Afina Learning: A National Initiative to Transform Professional Development
This session was presented during the BUILD 2022 National Conference.
Efforts to support professional learning and create equitable career pathways for the early childhood workforce have long suffered from a combination of content and delivery that don’t build skills, inadequate supports and funding, and too many “dead-end” trainings. This session will explore the possibilities of a new collaborative effort to create equity-focused career pathways for home- and center-based providers, directors and coaches using a custom-built, mobile-first learning platform and modularized, competency-based courses that stack into badges, micro-credentials and college credits/degrees that can be used to support compensation reform. Created with input from thousands of EC professionals, the Afina Learning system is bringing together many of the nation’s leading content providers to provide a “high-tech meets high-touch” system customizable for states.
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Advocating for Early Intervention Our Passion, Our Future
Archived Webinar April 12, 2024
Parents, advocates, early interventionists, and their partners in four very different states will share their experiences to discuss how they formed new partnerships to strengthen Early Intervention and their struggles and solutions. Key themes including equitable access, adequate funding, workforce recruitment/retention, and family voice in decision-making will be highlighted.
Reducing Disparities for Latino Children and Families: A National Latino Infant Policy Agenda Provides Solutions
Blog April 10, 2024
BUILD believes that to effectively meet the needs of young children and their families, we must recognize existing disparities, including opportunity and achievement gaps. Therefore, we see the urgent need to support policy solutions to better serve Latino infants, toddlers, and families.
Operationalizing High-Quality Dual Language Programming: From the Early Years to the Early Grades
Report April 9, 2024
The aim of this brief, from Children's Equity Project and The Century Foundation, is to operationalize what high quality dual language immersion looks like for infants/toddlers, preschoolers, and students in Kindergarten through second grade. The brief provides an overview important context and core concepts foundational for this work, including a description of emergent bilinguals in the United States, a strength-based approaches to bilingualism, a historical account of bilingual education, and a description of how DLI education is part of a broader, equitable child serving system.