Implementation Strategies and Reflections on PBC in State Early Childhood PD Systems

Implementation Strategies and Reflections on PBC in State Early Childhood PD Systems

Awuse Tama: Hello, everyone. Welcome to our last webinar in the "Spotlight on Innovative Practices" series. My name is Awuse Tama. I am a State Training and Technical Assistance Specialist with the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning, or NCECDTL. And I will be your host for today. Today's webinar is on "Implementation Strategies and Reflections on Practice-Based Coaching and State Early Childhood Professional Development Systems."

Our presenters today include Anita Allison from the NCECDTL, and we also have presenters from four states, which Anita will introduce them shortly. So, before we start today, we feel it is important to address the changes that they have had to implement as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic regarding how they are offering professional development activities. For states that have been planning and implementing PBC, the information being shared today was offered and put into place before the COVID-19 pandemic hit across the nation, which impacted how states are being able to offer professional development, including coaching throughout the nation. So, as states, businesses, and other organizations gradually open after the COVID-19- related slowdown, they will need to consider a variety of measures for keeping people safe.

These considerations include processes for scaling up operations, safety actions like cleaning and disinfecting or social distancing, and monitoring possible reemergence of illness and maintaining health operations. For rolling out PBC, states are now having to consider or reconsider their plans for the size of face-to-face group professional development offerings, moving to virtual coaching, and following state and locality guidance regarding keeping children, families, and staff safe. So, again, we are very happy that you all are able to join us today for this webinar. We know that, with everything going on, many of you are under a lot of stress and have been affected on some level.

So, before we start, I want to lead us in a short exercise to help you relax and also quiet your mind. So, let's take a moment. Sitting down or standing up, let's start by taking a deep breath. And close your eyes if you would like to. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. And as you breathe in, feel your lungs expand. And as you breathe out, feel that sense of letting go of any stress on your body and your mind and just relax. Let's do it one more time. Breathe in deeply through your nose and out through your mouth. Take a moment to pause and allow your thoughts to come and go. If your mind wanders, that's OK. Just bring back your attention to the rise and fall of your breath. One more time. OK, and as we come to the end of this, gently open your eyes again. Make sure to smile, and let's enjoy the rest of the presentation.

Our objectives for today ... At the end of this presentation, you'll be able to explore the process and resources that states used and considered for the implementation of PBC within their professional development system. We will be sharing some examples of states implementing PBC and the Coaching Companion. And lastly, we will explore lessons learned, including successes, challenges, and opportunities from the states who are implementing PBC. Today's agenda ... We will get a history of our state PBC work, and then we will hear from our state presenters. They will talk about their lessons learned, implementation highlights, and their next steps. The four states that we'll be hearing from today include Alaska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Utah. We will have time for questions, and we will also be sharing some PBC resources, and then we will wrap up for the day. OK, I will pass this on to Anita Allison. She will introduce herself and also introduce our state presenters. Anita?

Anita Allison: My name is Anita Allison, and I'm a Senior State TTA Specialist with the National Center on Early Childhood Development Teaching, and Learning, and I provide training and technical assistance to states to look at issues around professional development, career pathways, coaching, anything related to technical assistance on the professional development systems level. So, I've been doing this for almost five years, the full grant -- longevity of our grant, and I have been honored over the last three years to be able to meet and work with some wonderful people, particularly those people who are interested in enhancing their technical assistance, their coaching, their consultation to providers in their state to achieve high-quality experiences for young children through enhancing the practices that teachers put into place on a day-to-day basis. So, I'm pleased to be here today, and we also have some state presenters today. And Awuse indicated I would be sharing who those are. So, today from Alaska, we have Meghan Johnson, and she is the Director of Learn & Grow, and she will be sharing about Alaska's initiative to embed practice-based coaching within the state. From North Carolina, we have Dr. Kristi Snuggs, who is the director of the North Carolina Division of Child

Development and Early Education. And along with Kristi, we have Theresa Roedersheimer. She's the Infant Toddler Policy Consultant with the Division of Child Development and Early Education. And from Oklahoma, we have Vikki Dobbins. She is the Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator, and I've been working closely with Vikki in Oklahoma to address their state priority that they have for social-emotional supports and using practice-based coaching to ensure that effective social-emotional practices are being implemented effectively. And lastly, we have the state of Utah, and we have Kim Melville, a Program Specialist with the Office of Child Care, along with Sonia Aguilera, the Family Child Care Program Specialist from the Office of Child Care and Betzy Mulwee from the Child Care Quality Services Program Specialist, Office of Child Care. So, we're excited to have these state presenters, and I look forward to hearing them share their stories with you today. And I, again, so happy to have been working with these wonderful individuals over the last few years as they seek to enhance practice, to embed and enhance the coaching practices in their states.

