Virginia Department of Education – VDOE
VAAEYC works closely with the VDOE to provide information and resources for Early Childhood Educators in Virginia.
Resources and Organizational Support for Early Care and Education in Virginia
Assist VQB5 programs (birth to five) in using data to improve the quality of teacher-child interactions, curriculum and professional development, focusing particularly on classrooms with demonstrated need.
Target Audience: Early childhood programs participating in VQB5, prioritizing supports for publicly- funded programs.
Online courses used to meet licensing & subsidy health and safety requirements.
Target Audience: Child care centers & family day home providers.
Better Kid Care – Penn State Extension
Child Care Aware of Virginia is a community-based network of child care and early education specialists. We deliver services to families, child care professionals and communities, working to increase the accessibility, availability and quality of child care in Virginia.
CLICK HERE for their website
The Child Study Center (CSC) is a specialty research, service, and training facility devoted to the comprehensive assessment, treatment, prevention, and understanding of problems of childhood and adolescence.
Target Audience: The Child Study Center provides comprehensive diagnostic evaluations for children and adolescents aged 16 years or younger.
Distance learning courses to support completion of the Infant-Toddler and Pre-K endorsement programs.
Target Audience: Child care and family day home educators.
Community College Workforce Alliance – Child Care Provider Training (CCWA)
Consultation services that include collaborative, one-on-one coaching to help early childhood teachers and families promote young children’s healthy social-emotional development based on identified needs.
Target Audience: Publicly-funded center- based and school-based birth-to-five programs.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
Partnership with Radford University and Lynchburg University to provide coursework to Virginia preservice and in-service teachers pursuing a license and/or endorsement in ECSE.
Target Audience: ECSE teachers with provisional licensure, and other educators seeking ECSE endorsement.
Early Childhood Special Education Consortium (ECSE Consortium)
Support Ready Regions and interested child care programs with recruiting and training new assistant teachers through an accelerated 4- week virtual course aligned with CHD 120 – plus provide pathways to continue education and receive competitive employment compensation.
Child care programs in need of assistant teachers; people looking to become employed in child care programs.
Online training courses on the new learning guidelines for children ages birth to five, resulting in a microcredential.
Target Audience: Available to teachers in all birth-to-five settings, with a special focus on family day home and child care educators. Rolling enrollment.
First Steps is a network of agencies and individuals working to support young children and families in the New River Valley.
Target Audience: Professionals and individuals who work to support children, youth and families of the New River Valley.
First Steps– Community Foundation of the New River Valley
The Infant & Toddler Connection of Virginia is Virginia’s early intervention system for infants and toddlers (age 0-36 months) with disabilities and their families. Early intervention supports and services focus on increasing the child’s participation in family and community activities that are important to the family. In addition, support and services focus on helping parents and other caregivers know how to find ways to help their children learn during everyday activities.
Target Audience: Any infant or toddler in Virginia who isn’t developing as expected or who has a medical condition that can delay typical development is eligible to receive early intervention support and services under Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The Infant & Toddler Connection of Virginia’s supports and services are available to all eligible children and their families regardless of a family’s ability to pay.
Fellowship program that provides evidence-based literacy support to at-risk Pre-K students to diversify the educator pipeline, and assist fellowship participants in understanding the teacher education and licensure process in Virginia.
Target Audience: VPI and Head Start classrooms of participating local school divisions, and community-based early childhood centers. Currently offered in Northern VA (Metro DC area) and Central Virginia.
Literacy Lab
OneOp is a grant funded by the US Dept. of Defense and Dept. of Agriculture that provide free, evidence-based, online professional development in both live and on-demand formats. Our team from the University of Illinois produces content focused on young children with disabilities (0-5) and on military-connected students (5-22).
Current Webinar Series:
2024 series, “Thriving Together: Fostering Emotional Resilience in Children & Youth,” is devoted entirely to child and youth (ages birth to 22 years) well-being and resilience. In April they will host the first two webinars in the series.
- April 2, 2024 Tiny Hearts, Big Emotions: Cultivating Emotional Learning and Development with Responsive Practices This webinar explores emotional intelligence development from birth to five years old, focusing on regulation, attachment, and expression within cultural contexts.
- April 18, 2024 Harmony of Expression: Exploring Social and Emotional Development in Middle Childhood Through Expressive Art Approaches This webinar covers social-emotional development in middle childhood (6-12 years old) and expressive art’s role in aiding transitions and loss.
All the webinars are recorded for on-demand viewing! So, if you miss any live dates, you can always go back and access this important content. Various continuing education credits and certificates of attendance are available. For more information see the attached fliers or visit https://oneop.org/series/thrivingtogether/
Their most recent asynchronous course offering is “Professional Ethics in Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education.” This course offers foundational information related to ethics, how ethics is a part of cultural competence, and strategies and resources for making ethical decisions that are culturally competent in your work with young children and their families.
Strengthen the skills of early childhood professional development providers to deliver high quality education, training, and technical assistance.
Target Audience: Early childhood professional development providers, and higher education staff.
PD Essentials (previously called Virginia Cross-Sector Professional Development Team)
Economic development project specifically targeted toward workforce development.
Target Audience: Business and organizational leaders in the 21 localities of Southwest Virginia.
