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MISSION

Children need to spend their most critical years with dedicated, educated, trained, and well-compensated individuals in order to thrive. The New York Early Childhood Professional Development Institute leads the work to establish and implement an early childhood workforce system to ensure funding, standards and competencies, career development resources, qualifications and credentials, professional development (training and strengths-based coaching), and program quality assurance and improvement for individuals who work with young children throughout New York. Housed at the City University of New York, the Institute is a fast-paced, dynamic public/private partnership that is committed to the early childhood workforce across New York State.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Investments in early childhood are vitally important to ensure that society capitalizes on the dynamic potential that children are born with. Healthy social and emotional development and early childhood mental health are vitally important aspects of high-quality early childhood education and building resiliency. Teacher-child interactions that are nurturing, warm, and responsive promote the healthy development of young children. The CHILD Tool (Climate of Healthy Interactions for Learning and Development), developed at the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University, was specifically designed to examine teacher-child interactions and the mental health climate while influencing and inspiring professional development, specifically coaching, in early childhood settings. The Institute recognizes the promise of the CHILD tool as one critical strategy and intends to integrate it into a complex set of strategies and solutions that focus on parents, caregivers, and children, throughout the City of New York.

The Institute and the CUNY Office of Early Childhood Initiatives are launching a project to provide coordination of the emerging uses of the CHILD tool across a number of related initiatives. The project explores, supports, and coordinates City, State, and other stakeholder efforts to utilize the tool in different ways and settings, while also ensuring alignment across partners and uses to ensure fidelity to the tool and consistent data collection. While also participating in statewide efforts, the coordination project will primarily focus on the NYC partner programs’ use and engagement with the tool and provide essential coordination among those committed to the implementation in selected communities with distinct partners. 

The Project Coordinator will be responsible for coordinating the various CHILD Tool implementation and evaluation projects that are planned and that are already in process, to provide comprehensive supports to a variety of stakeholders,

The Project Coordinator will report to the Institute’s Director of Research and Evaluation and work with other Institute staff and agency partners to facilitate the Institute’s deliverables and timelines for the projects.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Project Coordination 

• Coordinate regular meetings with CUNY, CCR&Rs, and other organizations to provide updates on implementation progress and provide requested data
• Coordinate with partners to promote infant-toddler mental health consultation across NYS
• With project partners, evaluate final project design, data collection plan, and databases for local partners
• Work closely with the Institute’s management team to ensure the Institute’s roles and deliverables are being met per funder requirements.

Data Collection, Analysis and Reporting

• Work with Institute staff to manage data collection efforts and build out data system to produce regular project and grant reports
• Coordinate data collection efforts across partners, including the development of a quality assurance protocol for data collection
• Collect, collate, and report assessment results from CHILD and other assessment tools

Communications and Partnerships

• Develop a plan with partners to identify and collect relevant data for future policy recommendations
• Utilize communication tools and software to communicate with participants and partners (flyers, newsletters, emails, phone calls, mailings, etc.)