March 28th, 2024

2:00-2:30 PM EDT

Encourage young ones to share their thoughts and stories as they gather around the dining table- family style. This interactive experience fosters not only healthy eating habits but also helps them learn the art of conversation, where little voices can be heard and cherished. Receive tips on how to make family style dining kid-friendly and discover resources to start conversing with children at the table!

Family Style Dining: Conversations Around the Table – Event Registration (growthzoneapp.com)

This four-part webinar with printable posters and resources from the National Center for Healthy Housing is specifically created for family child care providers to partner with families to prevent children and pregnant parents from coming in contact with lead and take necessary steps to remediate if lead is found in homes or via bloodwork, including links to financial assistance for lead remediation.

Babies born with high levels of lead in their blood are more likely to be born prematurely, be small for their gestational age, and grow more slowly than they should. Children exposed to lead may have developmental delays, learning difficulties, hearing loss, seizures, and more. Family child care providers can be great advocates for families in getting children tested for lead exposure and spreading information about places lead-containing materials may be hiding.

View all materials here: Lead-Safe Toolkit for Home-Based Child Care | NCHH

Sharing this excellent webinar recording by the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning – Meaningful makeovers: Overcoming Challenges in the Family Child Care Setting.

While makeovers help make the environment look appealing to children and their families, the makeovers are also meaningful because of the environmental changes that support children’s learning and development.

Following along  a provider as she makeover her space and gives you suggestions to create a change in your own space

To webinar

During our webinar, Child Development for the Family Child Care Provider, there were many providers offering excellent suggestions and strategies for helping to bridge the home and FCC experience and partnering with parents in this process. Here are a few of the highlights:

• ­“I find that the children in my child care home adapt to their environment with me better when I try to include things that maybe they do at home.­”
• ­“There is a child who I cared for who used to throw very big tantrums and have huge melt downs when he did not get his way. I sat down with mom and she stated he did the same thing at home also. So we both agreed on a strategy and we both did it­”.
• “Role modeling is very important. Children do what they see us do­”.
• ­“I believe when we are supportive of families, and encourage love and give hope and encouragement and understanding, and show support for families, it helps the families to feel like someone is in their corner and they are not all alone in parenting­”.
• ­“I offer hand-outs, give website links and short reads to my parents. I also host a parent meeting annually where just the parents are able to attend, we discuss topics, I share what I know, and we together look for answers”.

(These are quotes from FCC professionals who participated in the webinar and contributed their questions and ideas during the live webinar. We have made minor edits to some quotes to fit this format. To view the recording of the webinar, click on the Professional Development section and explore webinars).