OMSECE Leadership & Advocacy Focus Area

This course focuses the organizational factors in administering and supervising programs for young children and their families. It examines key concepts and practices of leadership and management.

It reviews components of educational programming, including planning and implementing a child-centered curriculum, promoting the inclusion of children and families with developmental differences and/or other special needs, and implementing assessment procedures.

This course also provides an overview of personnel policies and best human resources practices. Ethical and legal considerations and practical implications are addressed throughout the course.

Public policy sets the parameters for every aspect of the early childhood system, yet practitioners primarily engage policy at the level of implementation and compliance. Furthermore, there are limited opportunities for early childhood leaders to access policy tables, inform decision making, and influence policy levers.

This course is designed to enrich the perspective and enhance the capacity of diverse child advocates who want to ensure early childhood policy leads to improved quality, and increased access and equity for young children and their families.

The course will introduce practitioners to the early childhood system, tools for assessing public policy levers, and practical applications for influencing early childhood policy from the ground-up through a thoughtful balance between theory and practice. Special attention will be given to navigating systems and cultivating a critical lens with respect to racial equity.

This course is designed to help students work collaboratively with parents, other family members, and colleagues in diverse and inclusive infant, preschool, and school-age settings. The course begins by examining the values and beliefs of the culture of professionalism. The dynamics of family, professional, and team relationships are explored within the context of personal history, culture, and adult development and learning. Students use active learning strategies to practice skills in communication, collaboration, problem solving, and interdisciplinary team process. Models of supervision in early childhood programs are described. Across relationships, students learn to focus on strengths, partner around vulnerabilities, and develop self-knowledge as a professional competency.