Arkansas Head Start teachers along with public, private and faith-based child care providers all have one thing in common: the increased diversity in the children and families they serve. Arkansas? cultural landscape has been changing rapidly and continues to do so. Arkansas experienced a 337% increase in the number of Latinos living in the state from 1990 ? 2000, (U.S. Census Bureau). Based on the 2004 Home Language Survey conducted annually by the Arkansas Department of Education, Spanish-speaking children comprise 83% of all language minority students in the state. Most Latino families move to Arkansas for jobs and become strong contributors to the state's economy. As our newest residents, these families bring a rich mix of culture and language that varies considerably from the Caucasian and African American ethnic groups that have historically comprised the majority of Arkansas' population. With such a rapid transformation of the state?s culture, early childhood educators and other professionals who work with young children must be able to support Spanish-speaking families, but few have received the training necessary to adapt their services. In addition, Arkansas has an extreme shortage of bilingual professionals in the state who are equipped to assess Spanish-speaking children for speech delays. This has resulted in inappropriate referrals for speech therapy for some Spanish-speaking children progressing through the typical second language acquisition process.
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Partners for Inclusive Communities (Partners) has been addressing these training needs for early childhood practitioners since July 2003 through their Welcome the Children project. Funded by the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education, this training fills a need within the early childhood community and fits within the Division of Child Care's Arkansas Early Childhood Professional Development System. Welcome the Children has been extended for two additional years (July 2005 through June 2007) with the possibility of non-competitive funding for and additional seven years.
The primary goal of Welcome the Children is to assist child care providers and educators through training and technical assistance to understand cultural issues, learn strategies to support Latino children, and make appropriate referrals for possible developmental delays. Fulfillment of this goal will ensure that English-speaking adults providing care to children birth to age 12 have the knowledge and skills to provide nurturing experiences essential to helping young Latino children develop intellectually, physically, socially and emotionally.
Welcome the Children provides two seven-hour training sessions on Cultural Diversity with an emphasis on Latin American culture and Second Language Development and Assessment in Early Childhood. These modules are the outcome of research-based training materials developed by Partners through their Nuestra Familia ("Our Family") project and they have been revised several times to fit the changing needs of the providers. The training is provided statewide and is free to Arkansas participants. Over 400 professionals have been trained with most attending both modules.
Currently, two additional training modules are being developed. One module will cover specific methods of observing children on a routine basis and making appropriate referrals for developmental services for language-minority children. The second module will include information on language interpreters, both how to effectively use an interpreter and requirements for professional quality interpreting.
Research on the effectiveness of the training materials is continuing through an independent program evaluation being conducted by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The evaluators have found a significant improvement between participants? scores on pre- and post- tests designed to measure their knowledge of Latin American culture and second language development in young children.
The evaluators have conducted focus groups with Latino parents to discuss the families? experiences with providers and to determine their priorities for their children. The results of these focus groups are being used to ensure that the training modules continue to address the needs of the families.
Although the training materials have been proven effective, one of the challenges the project faced was the lack of time available to child care providers to attend training. To address this time constraint, Welcome the Children modules are designed to be adapted to various audiences and time frames. Training sessions have successfully been offered in a variety of formats and schedules as needed by individual groups.
To ensure sustainability and widespread dissemination, Welcome the Children is developing Community Training Teams to serve as cultural resources and coordinate local training efforts. Community Training Teams consist of child care providers, educators, medical and developmental professionals, clergy, Latino parents of preschool aged children, and representatives of Latino community groups. With in-depth support from project staff, these community teams coordinate local training efforts as they are already familiar with the needs of their communities. As part of the teams, community trainers are being coached to present the Welcome the Children sessions in their local areas, Welcome the Children staff provides training, technical assistance, all training materials, and some financial support to assist the trainers. Although the trainer?s manuals are intended to accompany a train-the-trainer session, they are written in a conversational tone that is easy to follow and customize for particular training needs, including self-study by community trainers. The project training specialists co-train with the community trainers and provide ongoing technical assistance on training techniques until they feel comfortable presenting the materials alone.
In addition to the specialized training and technical assistance they receive, the Community Training Team members receive updated training information through the project website www.uams.edu/welcomethechildren and have opportunities to check out materials from the project?s resource library. The resource library includes videos, training materials and books on other cultures including bilingual children?s books. The website is also an avenue to collect survey information to identify current and promising practices, develop a database of interpreters and identify additional training needs.
Lack of time has been the major challenge for community trainers to present the Welcome the Children sessions. Although they have praised the quality of the materials and commented repeatedly that the training is needed across the state, most individuals already have full-time jobs and have difficulty in finding time for learning and presenting new sessions. It has been more effective to focus on individuals whose job already involved training child care professionals at multiple sites, and helping them to incorporate the materials into their existing training schedules.
A trainer certification process is being developed in response to requests from conference participants from other states who wish to be trained to provide the Welcome the Children sessions within their own communities. The trainer certification requirements, including Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced levels, should be completed and available in the spring of 2006.
In our effort to continuously enrich the cultural knowledge of our Community Training Teams and the community at large, we are pleased to present a conference this spring. The first annual Welcome the Children - Celebrating Cultural Harmony Conference will be held May 11 through 13, 2006 at the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel in North Little Rock, AR. Conference co-sponsors include Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services: the Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education as well as the Division of Volunteerism; University of Arkansas at Little Rock; AR Department of Education - Migrant Education Program; and the AR Head Start State Collaboration Office. This event will bring together an anticipated 300 professionals, childcare providers, students and individuals representing various cultural and ethnic groups to share knowledge and improve cultural harmony for all. The Welcome the Children annual conference is designed to provide information and training on various cultures as well as issues related to poverty, disability and homelessness. We are currently seeking conference presenters and exhibitors and welcome proposals from Head Start professionals.
For additional information about the project or conference, please contact Brenda Reynolds, Welcome the Children Project Director, at 501-922-1880 or
[email protected]. You may also contact one of the project training specialists: Sabrina Zarco,
[email protected]; Darlene Kurtz
[email protected]; or Tanya Miller
[email protected].