So, I'm going to start out today with a history of state practice-based coaching implementation. Awuse, would you move my slide for me? Thank you. So, we have practice-based coaching, which is ... If you look here at the slide, you'll see the visual representation of the practice- based coaching framework. And to let you know, practice-based coaching is the culmination of many years of study on best practices in coaching. It aligns with the NAEYC definition of coaching as a relationship-based process. Coaching is designed to build the capacity for specific professional skills and behaviors and is focused on goal-setting and achievement for an individual or a group. Practice-based coaching is also one of the many research-based coaching models that the Office of Head Start accepts for Head Start and Early Head Start programs to use in their coordinated coaching strategies as required by the Head Start Program Performance Standards. Practice-based coaching may be delivered by an expert, but it also has a self-coaching or peer-coaching options that can be used. There are many different delivery methods for practice-based coaching, but the key components remain the same across all these methods. You have the Collaborative Coaching Partnership, which is that outside green circle you see here in the visual representation. And those Collaborative Coaching Partnerships lay the context and success for the components of practice based-coaching that make up the model. And those components are shared goals and action planning, focused observations, and reflection and feedback. And when done together in a cyclical process, we support teachers in utilizing those effective teaching practices in order for young children to get the optimum experience in their care setting.

So, we know that effective coaching supports effective teaching, which in turn supports effective and highly – outcomes for children. So, our whole purpose is to promote those effective teaching practices by this model in order for young children to learn. So, that is practice-based coaching, the visualization of it. The session is not meant to provide you with an expertise or a great understanding of practice-based coaching, but to set the stage for you to understand it so you can understand what different states have done in order to embed the framework in their professional development system. Next slide, Awuse.

We see here practice-based coaching at a glance, and as I said earlier, the left column is about the delivering of practice-based coaching. And you can see that you can have an expert coach, that person that comes in from the outside who observes the teacher, helps her establish goals and action steps, that she needs to take to improve her teaching practices. And she supports the caregiver in enhancing or trying out new things. We have peer, and you can do peer coaching as long as the two individuals supporting each other follow the cyclical process of practice-based coaching, establishing goals, developing action plans, doing focused observations, and then providing reflection and feedback to each other to support ongoing professional development and utilizing those effective teaching practices. And you can also do the same model in self-coaching, as long as you follow the elements of the model where you're willing to develop some goals and action steps for yourself, to videotape yourself engaging with that effective teaching practice, observing yourself through video, and then reflecting on how that went and asking yourself what could you have done differently or better. And then, again, following that cycle, you can do self-coaching and practice-based coaching in the framework.

The delivery – you can do it on site, or practice-based coaching can be done at a distance. And also, it can be done in groups or individually.

The center column is about the trainings that are offered, and we made available through DTL to implement practice-based coaching effectively. And one of the big ones for states is the implementation on leadership academies, where state teams identified, come together, and look at the systems and funding and opportunities, both barriers and challenges and successes that they can build upon to bring practice-based coaching to their state and generally figure out what they can do to put practice-based coaching and what needs to be set into place. We also have the TLC Facilitator Training, and this is a group coaching training that you can access if you are interested in group coaching. And then we have the iPD PBC online modules, where you can

... iPD is an online ... You have online courses, and it's offered through the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning. It is free to use. You just sign up for it, you access it, and you sign up for different modules and take them at your own pace, or they can be done as groups and then processing it. And hopefully North Carolina will share a little bit about their experience with iPD later, but it's a good way to enhance your knowledge about practice-based coaching.

And then the last column is about the resources that are available to you to continue your knowledge and skill building, about practice-based coaching, from the Coaching Companion, where you can do distance support for implementation of PBC. We have all sorts of videos and resources, handouts on the Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center, and Awuse's going to talk a little bit more about these later in the presentation, but I just wanted to let you know. This is a graphic to show you what all is available and shows you what PBC has available at a glance. Next slide, Awuse.

