Whether you are a cur­rent or aspir­ing direc­tor, find­ing the best can­di­dates to hire can be daunt­ing, but there are steps you can take to ensure you are find­ing top-notch tal­ent. In this blog, we explore strate­gies cov­ered in our course Hir­ing and Super­vis­ing Qual­i­fied Staff for find­ing qual­i­fied child­care provider can­di­dates and ensur­ing they are a good fit for your program.

Understand the Qualifications Needed for the Position

When it comes to find­ing can­di­dates for a posi­tion, it’s essen­tial to under­stand the qual­i­fi­ca­tions need­ed for the posi­tion. First and fore­most, a child­care provider should have a gen­uine love and con­cern for chil­dren’s well-being. Many posi­tions require a high school diplo­ma or equiv­a­lent: some may require spe­cif­ic train­ing. Oth­er qual­i­fi­ca­tions may include CPR and first aid cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, expe­ri­ence work­ing with chil­dren, and the abil­i­ty to pass a back­ground check. Check your state’s licens­ing require­ments for the posi­tion you are look­ing for. Your state gov­ern­ment may require the posi­tion to have addi­tion­al train­ing or expe­ri­ence. It’s also impor­tant for child­care providers to have strong com­mu­ni­ca­tion and orga­ni­za­tion­al skills and the abil­i­ty to mul­ti­task and remain calm under pres­sure. By meet­ing these qual­i­fi­ca­tions, indi­vid­u­als can secure a reward­ing career in pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty care and edu­ca­tion to children.

Create an Effective Job Description

A job descrip­tion is a crit­i­cal tool in any recruit­ing process. It is a snap­shot of the pro­gram’s job respon­si­bil­i­ties, require­ments, and expec­ta­tions for a par­tic­u­lar role. It should pro­vide a sol­id foun­da­tion for poten­tial can­di­dates to under­stand the job and assess whether they believe they would be a good fit. An effec­tive job descrip­tion must be infor­ma­tive, accu­rate, and easy to read. It is also essen­tial to com­mu­ni­cate expec­ta­tions clear­ly to pre­vent con­fu­sion among can­di­dates. Over­all, a well-craft­ed job descrip­tion can encour­age the best-suit­ed can­di­dates to apply. Well craft­ed job descrip­tions make an excel­lent impres­sion on can­di­dates by con­vey­ing a pro­fes­sion­al and orga­nized com­pa­ny culture.

Utilize Resources to Find Potential Candidates

When scout­ing for poten­tial can­di­dates for an open posi­tion, har­ness­ing all avail­able resources is essen­tial. This means uti­liz­ing dif­fer­ent recruit­ment tools (web­sites, bul­letin boards, word-of-mouth) to dis­cov­er and con­nect with poten­tial can­di­dates. More­over, don’t for­get the val­ue of net­work­ing with­in your indus­try. Attend­ing indus­try events and con­fer­ences and join­ing pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions can help you dis­cov­er qual­i­fied can­di­dates that may not be active­ly search­ing for a job but are open to new oppor­tu­ni­ties. Using var­i­ous chan­nels to seek out poten­tial hires can increase your chances of find­ing the per­fect can­di­date for your program.

Develop an Interview Process That Matches Your Needs

Devel­op­ing an inter­view process that match­es your com­pa­ny’s spe­cif­ic needs is cru­cial when hir­ing new employ­ees. Not only will this make the hir­ing process more effi­cient, but it will also ensure that you are find­ing the right can­di­dates for the job. To cre­ate a suc­cess­ful inter­view process, iden­ti­fy the key skills and expe­ri­ences required for the posi­tion. From there, devel­op a set of ques­tions and sce­nar­ios that will allow you to assess the can­di­date’s abil­i­ties. Addi­tion­al­ly, con­sid­er incor­po­rat­ing behav­ioral ques­tions that refer to can­di­dates’ pri­or expe­ri­ences, such as “Describe a chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion involv­ing a child and how you respond­ed to it.” Behav­ioral ques­tions can help you bet­ter under­stand how the can­di­date will fit with­in your com­pa­ny cul­ture. By cre­at­ing an inter­view process tai­lored to your com­pa­ny’s needs, you’ll be much more like­ly to find employ­ees who can help your busi­ness thrive.

