Professional Development

Training programs are offered to enhance the capacity of clinicians, agencies and school personnel to provide family-centered, culturally sensitive and developmentally appropriate services.

The cornerstone of The Center for the Developing Child and Family is staff development. Our experienced and dedicated team of faculty consultants travel around the tri-state area and beyond to train, coach and consult with programs who wish to implement the programs developed at the Center and who seek to enhance their staff’s understanding of families and children and how to work with them.

Staff development also encompasses our reflective group supervision model, in which staff participate in professional supervision that attends to staff emotional well-being, as well as client needs. We believe that attending to staff’s emotional experience in the workplace is an important part of engaging in quality interventions with families.

Staff development also takes place at the Ackerman Institute in New York City. Here, we hold a variety of trainings throughout the year, whether it is a half-day workshop or a four-day short course. Click on titles to find out about what we offer and to find the best fit for you or your agency.

We Offer:

Workshops

The Center for the Developing Child and Family sponsors a variety of workshops during the year on early childhood and parenting topics. Presenters are members of our faculty who bring years of experience and expertise to their presentation. They utilize a combination of lecture, discussion, videotape, role play and experiential exercises to provide engaging and informative training experiences.

Short Courses

To delve more deeply into the work, short courses provide ongoing opportunities to learn how to implement Bright Beginnings and Personal Best, understand children’s social-emotional development, and work clinically with families who have children with special needs.

Community Training

Community Training gives agencies the opportunity to train staff on specific theoretical models and best practices in the comfort of their own agency and for the convenience for staff. Our Center will work with your agency to create the information and skills that are essential for your staff and their work with families. Community training is a unique approach to staff development because we bring the information to you and extended question/answer sessions are specific to your agency needs. This is a productive and cost-effective way to educate staff on the latest best practices in the field of early childhood, parenting, social-emotional development, family-school collaboration, and staff self-care A sampling of positive community training topics include: School Readiness, Parenting Processes Model: Comprehensive Understanding of Positive Parenting Practices, Mindful Parenting, Reflective Group Supervision, Mindful Parenting, Stress and Coping, Resilience. 

For questions, please contact Katie Pettick-Perez, Program Coordinator, at kpperez@ackerman.org or Martha Edwards, Founder & Director, at 212-879-4900 ext 133

Distance Training

For agencies and schools located outside of the tri-state area, we offer a variety of distance training experiences to engage agency staff and teach the principles and techniques of our programs. Utilizing web-based technology, we connect with key staff members on a regular basis. Through videotaped sessions, our faculty gives direct feedback and coaching to staff to guide their work with families and hone their skills. Some areas of specialization include:

• Implementing Bright Beginnings, Personal Best, or Competent Kids, Caring Communities
• Working with families with young children
• Reflective Supervision
• Children with special needs
• Group Facilitation Skills

A free consultation with the faculty is offered to review the scope of the work and the logistics. In order to have a successful coaching/supervision session it is required that all participants have a good internet connection.

Please contact Katie Pettick-Perez, Program Coordinator, at kpperez@ackerman.org or Martha Edwards, Founder & Director, at 212-879-4900 ext 133

Coaching

CDCF offers practice-based coaching as a pathway to staff development and growth. Our approach to coaching is collaborative and informed by evidence-based coaching practices and solid backgrounds in family systems, child development, social-emotional development, family-school collaboration, and children with special needs. We conceptualize the collaborative partnership as embracing the entire system where we are working through: 1) initial and periodic meetings with relevant administrative and supervisory staff to identify issues and concerns to consider in designing and implementing the coaching program, 2) establishing guidelines for maintaining privacy of coaching interactions in the context of supervisory expectations, 3) Initial training to front-line staff to learn Bright Beginnings and Personal Best, 4) Orientation for all staff in the principles and practices, so that there is a collective understanding and wide-buy in by agency staff, 5) Initial planning and periodic review with program leadership and 6) Periodic group reflective meetings to process the effect of work on staff, to deepen their understanding of effective interventions and to create mutual support among staff.