So, in order to bring practice-based coaching to states, we the child care side of the National Center on Early Childhood Development and Teaching and Learning administered a tiered approach in response to different states' request for technical assistance through the goal setting, planning, and TA requests from the Child Care State Capacity Building Center. We have this whole process by which TA requests could be sent up to the regional offices and to access training. And so, when we received a few of these requests, we realized we needed to build a process by which we gradually and systemically brought the information about practice-based coaching to the states. So, we offered a national webinar as an overview and information sharing about practice-based coaching. And then we offered a practice-based coaching peer- learning community for states who wish to dig a little deeper. And then we opened it up and offered some intensive TA, where they really got some in-depth training and information about how to implement practice-based coaching at the state level.

So, looking at those things individually, our national webinar looked at – and you can see here, this is the first slide from that webinar – we entitled it, "A Closer Look at Practice-Based Coaching for Early Care and Education Professionals." And as you can see, we offered this originally three years ago. And so, we brought this information as a complete overview of different coaching models, but we focused on practice-based coaching as a research-based model that can be used in a variety of settings. And during the webinar, we shared information and discussed what coaching actually looks like across the ECE landscape, looked at different research-based coaching models for early childhood, and answered the question, "Just what is practice-based coaching, and what do states or programs need to consider before implementing PBC?" Following that national webinar, we offered a peer-learning community, and this opportunity was just put out to anybody interested. And we had states – the following states interested in engaging together to share ideas and approaches and look at specific topics related to practice-based coaching that they might consider if they were interested in implementing practice-based coaching.

So, the states that came together for the peer-learning community were Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wyoming. And as you can see by the chart on the slide, the peer-learning community included six two-hour virtual sessions on a variety of topics designed to help teams review, analyze, and plan for enhancements to their systems and consider practice-based coaching. Presentations by experts on the topic for each session were provided, and we facilitated discussions with full teams around the session topics, but then we offered opportunities for breakout sessions, for the teams to get together and talk about what they heard in the large group session and talk about the implications for their state. So, they had opportunities to do large-group learnings, to do some small-group work, and then bring that – what they talked about together and share with each other and learn from each other and come up with some questions that they might want to consider as a state and share that amongst themselves and kind of extend the thinking and learning. And we had some states that said, "Oh, I never thought about that. maybe we'd better go back and think about that some more." We also offered homework for participating teams to review the resources more in-depth and analyze different parts of their current systems to prepare for the next session and see if this is going to really work for their state. And we also offered an opportunity for a virtual work group in between sessions through MyPeers, which is an online platform for sharing ideas and resources with each other as a work group.

And we offered that between sessions so the dialogue and the sharing could continue. So, these six sessions helped the states dig a little deeper. And we use the intentional teaching framework of know, see, do, reflect, and improve, and look at and understand ... So, under the "know," they learned and understood ... They tried to understand the elements of the practice- based coaching. Under "see," we had experts share and had multimedia examples of PBC content, allowed them to apply their knowledge that they gained during the breakout activities, and reflect upon "will this work in our state?" and "how could we make this work in our state?" And then "Improve" ... At the end of the peer-learning community, they established a plan of action and decided on what they could do, whether it was dive right in or do incremental steps or do some more investigating. They left with a plan of action to continue the learning and exploration of practice-based coaching. And lastly, our third tier was to provide that intensive TA for those states who really wanted to take this topic on. And so, we worked with a group of states that were ready and poised to make changes or adjustments to their professional development systems or to enhance or improve their use of coaching, focusing on practice- based coaching. States participating in intensive TA during 2018 following the peer-learning community were identified, and those were Utah, New York, and Minnesota. Or one state actually self-identified as "interested," and that was Wisconsin.