Ulti­mate­ly, find­ing qual­i­fied child­care providers is an impor­tant and long-term endeav­or. Find­ing and con­nect­ing with the right per­son can require time and effort. Exe­cut­ing each step well will help you ensure a suc­cess­ful hir­ing expe­ri­ence and can bring the best can­di­date for your team aboard. What expe­ri­ence or advice do you have to help oth­ers in the search to find ded­i­cat­ed child­care providers? Share your thoughts in the com­ments below!

Learn More!

Inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about find­ing qual­i­fied child­care provider can­di­dates? Take our course Hir­ing and Super­vis­ing Qual­i­fied Staff to learn about con­duct­ing inter­views, iden­ti­fy­ing qual­i­fied can­di­dates, employ­ee ben­e­fits, poli­cies, super­vi­sion, and more! Look­ing for some inspi­ra­tion? Check out our blog “Top Rea­sons to be a Child­care Provider.”

Final­ly, once you have made that per­fect hire, start think­ing about ways to help your staff improve the qual­i­ty and effec­tive­ness of their work. Our blog about why pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment is so impor­tant for ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tors is a great place to start.

Care Courses Contact

Please let us know how we can be of addi­tion­al assis­tance! Call us: 1–800-685‑7610, Mon­day through Fri­day, 9–5 ET, or email us days, evenings and week­ends: info@CareCourses.com. We’re here to help!

Are you look­ing for free online child­care train­ing with cer­tifi­cates in Mary­land? Look no fur­ther Mary­lan­ders! In today’s blog we will dis­cuss how you can get free child­care train­ing using a the child­care train­ing reim­burse­ment pro­gram devel­oped by the Mary­land State Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion (MSDE).

How to get $400 in free childcare training reimbursements in Maryland

The Mary­land State Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion Office of Child­care (MSDE OCC for short) offers train­ing reim­burse­ments to child­care providers. All providers in Mary­land with a lev­el two child­care cre­den­tial or high­er can get $400 in free train­ing annu­al­ly. That’s right, $400 in free train­ing each year!

Train­ing reim­burse­ments can be used for approved Core of Knowl­edge train­ing, pre-ser­vice train­ing, and approved con­fer­ence and col­lege train­ing. You can even use the reim­burse­ments to get the train­ing you need to renew or apply for your CDA credential. 

MSDE OCC approves all Care Cours­es that grant 2 or more clock hours for Core of Knowl­edge train­ing require­ments. Child­care pro­fes­sion­als can have these cours­es ful­ly reim­bursed through the Mary­land train­ing reim­burse­ments pro­gram up to $400 per year. 

In addi­tion, Care Cours­es offers a free 1‑clock-hour train­ing that you can take with­out need­ing to apply for the reim­burse­ment. MSDE approves this free cours­es for elec­tive train­ing hours in Maryland.

“My cours­es are com­plet­ed and I enjoyed them. I’ve been in the Mary­land Cre­den­tial­ing Pro­gram for a long time and I’ve been tak­ing cours­es to con­tin­ue my edu­ca­tion for about 28 years. Thank you for adding new cours­es to your pro­gram. It’s so much eas­i­er to work at my own pace at home, it’s con­ve­nient and affordable.”

- Kathy in Arnold, Maryland

How to Submit Maryland Training Reimbursements

To sub­mit an MSDE train­ing reim­burse­ment application:

• Go to the Mary­land OneStop web­site and click apply online.
• Cre­ate an account and fill out the required information.
• Upload the required doc­u­ments and submit.

Doc­u­ments and infor­ma­tion you will need:

• You will need your CCATS/Party ID# (locat­ed on your cre­den­tial certificate)
• Your Care Cours­es (or oth­er approved train­ing) cer­tifi­cate of com­ple­tion. Care Cours­es cer­tifi­cates are locat­ed in the My Cours­es area of your Care Cours­es account.
• The receipt for the course(s) pur­chased. Your Care Cours­es receipts are locat­ed in the My Orders area of your Care Course account.

Appli­ca­tions are free, take 10–30 min­utes to com­plete, and are approved with­in 1–30 days. 

Vio­la! Train­ing require­ments com­plet­ed and ful­ly reimbursed.

