Michigan’s Child Care Expulsion Prevention (CCEP) Program, Early Childhood (0-5) Mental Health Consultation Services

DATE:March 27, 2008

TO:DHS-Funded Child Care Expulsion Prevention Projects

MI4C Regional Offices

MSUE Better Kid Care Projects

FROM:Sheri Falvay, Director

Mental Health Services to Children & Families, MDCH

Mark Sullivan, Executive Director

Michigan 4C Association

Dr. Cheri Booth,MSUEAssistant Director and State Leader for Children, Youth and Family Programs

MichiganStateUniversity Extension

RE:MI4C, MSUE and MDCH-CCEPFY 08 Plan to Collaborate on Social-Emotional Development Training for Parents and Child Care Providers

MI4C, MSUE and MDCH-CCEP have developed a FY 08 Plan to Collaborate on Social-Emotional Development Training for Parents and Child Care Providers. The plan is attached for your information. Please take special note of the following points:

  • The goal of the plan is to ensure collaboration among MI4C, MSUE, and CCEP in providing social-emotional development training for parents and child care providers in Michigan in FY 08. The Department of Human Services (DHS) child care licensing rules requiring child care providers to participate in training have increased the demand for training opportunities across the state. Collaboration is essential to meet this demand in a proficient, cost-effective, and consumer-friendly way.
  • MI4C, MSUE, and CCEP strongly encourage our local/regional counterparts to continue to develop and strengthen ongoing collaborative relationships with each other in order to coordinate training schedules, develop a cross-referenced training calendar, publicize each others' offerings at trainings and through newsletters and web sites, and improve the quality of professional development activities related to the social-emotional development of children birth to five years for child care providers and parents. We are well aware that you made great strides in this direction in FY 07and we sincerely appreciate your efforts.
  • If a local/regional 4C or MSUE office asks a CCEP consultant to facilitate or co-facilitate the social-emotional session in one of their regular (16 to 36 hour) training series, the CCEP consultant will report this session to the DHS as “collaborative outreach,” and the 4C or MSUE office will report it as “training.”
  • If a local/regional 4C or MSUE office hosts a special, stand-alone training on social-emotional development and asks the CCEP consultant to conduct the training, the CCEP consultant, not the 4C or MSUE office, will report the session to the DHS as “training.”
  • In FY 07, we completed a comparative analysis of social-emotional development content across MI4C, MSUE and CCEPtraining curricula. Based on this analysis, we agreed to use common definitions and core concepts in seven key areas, so that we all give consistent, basic messages about social-emotional development in our trainings. This year, we are working together to specifically plan how we accomplish the following objectives:
  1. Use the same definition for social-emotional health.
  2. Use the same definition and source for the topic of temperament.
  3. Provide referral information for all three projects at trainings.
  4. Emphasize the importance of the caregiver’s emotional health.
  5. Emphasize the importance of nurturing, responsive caregiving and the importance of having a primary caregiver.
  6. Use a common source for social-emotional milestones.
  7. Emphasize the importance of true partnerships between parents and caregivers in promoting social-emotional health.

We intend to implement these changes in FY 09.

  • We are jointly issuing this memo to make it very clear that our three agencies have endorsed the attached plan. We strongly agree with our funding sources (DHS for CCEP and ECIC for MI4C and MSUE)that by working together, we will do a better job of supporting child care providers and families to promote the social-emotional development of Michigan's youngest children. We appreciate your strong commitment to children and families and your continuing cooperation with this plan.

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2008- Michigan’s Child Care Expulsion Prevention Program