So, during 2010, we opened intensive TA to those who self-identified as ready to engage in intensive PBC work. And those states were Alaska, North Carolina, and Oklahoma. And you will hear from all three of those states in the state presentations. Each state participating in intensive TA agreed to have DTL provide a PBC to Leadership Academy, where a team of stakeholders convened for two and a half days to explore PBC and develop a plan. From that, they decided what they needed to adapt or change or think about to be able to make informed decisions about practice-based coaching. As part of participating in the Learning Academy, each state developed a plan and set a vision and goals for implementing PBC, and as states began moving forward with implementation, we have held monthly check-in calls with the states and DTL staff. And we have collaborated to work together to say, "When are we ready to do coach training?" So, the next phase was to bring – when they determined they were ready – is to set the Coach Training Institute, where state coaches were trained in the implementation of the PBC model. And readiness for this coach training was determined by state request and progress on their past planned goals. The ... All states have had their coach training except one, and after those coaches received training, they've continued to receive support from DTL, and they've been ongoing in working with developing their state teaching practices needs assessment, support in using the Coaching Companion, and providing ongoing professional development for their coaches. We've offered a little bit of everything based on what a state desired for their coaches. So, presently we are providing ongoing and intensive TA to four states: Utah, Alaska, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.

So, that's a little bit about the history and how we started working with the states regarding PBC, because until that time it was primarily focused in Head Start. And it's such a wonderful model that, when we were founded, when Child Care Aware of America was funded as the partner for child care TA with the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning, this is the one thing we wanted to do, is to adapt those Head Start materials for use in-state work and think through how it might be utilized in states. So, we adapted the Leadership Academy for state work and state language and offered it to these states, and we are blessed to have these four states sharing some information with you today about how they got started, what they've done, lessons learned, and where they would like to take practice- based coaching in your state. Next slide, Awuse. Next one.

So, we're going to start with Alaska, and Meghan Johnson is the Director of Learn & Grow. And she will be sharing Alaska's approach. So, Meghan, it's been a pleasure to work with you and your team in Alaska over the last few months. And I got the opportunity to spent an entire week and work with Meghan's team up in Alaska, doing both the Leadership Academy and the coach training and learn a bit about where do they want to go and their dreams and hopes for technical assistance and coaching in Alaska. And, Meghan, I look forward to you sharing, so take it away.

Meghan Johnson: Great. Thanks, Anita. This is Meghan Johnson, and I'm the Director of Learn & Grow, which is our Quality Recognition and Improvement System. And we are housed at our Child Care Resource & Referral agency, called THREAD, our network. We have three regional offices throughout the state. And so, our professional development systems, SEED and QRIS, are all housed within there. [Inaudible] We're a big state, staff, land, coverage, but small population-wise. And I do apologize. It is raining outside right now, and I have two dogs inside, so I will do my best to keep them not barking. [Laughs] But that happens. I'm sure we're all familiar now with dogs and people and kids on call, but ...

So, when we started work with Anita and her colleagues, we had also simultaneously – to thinking about practice-based coaching – had been working on a strategic plan for relationship-based professional development. Some of you might have heard that term that many CRs put out several years ago. And in addition, we were also, as many as you probably were working on, PDG plans, strategic plans, at the same time. And so, there was this infusion of state plans, which are desperately needed in Alaska. And we were trying to figure out how to do this alignment. So, THREAD's staff, who are responsible for doing the coaching and technical assistance with programs participating in our QRIS, needed to pick a model. So, there's this micro level within THREAD and QRIS, which can have this wide reach of what early childhood programs we will be catching. And eventually our plan is for all early childhood programs sites. And then there's this state work about who's doing what with coaching and relationship-based professional-development services and how do we work smarter, not harder, and not siloed in our services. So, that's kind of what's been happening in the last couple of years.

And so, we're still in that process, but we have a solid, really solid-state plan about relationship- based professional development and where we want to go with that. And THREAD and Learn & Grow has identified practice-based coaching as the model that we would use to support programs participating in Learn & Grow. And we did that because, one, Head Start was using that model. And we did a review and a scan of what other organizations were using. So, some are using strength-based coaching. Some are using cognitive coaching, various models. All of them kind of have that same plan [Inaudible], but the infrastructural support around practice- based coaching seems to be the most robust. And if we want to partner and bring in Head Start, that just made the most sense. So, that's why we chose that. We also have been engaging with EarlyEdU out of the University of Washington, who has also been using the Coaching Companion, a version of it. I think it's the same version, except for the Head Start version has those coaching videos embedded in it, so we've been utilizing some of that as well. So, we're really in the preliminary stages of dabbing and figuring that out. THREAD's staff also works with our Department of Education and provides online coaching to the Department of Education grantees, which are the pre-elementary programs and Head Start programs. We don't necessarily work so much of the coaching around with the Head Start, but certainly pre- elementary grantees. And we had been using MyTeachingPartner previously, and that just was very expensive, if anybody's familiar with that. So, we're in the process of transitioning over to using the Coaching Companion, and most likely, we'll be using the one that's offered to Head Start. And then what have we accomplished in planning? So, like I said, the CCR&R staff, with consultation, have identified and starting to use some needs assessment because that's kind of the first part of practice-based coaching. So, it's a little messy because we're also still trying to line up. We have our independent consultation work we do that has needs assessments, and we want that to be the same as what we would do with a program who chooses to participate in our QRIS. So, we're trying to line up those needs assessments, like what would a need assessment at level one be and level two and level three? So, that the long-term evaluation is also lined up with that. So, it's a little messy. We're in that storming and norming stage right now, but I think we've solidified the current levels that are only available to programs that are level one and two of our QRIS. So, I think we've nailed down that level and been almost done with the next level.