“I love Care Cours­es! The process—from order­ing a course [Chal­leng­ing Behav­ior: Pos­i­tive Guid­ance in Child Care] to print­ing my com­plet­ed certificate—was seam­less, easy and effi­cient. Thank you, Care Courses.”

Cathy in Glen Burnie, Maryland 

So easy to study from a coursebook!

How to get a level two Maryland childcare credential

In order to be eli­gi­ble for train­ing reim­burse­ments through the state, you will need a lev­el two child­care staff cre­den­tial. Lets dis­cuss the pur­pose and gen­er­al require­ments for the staff credential. 

Mary­land child­care cre­den­tial pro­gram aims to pro­duce a high­ly skilled work­force, improve the qual­i­ty of child care pro­grams, and enhance the sta­tus and com­pen­sa­tion of child care providers. All reg­is­tered fam­i­ly child­care providers and child­care cen­ter staff in licensed facil­i­ties are eli­gi­ble for the program. 

When apply­ing to the cre­den­tial pro­gram, par­tic­i­pants agree to work direct­ly with chil­dren on a dai­ly basis in a child care set­ting for at least one year. Par­tic­i­pants must also com­plete required con­tin­ued edu­ca­tion train­ing hours and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment activ­i­ties. MSDE issues the cre­den­tial for 12 months, and cre­den­tials must be renewed annu­al­ly. Those seek­ing the Cre­den­tial can take train­ing from an approved train­ing orga­ni­za­tion, like Care Cours­es, or from approved train­ers or accred­it­ed col­leges or universities. 

Sub­sti­tutes or vol­un­teers at a reg­is­tered fam­i­ly child care home or licensed child care cen­ter are inel­i­gi­ble for the program. 

All appli­cants should read the pro­gram book­let to learn about the pro­gram and require­ments before applying.

Level 1 Staff Credential:

To reach lev­el one, child­care providers must be licensed and in good com­pli­ance with licens­ing requirements. 

Level 2 Staff Credential:

To reach lev­el two, appli­cants must:

• Com­plete 45 clock hours of Core of Knowl­edge approved train­ing with a min­i­mum of 20 hours com­plet­ed in the Child Devel­op­ment Core of Knowl­edge area. (Check out our cours­es cat­e­go­rized by core knowl­edge area on our website.)
• Com­plete 1 Pro­fes­sion­al Activ­i­ty Unit (PAU). PAU* activ­i­ties vary and must be approved. How­ev­er, you can eas­i­ly get 1 PAU by par­tic­i­pat­ing in a child care event at a cen­ter where par­ents are invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate. You can also get 1 PAU by becom­ing a mem­ber of a local, state, or nation­al child care pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion such as NAEYC. 
• Com­plete 12 clock hours of train­ing annu­al­ly. (Providers can use the reim­burse­ment pro­gram to pay for these 12 hours of training.) 

To apply for or increase your cre­den­tial lev­el, you must com­plete the cre­den­tial appli­ca­tion found on the MSDE OCC web­site. Make sure to fol­low the steps out­lined by OCC. First time appli­cants will need to write a short reflec­tive essay and all appli­cants should read the Child Care Cre­den­tial Pro­gram Book­let pri­or to sub­mit­ting the appli­ca­tion. All appli­cants should review the help­ful resources, tips, and guides list­ed on the OCC web­site before com­plet­ing the application. 

Approval and additional information 

Once approved, you will be grant­ed a one-time bonus of $200 (received in the form of a check) and be eli­gi­ble for $400 in free child­care train­ing reim­burse­ments each year!

Each lev­el beyond lev­el two comes with addi­tion­al cash incen­tives and ben­e­fits. Review the charts on pages 14–16 of the pro­gram book­let to learn about the ben­e­fits of high­er cre­den­tial levels. 

While not cov­ered in this blog, the Mary­land child care admin­is­tra­tors cre­den­tial offers admin­is­tra­tors many ben­e­fits as well. 

Now that you know how to get free train­ing in Mary­land, check out our Mary­land train­ing blog. This blog dis­cuss­es the many ways you can use Care Cours­es for your pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment in Maryland. 

“Every­thing is going per­fect. I am doing the cours­es [Days with Tod­dlers: Cur­ricu­lum Plan­ning for Ages 12–36 Months] dur­ing spare time and the infor­ma­tion, exam­ples and quiz are all on tar­get, keep me inter­est­ed and allow me to review some knowl­edge from my career.
Thank you!!”

