CINCINNATI (Feb. 17, 2009)—A $150,000 grant from a family foundation will fund a key initiative of 4C’s current five-year plan. The funded project, “Developing Early Childhood Leaders,” will address what Janet Keller, 4C director of professional development, calls “a serious unmet need in our region—the need for directors, board members and owners of early childhood programs and centers to develop the skills needed to become stronger leaders.”

“4C is very successful in its effort to address professional development needs of center staff,” Janet points out. “But the overall quality of an early childhood program depends on more than an individual teacher,” she emphasizes. “It depends on leadership at the top—a leader who can set a vision, establish benchmarks for quality and support staff in reaching them while also responding to the daily management demands and challenges of an early childhood setting.”

As researcher Paula Jorde-Bloom from National Lewis University has pointed out, the director of an early childhood program has responsibilities that equate to those of an elementary school principal—but without any of the formal education or training. 4C hopes to fill this gap—and create a model that could lead to a state-level credential for directors.

The “Developing Early Childhood Leaders” project will include a three-pronged approach to develop the kind of early childhood leaders needed to achieve and sustain the high-quality programs that 4C is dedicated to ensuring for our community’s children. Through this project 4C will:

• design and implement an annual year-long leadership seminar for current directors/owners. 
• design and implement a short-course and survival kit for new directors and directors in crisis.
• foster ongoing leadership development based on learnings from the year-long leadership seminar and the short-term survival course.

Initial planning meetings are now underway. A timeline has been established, a project director is in place and an advisory committee and project team has been identified.

The next step is to survey center directors and then use the information to develop an initial outline for the year-long leadership seminar. The proposed outline will then be taken to focus groups for testing and refinement.

Top priority: scholarship funding
In coming months, 4C will be approaching foundations to create a scholarship fund that can help cover tuition costs for the leadership seminar once grant funds are expended.

“We intend this to be an ongoing effort,” says development director, Karen Hurley. “We know many directors will  need financial assistance to participate. “Plus,” she adds, “we made a pledge to our funder to make raising scholarship dollars a top priority.”

Suggestions of foundations or family funds that might be interested in supporting scholarships for early childhood leaders can be directed to Karen Hurley at 513-758-1201.

4C, the region's leading child care coordinating agency, was founded in 1972 to ensure the quality, effectiveness and availability of early childhood education and care. It currently serves a 23-county area in Southwest Ohio, the Miami Valley and Northern Kentucky. A not-for-profit agency, 4C is funded in part by United Way, the City of Cincinnati, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, and the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Division of Child Care.

# # #

Attention child care directors: Take this survey to help with the planning process!

For more recent news from 4C