We also ... We developed a survey to assess who's doing what pertaining to coaching. And we want to ... We need to build capacity. I think you can go to the next slide, and that kind of moves on to ... Oh, I can go to the next slide, right? I will go to the next slide.

So, we know that we need to build capacity in the state. It may be in the future that THREAD, the CCR&R, will not be the sole person or agency – excuse me – providing relationship-based professional-development services to participating QRIS programs. Hold on. But we ... So, we need to kind of build capacity in the states so that we know there's some competencies, there's some direction, that there's a unified alignment around this work. So, those are some of our kind of next steps, is to distribute that survey, being mindful of COVID, and survey ... I'm sure everybody is worried about. And then we're going to be piloting our next level, level three of our QRIS. And that's where practice-based coaching is gonna come in, so I'm super excited about that. This next year is really when we're going to get to dive into that. So [Inaudible] place, but the lessons learned, basically ... These assessments are challenging, but we're trying to line them up, like I said. I also think that we need some advocacy kind of outreach to do that alignment and ... Basically, in the end, you need funding to build this workforce. So, I don't think that there's a really strong awareness in our state ... Well, I know there's not a strong awareness of the important, significant need of relationship-based professional development specialists in building quality in early childhood. And so, we need some advocacy talking points. Head Start is doing it for themselves. They're really strong at this model across the states among those grantees, but they're serving a very small population of the early childhood field. So, we really need some advocacy kind of ways to do, to increase that awareness. And then we are also interested in looking at coaching fidelity. So, we think some of the data points that we could learn about that could help really dive deeper into training, sustainability, doctrinal, all those variables that help and then justify an advocacy request for that. So, we're trying to work on some big-picture talking points to justify funds and policies that would support this work. So, there's some macro-level kind of information and then some micro-level information. And I think that's it. Yep.

Anita: Yeah, thank you, Meghan. This is Anita again, and I want to thank you for sharing about Alaska. There's so many great things happening there and so many plans and excitement about practice-based coaching. So, thank you for sharing. And if anybody has questions for Meghan, please put them in the question box. And Meghan will check that Q&A box and see if she can answer any if you have any for Alaska. Next, we will be moving to implementing PBC in North Carolina. And Dr. Kristi Snuggs, and Theresa Roedersheimer will be sharing where PBC is at in North Carolina. And it's been fun to be involved with North Carolina and their absolute commitment for high-quality training and technical assistance in their state. So, Kristi?

Dr. Kristi Snuggs: Thank you, Anita. Good afternoon, everyone. Again, my name is Kristi Snuggs, and as you can see, I'm the interim Director with the Division of Child Development and Early Education and very happy to be here this afternoon to talk about practice-based coaching and what this coaching model has meant to North Carolina. So, we'll move on to the next slide.

North Carolina has really prioritized early childhood education in a very unique way for a number of years, and right now, we have a governor, as we have in the past, who really appreciates the early childhood years. And we have a secretary who has prioritized early childhood education, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. And as a result, the governor has actually issued an executive order for us to create a strategic plan and a model of early childhood education. And we have an ECAP that we would love to be able to talk more about it another time. But part of that is, how do we get to a point where we can really move the metrics in the area of early childhood? And so, as we are looking to that strategic plan for North Carolina and as we're looking at how to provide the most appropriate technical assistance and coaching for our workforce, we always look at responding to data and research.