Cecil­ia in Bethes­da, Maryland

*PAUs or Pro­fes­sion­al Activ­i­ty Units are a mea­sure­ment of pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties that engage par­tic­i­pants in the broad­er aspects of ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion. PAUs help oth­ers under­stand the pro­fes­sion, pro­mote ear­ly child­hood, and fur­ther the par­tic­i­pants own knowl­edge. Approved train­ing does not count toward PAUs. The MD child­care cre­den­tial pro­gram book­let pro­vides a help­ful list of PAU examples.

Care Cours­es’ Core of Knowl­edge train­ing orga­ni­za­tion num­ber is CKO-150280. Our con­tin­ued train­ing orga­ni­za­tion num­ber is CTO-2281. Our pre-ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion num­ber is PSO-19. 

Care Courses Contact

Please let us know how we can be of addi­tion­al assis­tance! Call us: 1–800–685‑7610, Mon­day through Fri­day, 9–5 ET, or email us days, evenings and week­ends: info@CareCourses.com. We’re here to help!

Devel­op­ing lit­er­a­cy is a com­plex, mul­ti­step process requir­ing time, prac­tice, and resources. You might be won­der­ing, “why is lit­er­a­cy impor­tant in preschool?” 

What is lit­er­a­cy? Lit­er­a­cy is the abil­i­ty to read and write. As defined by the Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics, lit­er­a­cy is the “abil­i­ty to use print­ed and writ­ten infor­ma­tion to func­tion in soci­ety, to achieve one’s goals, and to devel­op one’s knowl­edge and potential.”

Lit­er­a­cy is impor­tant in preschool because the atti­tude toward read­ing and writ­ing that chil­dren devel­op dur­ing their ear­ly years as they inter­act with lan­guage and books is a crit­i­cal aspect of emerg­ing lit­er­a­cy. 

Emerg­ing lit­er­a­cy skills form the foun­da­tion for children’s lat­er lit­er­a­cy devel­op­ment. Researchers have found that emerg­ing lit­er­a­cy skills pre­dict children’s future read­ing and writ­ing skills and pro­fi­cien­cy in using lan­guage to express thoughts and ideas. While explic­it read­ing and writ­ing instruc­tion typ­i­cal­ly begins in kinder­garten, children’s foun­da­tion­al lit­er­a­cy skills start to devel­op at birth. An infant’s efforts to grab for a book and bat at its pages to show inter­est, a toddler’s scrib­ble, or a 4‑year-old’s fas­ci­na­tion with sto­ry time are all foun­da­tion­al read­ing and writ­ing milestones. 

How do you teach literacy to preschoolers?

A well-equipped lit­er­a­cy learn­ing cen­ter is one of the most effec­tive ways to pro­mote and devel­op children’s emerg­ing lit­er­a­cy skills. An effec­tive lit­er­a­cy learn­ing cen­ter is well-stocked with var­i­ous books and lit­er­a­cy mate­ri­als that reflect children’s inter­ests, cul­tur­al back­grounds, and learn­ing preferences. 

It is impor­tant to intro­duce read­ing and writ­ing togeth­er. Young chil­dren need emerg­ing read­ing skills to help them learn about writ­ing, and they need emerg­ing writ­ing skills to learn about read­ing. A lit­er­a­cy cen­ter that con­nects the two areas of emerg­ing lit­er­a­cy devel­op­ment can effec­tive­ly sup­port and bol­ster children’s lit­er­a­cy skills.

Addi­tion­al­ly, it is ben­e­fi­cial to include lit­er­a­cy mate­ri­als and activ­i­ties in all of your learn­ing centers—the sci­ence cen­ter, art cen­ter, block cen­ter, pre­tend play cen­ter, and wood­work­ing cen­ter. Strate­gi­cal­ly plac­ing lit­er­a­cy mate­ri­als through­out children’s play areas will rein­force the role of lit­er­a­cy in all areas of learning.

Preschool Literacy Activities

Bookmaking

Book­mak­ing is a fun and reward­ing activ­i­ty that encour­ages children’s cre­ativ­i­ty and self-expression.