Once the collaborative relationship is established, the coaching experience for staff entails meeting with a faculty coach on a regular basis, creating individualized and attainable goals to focus the coaching work, observations of staff in multiple settings (home visits, group work) and periodic videotaping of staff interaction with clients for video review with the coach. The video review experience is meant to create a sense of meaningful reflection for the staff member, an opportunity to focus on staff strengths and uniqueness, and to help facilitate a discussion about staff goals and attainment of goals.

Center faculty have experience working with a wide range of staff including group facilitators, home visitors, family day care providers, and the professionals who supervise and support staff in these various roles.

Consultation

The consultation model for quality improvement is one of the best ways to assure that the Bright Beginnings, Personal Best, and CKCC curricula are adapted and implemented in your agency with high fidelity. Using a relationship-based approach, our consultants support staff members through a variety of hands-on experiences:

• Doing strategic planning of implementation
• Preparing and debriefing with staff for Bright Beginnings and Personal Best groups or teaching CKCC lessons
• Co-facilitating Bright Beginning and Personal Best groups; co-teaching CKCC lessons
• Joining staff on home visits and implementing the home visiting tasks of their respective Bright Beginnings or Personal Best group
• Viewing videos of parent-child interaction and helping staff to see patterns, identify strengths, and prepare for review sessions with parents
• Co-facilitating Bright Beginnings video review sessions with parents
• Conducting reflective group supervision groups with staff to reflect on and understand staff reactions in the work and to deepen understanding of individual families
• Providing support to agency supervisory staff
• Providing logistical assistance help in organizing the time, place, and structure for implementation of groups or teaching lessons
• consultation to special education schools and programs

The aim of the consultation is to help an agency achieve their goals for their staff and families. The consultation needs are established based on the collaborative relationship with the agency and its staff members. Consultants engage agency leadership, middle management, and front line staff in mutually agreeable and respectful dialogues to establish trust, develop collaborative relationships, and establish and monitor progress toward goals. On-site interaction is the foundation of our consultation model but some planning and weekly check-ins can take place over the phone.

Competent Kids, Caring Communities (CKCC) Consultative-Coaching Services

Following initial training to implement the CKCC curriculum, our CKCC team offers schools and other organizations implementing the curriculum opportunities to contract for consultation and coaching services on a fee-for-service basis. These services may include any combination of the following:

• Meeting with administrators to address potential barriers to implementation before they arise
• Meeting with site-based CKCC Facilitators to support program implementation and help increase staff buy-in
• Helping schools to think about ways to increase family engagement and involve families in social-emotional skill-building
• Helping to plan school-wide CKCC activities including “launch” activities, mid-year events, and year-end celebrations of learning
• Modeling or co-teaching CKCC lessons
• Helping schools insure seamless integration of CKCC into school culture and academic content areas
• Providing training for new staff each year and mid-year refresher trainings as needed
• Providing ongoing professional development to staff members on a variety of topics related to social-emotional development and/or family-school collaboration

Face-to-face collaboration is a wonderful way to help insure that CKCC is integrated seamlessly into your entire school community.

For more information, contact Katie Pettick-Perez, Program Coordinator, at kpperez@ackerman.org or Martha Edwards, Founder and Director, at 212-879-4900 ext. 133 

Reflective Group Supervision

The Center has developed a model for Reflective Group Supervision. Our model is an innovative approach to supervision and consultation that supports staff in understanding client needs through a lens of curiosity, non-judgment, and empathy. It is a collaborative process that guides staff to reflect on their own experiences in their work and then address the clinical needs of children and their families. The process of a reflective group supervision session follows four steps: (1) attending to staff experience and needs, (2) understanding the family system, (3) being mindful of the parallel processes among supervisors, staff, parents, and children; and (4) identifying clinical interventions. These group sessions provide a safe and supportive environment for emotional sharing, peer support, and creative problem solving that enable staff to develop interventions that are attuned to their client’s needs. They are instrumental in increasing staff’s capacities to be reflective about and self and other, decreasing burn-out, and increasing staff collaboration and support.

Reflective Group Supervision can be implemented by a trained agency supervisor or by a Center faculty member who comes to the agency to specifically run these unique supervision groups.

To discuss your needs and options, please contact Katie Pettick-Perez, Program Coordinator, at kpperez@ackerman.org or Martha Edwards, Founder & Director, at 212-879-4900 ext 133