Cultivating staff’s knowledge and skills related to fostering healthy development
You are committed to cultivating staff’s knowledge and skills related to fostering healthy development of the young children in their care and the families with whom they have formed partnerships. You are also deeply invested in developing staff leadership capacities.
Your board concurs and also believes that Scribbles has a robust commitment to working for access, equity, and positive social change. They have asked you to work with the staff in developing this broader advocacy lens. You welcome the challenge and believe that an important precursor to supporting these goals includes exploring biases, because deep knowledge of one’s own values and beliefs is a precursor to actively and effectively working on access and equity as social justice issues. As a first step to this important work, you decide to create a blog for staff with initial posts that provide a research-based introduction to the power of bias, including how to recognize and mitigate it as well as information and strategies that support access, equity, and positive social change for young children, families, and the early childhood field.
The completed blog should include posts that discuss how biases arise in different contexts such as: gender identity; race/ethnicity; language proficiency; socio-economic status/class; nationality or citizenship status; age/generational gaps; geographic location including urban/rural divides; special needs & disabilities etc. The blog should also provide an overview of evidence-based practices for eliminating bias from decision making processes within ECE programs - such as using blind hiring procedures & designating individuals with specific responsibilities related to diversity & inclusion initiatives - as well as suggestions for developing partnerships with community organizations who are engaged in advocacy work related to any of these areas. Additionally each post should contain “action steps†which aim at encouraging readers to reflect upon their own values & beliefs regarding access & equity before discussing potential ways they could contribute towards cultivating positive change within their own programs or advocacy efforts outside it