Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Focused on making professional development more accessible for rural and low-income childcare providers in Mississippi, a new Mississippi State University project will develop multimedia tools to demonstrate best practices in early care and education.
With a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the university's Early Childhood Institute will create an online library that shows best practices by demonstrating practitioners at work, said Cathy Grace, ECI's founding director and a professor in MSU College of Education. The institute will use nearly 10 years of data about strengths and weaknesses of Mississippi childcare facilities as the basis for the project.
"We will work with Mississippi State's University Television Center to go out into the field and tape short segments showing outstanding childcare practitioners," Grace explained. "These will be put in an online library for access by instructors, trainers and coaches who work with childcare centers."
To expand access to professional development, resources also will be made available with training notebooks and accompanying DVDs.
Elizabeth F. Shores, the institute's associate director for research, communications and national initiatives, will direct the project with assistance from Melina Vaughan and other ECI staff members.
Titled "Bridges to Quality: The Mississippi Early Childhood Professional Development Project," the effort will be tested in focus groups in about 10 months. It also will include related studies of how to improve access to credential and degree programs for childcare workers, as well as the success of practitioners in the programs.
"This award demonstrates the confidence that the U.S. Department of Education, Mississippi's congressional delegation, and the university administration have in ECI's leadership of the early childhood sector in Mississippi," said Richard Blackbourn, dean of MSU's College of Education. "Thanks to this funding, we will be able to continue to expand professional development materials, on-site coaching, and other resources to help raise the quality of early education for Mississippi's children."
While "Bridges to Quality" focuses specifically on Mississippi childcare providers, Shores said "we believe it could be effective in any state with a significant population of low-income and rural childcare providers."
She added that ECI will seek a second year of funding to continue and expand the effort.
Established in 1999 as a program of MSU's College of Education, the Early Childhood Institute provides training, technical assistance, and applied research for improved quality and accessibility of early care and education across Mississippi.
For more information, telephone Shores at 501-749-9076 or e-mail at efs13@msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.