And in North Carolina, we consistently assess programs offered to the early childhood workforce because we're always looking at how we can emphasize this culture of continuous improvement. And so, that is one of the reasons and one of the, of why we became involved in the practice-based coaching model. We looked at our data and research, and we realized that our technical assistance and the type of things that we were doing with one-time workshops was really not moving the needle and not changing things the way we wanted to. We did not want our providers to prepare for a one-time visit from their quality enhancement scales and to just prepare for that day. But we wanted it to be a way of how early childhood professionals moved and how they reacted on a day-to-day basis. And one of the ways that we really believe we can do that, by reading research and seeing what's out there, is through a coaching model. So, we really looked at our data and our research, and we felt like this is the way to move.

In addition to that, North Carolina had the opportunity to be awarded the preschool development planning grants. And as part of that grant, we had to do a statewide needs assessment. We had to look at developing our priorities and really aligning those with where we wanted to go. And technical assistance was one of those areas that was highlighted as a possible area of focus. And so, that prompted us to do a deeper dive and to begin meeting with our partners across the state, our TA professionals, and really think about how we were providing professional development and technical assistance. And what we were able to gain from that work is the consensus that there needed to be a greater emphasis placed on how we deliver technical assistance in North Carolina. So, through this collaboration, we began to ... We convened and had already been working on bringing our technical assistance providers together to figure out how we might better serve all of the needs that we had in our workforce and across the state, but also what is the best type of delivery to use? So, the practice-based coaching model provided North Carolina with an opportunity not only to streamline all of those efforts, but it also provided our workforce a cohesive – a way to work as a cohesive unit and ensure that all of our teachers were getting the support and resources that they need, no matter which agency that was providing that technical assistance was able to do it. It did not matter which agency. We had a consistent model.

So, I am going to turn it over to Theresa Roedersheimer for her to tell you exactly what we have done thus far. She has worked so hard and been a role model on helping North Carolina to move toward a practice-based coaching TA model. And so, I am happy for her to describe what we've done thus far.

Theresa Roedersheimer: Thank you. Thank you, Kristi. You can answer move on to the next slide, please. So, I'm going to start off talking about what North Carolina has accomplished so far to date. That's OK. Our screen went blank, but I'll keep talking because I know where we're at. [Laughter] So far, in October, we completed our [Coughing] academies, and this meeting brought a great deal of excitement to our partners that we worked with and prompted North Carolina to even look at our current work that we were doing and planning for the next work with our preschool developing plan and how we could implement practice-based coaching in that way as well. Kristi briefly mentioned that we began to establish a technical assistance planning team. This team was made up of, I think, every single agency and partner in North Carolina that provides technical assistance for professional development. So, we were so excited to start that planning. Anita has been part of that work that we have been doing as well. And that first meeting we had was in February of 2020, so we're continuing to move that work forward, really evaluating and looking at our technical assistance system and seeing how we can continue to bring all of the different units together and provide the streamlined and just best-practice services to the workforce.

So, in mid-July, amidst the wonderful COVID-19, we were preparing to conduct our in-person training, and it was supposed to happen in June. And during this session, we were excited for Anita to be coming down, and we had a large number of providers that were going to be trained at that time. But due to COVID, with traveling restriction and the different restrictions that we had for convening large groups, I'll say North Carolina decided to take COVID lemons to make lemonade out of this bad situation and really take this opportunity to continue the work that we started during the Leadership Academy. And what we're doing now with a large number of partners is we're piloting a practice-based coaching learning collaborative. And this collaborative ... I've been super excited about the different pieces and components of this collaborative. We are ... As a group, there's 21 participants from our partnering agencies that are coming together. Some of them actually provide technical assistance to the workforce.

Others are supervisors of those that provide. We have 10 teams. One team has three members on it. Every other team has two members. So, each one has a coach, and they all have a supervisor on that team. And basically, what we're doing through this process is building what a learning collaborative would look like for other TAs across the state.

