitioners while providing the best possible stability and continuity for children and families.

The Taking on Turnover workbook can be used as an efficient stand alone tool to help in efforts to manage and lessen the issue of job turnover amongst early care and education professionals. The workbook contains hands-on activities for directors and teachers as well as a list of resources for further reading and action.

The topics addressed include:

• Understanding how turnover affects children, parents and staff
• Calculating what turnover is costing your program
• Managing turnover whenever it happens, to promote stability and reduce stress
• Reducing turnover by improving your program's work environment, recruitment and hiring practices, and compensation package
• Creating a workable substitute system for your program and community
• Joining with others beyond your own program to take action on turnover

For a coordinated training of Taking on Turnover, contact Community Allies at 919-479-8106 or commallies@aol.com.

Creating Better Child Care Jobs Using Model Work Standards

Creating Better Child Care Jobs training was designed to introduce the Model Work Standards as an effective tool for assessing what currently exists and developing a plan of action for making improvements one step at a time. Model Work Standards provides an opportunity for child care programs to engage in an in-depth examination of their child care work environment - both the interpersonal climate of the workplace, as well as policies and practices that define good working conditions. The Model Work Standards was developed by CCW for center-based teaching staff and family child care providers and can be used as stand alone tool for programs to achieve their goals.

Lifting the Lid on Child Care Wages

Lifting the Lid on Child Care Wages is economic education that can help child care activists analyze current policy proposals and propose their own solutions. This training was designed in collaboration with Just Economics, whose work is to help organizers design campaigns based on a big picture understanding of the economy.

Through live illustrations and small and large group discussions, participants in this training are better able to:

• Understand the child care staffing crisis from an economic perspective.
• Analyze policy options and their effectiveness in improving child care wages in order to make effective arguments for change.
• Identify allies based on who is impacted by economic trends.
• To create alliances based on mutual economic interests.
• Engage broader support for a greater public investment to improve child care jobs.

Getting Training in Your Community

The newly created CCW/AFTEF will not offer these trainings. However, before merging with the AFTEF, CCW identified 2 organizations that are were well-equipped to continue the trainings that have come to be so highly valued in the early care and education field.

Fortunately, Community Allies and the MassLEAP Partner Collaboration have agreed to lead these important training programs and CCW/AFTEF is happy to continue connecting center-based teachers, family child care providers, directors, and administrators with these leadership and community organizing trainings. You can access these trainings in two ways:

Contact Community Allies or CCRC to coordinate one of these trainings:
Community Allies is based in Durham, NC and provides training and consultation to promote research-based information to teachers, administrators, parents and policy makers. Community Allies offers the following trainings: Taking on Turnover, LEAP, Model Work Standards, and Lifting the Lid. For more information, contact Kate Thegen at, 919-479-8106 or commallies@aol.com.

For more information about LEAP training, contact Gretchen Ames at Child Care Resource Center, 617-547-1063 x 236 or by email at massleap@ccrcinc.org.

For a coordinated training of Taking on Turnover, contact Community Allies at 919-479-8106 or commallies@aol.com.