Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Local and State Levels

The three organizations and communities of practice that appealed to me are, Bright From The Start Department of Early Care and Learning, Quality Care for Children and Voices for Georgia Children.  I believe that these organizations share similar missions that are to improve the quality of early care experiences and school readiness for children in Georgia.

Bright From The Start, Department of Early Care and Learning are a state agency that is responsible for for “meeting the child care and early education needs of Georgia’s children and their families” (decal.ga.us).  The agency oversees a wide range of programs that is focused primarily on children ages to birth to school age and their families.  They are the licensing and monitoring agency for all center and home base facilities, the child and adult food program, Lottery Funded Pre-K program, and administer the federal Child Care and Development Fund and many others.

Quality Care for Children is a non-profit organization whose mission is to “ensure that Georgia’s infants and young children are nurtured 
and educated “(Qcc.org).  This organization is a resource and referral source for parents, childcare providers, and community leaders.  They work with parents with assistance in finding childcare in their community.  They also work with providers assisting them to improve the quality of care they provide to families.

Voices for Georgia Children- Their mission are to be a “powerful, unifying voice for a public agenda that ensures the well-being of all of Georgia’s children” (georgiavoices.org).  This organization ultimate mission is providing research base information to legislation to guide them make decisions for Georgia’s children.

The job opportunities that is currently available and interest me at these organizations are as follows:

At Bright From the Start – the job that would appeal to be is ‘Professional Development System Coordinator. At Quality Care for Children – Early Care and Education Specialist and Voices for Georgia’s Children only had one position that I don’t feel interested in pursuing, it the position for the Executive Director.

The skills and experience that I would need to competently fulfill each of these roles are as follows: At Bright From The Start the position requires good communication and understanding of early childhood educators and knowledge about resources to assist in meeting professional development needs. Ability to manage, monitor evaluates and reports progress of grantee agencies in meeting the goals as planned and approved in the contracts. Assist grantees in budgeting and controlling expenditures of federal grant funds. Be able to provide leadership, management, training and work collaboratively with other state agencies. Qualifications needed are a Bachelor’s degree in education and four years’ experience in management of the administrative support activities of a business.

At Quality Care for Children – The Early Care and Education Specialist position requires experience and skills with coordination, technical assistance, and training. Ability to develop quality improvement plans for childcare providers and the ability to identify the needs of parents and community by coordinating information sessions. Be able to distribute grants base on the needs of childcare programs and complete monthly reports. A Bachelor’s degree in Education, child development is required. Must be a State approved Trainer and have working experience in the childcare settings. The candidate must have strong organization skills, interpersonal skills, communication skills, and proficient in using Microsoft software. The candidate must have knowledge of National accreditation standards and assessments.

At Voices for Georgia’s Children, the position is for an Executive Director and requires competency in strategic planning and implementation, resource development and management, leadership, talent development, communications, outreach, public affairs and working with children. It requires a Bachelor’s degree with a concentration in social services or public policy. The experience needed includes eight plus years of progressive leadership with a nonprofit management, public administration, government affairs or communications.

References

http://decal.ga.gov/BftS/DecalJobs.aspx

http://qualitycareforchildren.org/about-careers

http://georgiavoices.org/career-opportunities/