Page 107 - Gateways for Early Educators

Gateways for Early Educators
improvements related to language development, health, emotional well-being and physical development.
 COACHING MODEL AND PROGRAM DESIGN
Gateways coaches are described as the program’s greatest strength. The interpersonal skills and experience coaches bring to each coaching relationship are touted as keys to participant success. Yet, a uniformly defined coaching model was not clearly evident from participant responses. This variance was evident in the limited understanding participants had about the range of goals they could set with their coaches, such as Adult-Child Interactions; a lack of awareness of all the program’s services and options available; the range of strategies employed by coaching which included activities as diverse as helping coaches create flyers to assisting them with the development of business plans; and, the lack of consistency regarding the frequency and location of visits across sites.
 INSTITUTIONAL AND SYSTEMIC BARRIERS
Participants were hard pressed to identify any program-related challenges. However, participants did elevate that there were three systemic barriers, unrelated to the program, that they frequently encounter that impacts their abilities to effectively carry out their roles. These barriers include low compensation and need for incentives, stressful workloads, and lack of referrals for childcare.
 ENROLLMENT IN MULTIPLE PROGRAMS
Gateways participants have benefitted from linkages to several other ECE workforce programs, such as Race to the Top (RTT), Project Vistas, and Aspire. This is both a strength and challenge. While those participants who are enrolled in multiple programs appear to have a deeper skill-set, they are not always able to distinguish the scope and services provided to them by each program. This is especially crucial in the area of evaluation when measuring the specific impact of the Gateways program apart from other efforts.
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