As York Professional Care & Education completes it’s seventh week of work from home, the organization believes it is critical to support and stay connected to their Families, Educators and Administrative staff. All employees have been paid during this time, with the support of strategic long-term financial planning by the organization and financial support from the Provincial and Federal government.
“We believe that the best child care is provided by Educators who are well cared for,” said Shirley Black, Executive Director. “For us that means ensuring all our Educators are well compensated, particularly at these uncertain times.”
While everyone has been working from home, the Administrative team has continued to ensure the daily operations of the organization, while the Educators and site Supervisors have been working through a series of Professional Development modules on the Agency’s Program Statement. The YPCE Program statement is a guide to our program’s foundational best practises and core beliefs.
“We felt that this time away from our programs could be put to good use diving deeper into the Program Statement,” said Kelly Fraccaro, Program Manager for YPCE’s York Region locations. “We developed 8 modules that all our Educators and Supervisors worked though. Educators reflected on articles, videos and podcasts to incorporate new learning into their daily, high-quality practise, upon return. The professional development has also provided our Supervisors an opportunity to connect with their team on a different level and develop a very personalized approach to each Educator’s mentoring plan.”
Professional Development feedback from our Educators and Supervisors:
“Overall, I think the reflections were a great way to keep focused on something other than what has been happening around all of us and the world,” said Lisa, at Lester B. Pearson Child Care Centre. “They have helped me create goals for myself in areas that I was unaware I needed to work on. I thrive on having things to work towards, therefore utilizing these reflections as a means for personal and career-oriented growth was great. With this down time, I appreciated a way to stay connected to my job and focus on myself, personally, as an Educator.”
“It made me stop and really think about the program and realize just what we do and how it works and what we need to change to make it even better,” said Lyn, at Trillium Woods Child Care Centre.
“I have kept a log of some of the reflection ideas that educators have written about to use later when we are back in program,” said Helen Clarke, Supervisor at Trillium Woods Child Care Centre. “I will use those ideas in staff meetings and team talks, have the staff look back to their reflections and how they can implement their thoughts and ideas into their programs. I will use it in conjunction with the individual staff program statement monitoring and when I am visiting rooms with the program statement.”
The programming has also been a benefit to the Assistant Educators in the classrooms, who may not have a formal education in the field, but have extensive experience caring for children.
“As someone who didn’t go to school for ECE or CYW, it was a little hard to put my thoughts into words and properly figuring out how to answer the questions based on the questions they were asking,” said Skylar, at Holland Landing Child Care Centre. “I found it challenging in that way but was able to put the work in and think it through. I enjoyed learning through the short videos and hearing from other professionals.”
In addition to the modules, educators have been reaching out to the families in their classrooms, speaking with children directly and checking in on their well being.
“I really enjoyed these reflections,” said Kevin, at Hewitt’s Creek Child Care Centre. “When the parents asked us how the [YPCE] is treating us I mentioned to them that they are doing a great job of preventing mental apathy by giving us tasks to reflect on and they were impressed that a company would care that much.”