First, sta­ple sev­er­al pieces of blank paper togeth­er or punch holes in blank pages to place in a binder. A binder allows chil­dren to add pages lat­er on if they wish. Pro­vide pen­cils, crayons, and mark­ers in a loca­tion that is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble to the children.

Encour­age preschool­ers to fol­low their inter­ests when cre­at­ing their books. Some chil­dren will enjoy cre­at­ing fic­tion­al sto­ries. Oth­ers may wish to make an ABC book, an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal sto­ry, or a how-to guide. If chil­dren have dif­fi­cul­ty select­ing a top­ic, ask them ques­tions to spark their imag­i­na­tion. You may want to ask child about a sto­ry they told you ear­li­er in the day or an activ­i­ty they engaged in recently. 

As the preschool­ers work on their books, encour­age them to use some of the foun­da­tion­al fea­tures of books, including

• title;
• author;
• page num­bers;
• set­ting;
• essen­tial plot ele­ments (begin­ning, mid­dle, end, conflict);
• char­ac­ters.

Chil­dren can decide whether or not their books will include print­ed words in addi­tion to their draw­ings, scrib­bles, and oth­er marks. Encour­age preschool­ers to make revi­sions and con­tin­u­ous­ly think about their sto­ries. Dis­play fin­ished books in the lit­er­a­cy cen­ter and invite chil­dren to read from their books dur­ing sto­ry time. 

Book­mak­ing can also be a group project. The group can work togeth­er to select a top­ic and then brain­storm ideas to include in their book. Each child can draw pic­tures or write a short sto­ry or thought relat­ed to the topic. 

Name Writing

A dai­ly sign-in rou­tine in the lit­er­a­cy cen­ter is a sim­ple writ­ing activ­i­ty that preschool­ers will enjoy. For many chil­dren, their first name is one of the first words they learn to write, and they often take a par­tic­u­lar inter­est in learn­ing and per­fect­ing this task. Suc­cess in writ­ing their name con­firms children’s grow­ing com­pe­ten­cies in alpha­bet knowl­edge and print aware­ness and lays the ground­work for more com­plex and struc­tured writ­ing composition.

When the chil­dren enter your pro­gram each morn­ing, ask them to sign in. They can write their names on a sheet of paper on a clip­board or a white­board. Some pro­grams use pages with children’s pho­tos print­ed in a col­umn and spaces for children’s sig­na­tures to the right.

As with oth­er activ­i­ties, the process is more impor­tant for chil­dren than the prod­uct. Some chil­dren will make a mark that may not resem­ble an actu­al let­ter or only write the first let­ter of their name. “Sig­na­tures” may look like scrib­bles. The goal is to give chil­dren an oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence the pur­pose of writ­ing, not to per­fect their sig­na­tures. Avoid any remarks or oth­er reac­tions that com­pare chil­dren’s “sig­na­tures.”

Choosing Books for Children

Stock your lit­er­a­cy cen­ter with a col­lec­tion of high-qual­i­ty books. To broad­en children’s expo­sure to dif­fer­ent gen­res, include non­fic­tion and poet­ry books in addi­tion to fic­tion. Reg­u­lar­ly intro­duce new books, and rotate books to keep the children’s inter­est and atten­tion. Pro­vide books that cov­er the inter­ests, back­grounds, lan­guages, expe­ri­ences, and oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics of the chil­dren in your program.

Look­ing to stock your lit­er­a­cy cen­ter with some new books? Check out sug­ges­tions from The Smith­son­ian and The New York Pub­lic Library.

Learn More!

Inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about ear­ly lit­er­a­cy? Check out our cours­es Many Ways to Learn for Tod­dlers and Preschool­ers and Mak­ing Learn­ing Fun. Look­ing for sug­ges­tions to improve your lit­er­a­cy cen­ter? Check out our course The Ear­ly Child­hood Envi­ron­ment: Learn­ing Cen­ters.

Look­ing for more fun activ­i­ties to try with the chil­dren in your care? Check out our blogs Cre­ative Art Activ­i­ties for Chil­dren and Cook­ing with Chil­dren: Overnight Oats.

Care Courses Contact

Please let us know how we can be of addi­tion­al assis­tance! Call us: 1–800-685‑7610, Mon­day through Fri­day, 9–5 ET, or email us days, evenings and week­ends: info@CareCourses.com. We’re here to help!