So, we're all beginning with the virtual practice-based coaching course that is on the Head Start Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center. Then we'll be moving, as soon as it's available, to do training, either with Anita's team or maybe possibly someone else to do some practice- based coaching training for us, some virtual planning sessions on what an action period would look like, how we're going to do an action period where we're taking this tool that we're creating, the self-assessment tool for teachers in the workforce, how are we going to deliver that, what is going to be the best way to provide technical assistance. And then, after that, we'll have a wrap-up session where all of us will try to come back together again, whether it's virtually or in person. Hopefully by the end of June, it'll be able to do in-person and really do a deep reflection on the work that we've accomplished and how we can move forward for the state. So, I'm actually very glad that we're doing it this way because I think it's just a time for us to gain a good consensus with all of our different partnering agencies to really come together and build what we want practice-based coaching to look like in North Carolina and how we move forward with that.

So, what are our lessons learned? I think I've basically said it. Our big lesson that I know I've learned is implementation takes collaboration. Again, we have multiple partners that are up and working with us. We're continuing to do some of these different pieces together. Practice- based coaching – it's a collaborative effort. Like I said, we've had multiple partners that are included in every step of the planning and implementation. We've worked hard to ensure that implementing practice-based coaching is not something that is the division of child development early education is doing. We're not making anyone do this. Instead, we're shifting, creating a shift in coaching, and we're doing that all together as a cohesive unit.

Kristi: So, last slide is next steps. So, after we complete the practice-based coaching learning collaborative pilot, we plan to make the learning collaborative open to our general technical assistance specialists across the state. And we think then we'll have a model that, like we said, will be consistent and all of our workforce can benefit from. And then, we also plan to offer special projects through our quality dollars that we use or any other special projects and really embed this practice-based coaching model into those activities. One that I can think of off the top of my head is our Infant-Toddler Quality Enhancement project and others where there is a part of coaching involved. We want to embed this model in all of those projects. So, that's where we are in North Carolina, and we're very thankful to be here today to share.

Anita: Thank you, Kristi and Theresa. We really appreciate that, and to give Oklahoma and Utah time, we're going to move right to Vikki Dobbins from Oklahoma. And, Vikki, you have about four minutes to share.

Vicki Dobbins: Oh my. OK, here we go. It's going to be a roller coaster, So, we started in 2019. Our CDF state administrator and then our Administrator for Professional Development Quality Initiatives ... They requested some assistance in looking at various – excuse me – various coaching models. And after giving those overviews, Oklahoma decided to go with practice- based coaching and requested work with NCECDTL in setting that up. So, they identified a leadership team, and that leadership team attended the Leadership Academy. And then we scheduled a PBC training institute in March. And we're very ... We wanted to ensure that there was a broad representation from all of our partners that work with us, work with providers.

And so, the Training Institute, we invited our coaches, our Child Care Resource and Referral, the TA providers and the coaches. We made sure that there's a tribal representation, higher ed, and then CECPD is our professional-development system, and then child care licensing. And you can go to the next slide.

And at the same time, we were looking at our QRIS criteria and updating our QRIS criteria. And our governor and the Director of Department of Human Services, as well as our State Administrator for Child Care Services ... The focus was that we were going to become a hope-centered, trauma-informed social-emotional state. And so, we looked at the pyramid model and started working with the pyramid model innovations to offer services to become a pyramid model state. And so, we have gotten assistance through them and offering community of practices wrapped around pyramid model and practice-based coaching. And then we also developed a needs assessment for practitioners during this time. And NCECDTL offered a peer- learning community to our R&R staff, and that's ongoing now. And then we've been getting some support from Anita and NCECDTL as far as monthly support calls. We really looked at our state priorities and decided that we needed a uniform voice and that we all needed to be offered the same opportunities where we have gone and are doing more intensive professional development and going – and with the practice-based coaching. Our next steps are that we're going to be looking at the Head Start Coaching Companion. With COVID, we're finding that we need support wrapped around a virtual coaching and then continuing with our peer-learning community, both with the pyramid-model innovations and with NCECDTL, with Anita. That was pretty fast.

Anita: Thank you, Vikki. I do want to give Oklahoma and Vikki great kudos for their flexibility, their willingness to take what they learned in the Leadership Academy and make adjustments for practice-based coaching based on their new priorities and their new focus in the state and realizing how practice-based coaching as a coaching framework could really support those state priorities and to capture the data that they want to capture, to document both the effectiveness of coaching and the changes in practice social-emotional practices in the state. So, it's been a pleasure working with you, Vikki, and kudos to your flexibility and your desire to meet the providers where they're at and focus on what their needs are, so thank you for that.

And we have a few minutes for Utah to share, and take it away, Kim.

