Infant Toddler Caregiver Companion Guide to Minnesota Core Competencies
In order to support the particular developmental needs of infants and toddlers, CEED created a companion guide to the Minnesota Core Competencies. The Core Competencies document identifies practitioner competencies in eight areas:
- Child growth and development,
- Learning environment and curriculum,
- Assessment and planning for individual needs,
- Interactions with children,
- Families and communities,
- Health, safety and nutrition,
- Program planning and evaluation, and
- Professional development and leadership.
The Core Competencies document defines knowledge and skills for early care and education professionals and supports decision-making for practitioners, administrators, trainers, faculty, and agencies that offer formal and informal professional development. Core competencies are intended to be dynamic in that they offer a way to incorporate new research and knowledge into practice.
The Infant-Toddler Caregiver Companion Guide underscores the distinctive and critical needs of children of this age, as well as the knowledge and skills required to care for them. Research from all areas of child development illustrate unquestionably the special significance of the very early years. The children who are the healthiest and most successful later in life are the children whose development is supported from birth. The uniqueness of the infancy period:
...makes it incumbent upon the adult providing care for infants or toddlers to treat them differently from older children. Because the infant is wired for specific learning, the role of the adult in supporting learning is to be respectful and responsive to the child's lessons, rather than generating lessons for the child. Because early learning is holistic, plans to facilitate the infant's learning need to be holistic. Because security, exploration, and identity formation are manifested differently during the infancy period, the way adults respond to these needs should fit with the child's developmental stage. In a nutshell, because infants are unique, different from older children in important ways, infants need to be related to differently.
Lally, R., & Mangione, P. (2005). The uniqueness of the infant-toddler period. The Program for Infant/Toddler. WestEd.
The Minnesota Core Competencies describe skills and knowledge for practitioners who work with children ages birth through eight, and already includes some examples that apply specifically to infants and toddlers. The Companion Guide incorporates knowledge and skills from other research-based, nationally recognized infant-toddler resources, such as the Program for Infant-Toddler Care (PITC) and the Early Head Start Performance Standards. In addition, since the majority of infants and toddlers are cared for in home settings, the infant-toddler companion guide offers an opportunity to identify examples within particular infant-toddler care settings.
Download the Guide
Project Staff
The Guide was developed by a diverse consultant group facilitated by CEED. We would like to thank Resources for Child Caring and White Earth Tribal Child Care Services for their support in the compilation and development of these materials. The core competencies in this guide reflect the wisdom and feedback of tribal, bilingual, rural, and urban child care providers and trainers. We thank focus group members for their time and insights.
CEED Consultant Group
Christopher Watson, Principal Investigator
Vicki Hawley, Project Coordinator
Ann Edgerton, Director, University of Minnesota Child Development Center
Sue Heisler, White Earth Child Care Services
Huda Farah, Early Childhood Consultant
Elizabeth Menninga, Early Childhood Consultant
Funding
Creation of the Companion Guide to the 2004 Minnesota Core Competencies for Early Care and Education Practitioners was funded by the Early Childhood Services Division of the Minnesota Department of Human Services.