About this Resource Library and the Professional Standards & Competencies
About This Site
This site curates a variety of free, accessible, quality resources that are related to and align with the Professional Standards and Competencies (PS&Cs) for Early Childhood Educators. It is designed to support all higher education faculty teaching early childhood education related coursework and those in the field providing training, mentoring, professional development and technical assistance to early childhood educators serving our profession.
It is hoped that this resource will continue to expand in the future with additional resources and example assignments and activities.
Acknowledgements
This resource was made possible thanks to those that funded, inspired, created, supported and reviewed the work of this project. Great admiration and appreciation particularly goes to…
W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation for funding support for this project.
ACCESS for the inspiration and feedback that led to this work.
Danielle Savory Seggerson (Lansing Community College) who led the identification of quality resources/content for this project and served on the project leadership team.
Christopher Smith, Kadisha Conteh and Fausto Miranda who assisted with critical behind the scenes technical support.
Mary Harrill and Erin Speer Smith for their service on the project leadership team, site design and library populating.
Laurie Westcott, Jill Harrison, Ginny Harmelink, Michelle Napierkowski, Kate Varey, and Melanie Horowitz-Coyne who served as content reviewers for the project.
Shawna Daniels, Chris Emlet and Nicole Guthrie who served as user experience reviewers for the project.
The authors/creators of the resources curated within the library— for without their great work, there would be no resource library.
Lastly, special appreciation to all higher education faculty, professional development and technical assistance providers in the Early Childhood Education (ECE) profession who work tirelessly each day to educate and support fellow ECE professionals in strengthening their knowledge and skills for the young children and families that they serve. This site’s creation was especially to support your amazing work! Thank you!
About the Professional Standards & Competencies for Early Childhood Educators
For the Profession... By the Profession.
The Professional Standards & Competencies for Early Childhood Educators outlines the “core body of knowledge, skills, values, and dispositions early childhood educators must demonstrate to effectively promote the development, learning, and well-being of all young children. “
The goal of a higher education program in Early Childhood Education is to ensure that the program coursework, experiences, assignments and assessments are aligned to what our profession has outlined as important for early childhood educators to know and be able to do— thus aligned to the Professional Standards & Competencies.
The intent of the standards and competencies goes beyond just higher education professional preparation programs and was also designed to be applied to ECE program and state policy professional development systems, licensure, and professional evaluations.
History of the Professional Standards & Competencies
As part of defining the ECE profession, the Unifying Framework, designates a core set of early childhood educator competencies. The Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators, released in conjunction with the Unifying Framework describes what early childhood educators must know and be able to do in order to effectively support young children and their families.
As states across the country begin implementing the Professional Standards and Competencies and various other pieces of the Unifying Framework, the work is being guided by a multi-organizational and ECE provider commission known as the Commission for Professional Excellence in Early Childhood Education. Learn more about their work here.
The PS&Cs & NAEYC Higher Ed. Accreditation
NAEYC values the role of higher education in advancing the early childhood education profession. Its higher education accreditation system provides a mechanism for early childhood associate, baccalaureate, and initial master’s degree programs to demonstrate their commitment to high-quality professional preparation. The Professional Standards and Competencies are fundamental to programs pursuing NAEYC Higher Education Accreditation. Programs submitting first-time or renewal Self-Study Reports as of 2023 use the 2021 higher education accreditation standards, part of which involves demonstrating alignment of learning opportunities, key assessments, and candidate performance data to the Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators.