Kim Melville: Alright, thank you. I can talk really fast, as well. So, I'm Kim. I work at the Office of Child Care. I have been helping on this project partway through. I entered after our team had been involved in the PLC. And so, at the Office of Child Care, we're the agency that oversees and distributes the CCDF funding, and we work with several different community partners out in our field, including our resource and referrals. We have an early childhood mental health agency and an out-of-school-time agency that also help support the work that we do. And similar to some of the other states, we recognize that we had many initiatives going on in the community and a lot of effort going out, but we didn't have a framework that was keeping it all in one model, one thing that we can start really seeing sustainable change. And after doing lots and lots of work in the community, we really wanted to come together and create something that was going to move our community forward and keep us going in that direction. So, as we met and did the Leadership Academy, we made the decision to go ahead ... And we had lots of support from Anita and Catherine at the time to help us work with some of our community partners, to bring them on board and get them up to date. And then we were able to have the PBC Training Institute that came and did the training with all of our coaches. So, all of our coaches included family child care specialists, EC specialists, and out-of-school-time specialists. And they are the team that will do all of the coaching for the QRIS system, which we are starting to implement, but it did get slowed down with the COVID pandemic that has been going on. So, we've had lots of support on getting needs assessments figured out for our state.

[Inaudible] ... work on getting goals and understanding cycles and understanding how to problem-solve – all of these steps that we've been implementing PBC. And I'm going to turn it over to Betzy and let her share some of the things that we've been doing on implementing.

Sonia Aguilera: So, this is actually Sonia. Betzy? Betzy Mulwee: No, go ahead.

Sonia: Go ahead. Betzy: Sonia, go ahead.

Sonia: OK. So, our state provided the opportunity for family child care providers to participate in what is called Family Child Care Quality Project that utilized that practice-based coaching model during the two nine-month projects we run. Some of the challenges and successes we experienced as we implemented PBC included drifting. Even though learning and implementing PBC was received positively by the family child care specialists, they recognized at the beginning of the project drifting to past coaching practices was observed. So, through ongoing support and training, we were able to overcome this challenge. Another challenge we saw was, we needed to practice really finding goals that met the requirements for PBC. So, they need practicing with goals that were specific, measurable, attainable, time-bound. Likewise, the specialists reported that our family providers often needed extra support practicing developing goal-achievement statements that focus on provider's actions rather than children's actions.

And then on our third one, providing feedback, our third challenge. Providing feedback in a timely manner was a challenge. And we were able to reach out and receive support from Anita Allison. What we saw is that we were visiting twice a month, and feedback was not being provided. So, after this, we ... Hello? Hello? When refection was not, reflection of feedback was not given right after the focused observation, a phone call and an e-mail with written feedback was provided within two business days after the focused observation. Some successes ... A statewide coaching model was embraced by family child care specialists and providers. We had a total of 2,313 on-site professional development visits. And our providers have achieved at least two best practices and one business practice. Our next steps is that ... Our hope is that all family child care providers will be joining the Child Care Quality System next year with our family child care project. Betzy?

Betzy: So, with that, I'm just going to close out really quick to say that some of the unique aspects of our program is that we've actually implemented PBC through a quality rating system, the support piece that we have implemented, and we have been working on integrating it into a child care system that is ... [Inaudible] Head Start So, we are working with family child care, school-age, and child care center-based programs. Our next steps in our PBC model ... We are going to provide continued professional development. We launched the EarlyEdU PBC in-depth training that the University of Washington gets. All of our coaches have gone through that module, that training. And actually, our family coaches are continuing to go through that. And that has helped cement the PBC model for our state. We will continue that professional development to ensure that we follow PBC to fidelity, and we are exploring the Coaching

Companion so that we can support coaches on the ground through our quality rating systems and support keys that we provide so that you can continue providing support to all of the facilities around the state.

Anita: Thank you Betzy, thank you Kim, and thank you Sonia. Utah has been my greatest privilege to work with, and also because they've been with me so long and really sought to do PBC well ... And I give them great kudos for accessing the PBC courses from the University of Washington. And thank you so much for your commitment and passion for this topic. Awuse, I'm going to turn it over to you to close us out.

Awuse: Thank you, Anita. Thank you, everyone, so much for joining the webinar, and we really appreciate you joining us today. I hope that everyone has a great day.

Close