Low-to-no cost comprehensive birth to five curriculum option. For two initial groups of up to 2,000 classrooms, includes all guides and activities, a set of high-quality children’s books and targeted and customized professional development support, including direct coaching.
Target Audience: Publicly-funded early childhood programs in Virginia. Cohort enrollment required for full materials and PD support. Online materials and PD tools available to all publicly-funded early childhood programs in Virginia.
Provide professional development, technical assistance, and resources to school divisions to improve the outcomes of students with disabilities.
Target Audience: School divisions providing special education services to young children with disabilities.
Provide professional development, technical assistance, and resources to educators providing services to young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and to families raising and supporting young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Target Audience: School divisions providing special education services to young children Autism Spectrum Disorder and families with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
The Alliance speaks up for family child care businesses at the local, state, and national levels.
Target Audience: Virginia Family Child Care Programs
The Virginia Child Care Association advocates for the needs of licensed and private early childhood education and school-age programs.
Target Audience: Virginia Child Care Centers
Assists child care staff in completing undergraduate college courses required for a certificate or degree in early childhood education.
Target Audience: Child care and family day home educators.
VCU conducts an annual needs assessment for the Head Start Collaboration office that examines the relationships Head Start grantees have with state and community partners.
Target Audience: Head Start and Early Head Start programs.
Virginia Commonwealth University – Head Start Statewide Needs Assessment (VCU)
Virginia’s Community Colleges offer the lowest tuition rates in the state with flexible pathways to fit school into life with personal guidance from dedicated professors.
Target Audience: Open to individuals pursuing a post secondary associates degree or certification.
The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) provides nutritious meals and snacks that contribute to the wellness, healthy growth, and development of young children, and the health and wellness of older adults and chronically impaired disabled persons. Participating institutions receive reimbursement by serving these nutritious meals to eligible individuals who are enrolled for care at participating child and adult care centers. CACFP also provides meals and snacks to children and youth who participate in afterschool care programs or reside in emergency shelters.
Target Audience: Child Care Centers, Head Start Centers, Outside School Hours Care Centers, Adult Care Centers, Emergency Shelters, & Family Day Care Homes.
VA Department of Health Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)
VECF serves as Virginia’s public-private partner in building strategic and sustained focus on the healthy development and school readiness of our youngest children. VECF is the non-partisan steward of Virginia’s promise for early childhood success, working in tandem with diverse stakeholders to ensure equitable opportunities for all families with young children to thrive.
Target Audience: State and local legislative and community leaders, families and educators.
Provide training and advocacy support to enhance the growth of Head Start educators, agencies, partners and others who impact the lives of Head Start children and families.
Target Audience: Head Start and Early Head Start programs.
Improve the quality of care and education that infants and toddlers receive in child day centers and family day homes, by supporting success within VQB5, increasing provider education and competency, and increasing the use of practices to promote social and emotional development of infants and toddlers.
Target Audience: Child care and family day homes with children under three, prioritizing supports for publicly-funded infant and toddler programs participating in VQB5.
Voices for Virginia’s Children champions public policies and legislation that achieve positive and equitable outcomes for young people. Voices for Viringia’s Children are particularly focused on children whose needs are often overlooked, concentrating our efforts on policies in the areas of early childhood, foster care and adoption, health and mental health, and family economic security.
Target Audience: Virginia’s children, youth and families.
Provides on-site and online training in Early Childhood STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and literacy.
Target Audience: Select school divisions, PK-1st grade.
Wolf Trap Early Childhood STEM Learning Through the Arts Initiative
PD Essentials
PD Essentials prepares Virginia’s professional development providers (trainers, coaches, technical assistance specialists, child care and preschool directors, school administrators, etc.) to support those serving all children birth to age five in home, school, and community settings. They offer a train-the-trainers series, Essentials for Early Childhood Professional Development Providers; a website with information and resources, www.vcpd.net; an online newsletter, Pointers for PD Providers; and quarterly meetings with opportunities for training and collaborating with colleagues.
Learn more at www.vcpd.net
Art Tales for Pre-K
Need ideas for how to talk about art with children? The National Gallery of Art has free resources online and in print for young children. Art Tales is the newest series of lessons and activities with books and videos to keep children engaged. The print versions of this resource can be previewed below.
Art Tales Coloring and Cutout Booklet
Take time to look closely and listen carefully—to the artwork, to the books, and to each other. Let children’s interests and attention span set the pace for a shared looking and reading experience.
Encourage conversation throughout your reading, not just at the end. Sharing thoughts and questions as they arise helps keep everyone engaged.
Follow up your exploration and reading with a museum visit or a hands-on art making experience. What new ideas about an artist’s work—including your own!—do you have after learning more?
Virginia Early Childhood Administrator Professional Credential
Virginia Early Childhood Administrator Professional Credential (VA-ECAP) is an online credentialing program offered by The Source for Learning, Inc. (SFL) that is recognized by the NAEYC. Students earn college credits for Child Development courses offered by Virginia community colleges and clock hours for non-credit Leadership & Management courses offered by SFL (Optional: CEUs offered for non-credit Leadership & Management courses by Old Dominion University.)
vaaeyc is proud to promote educational opportunities through The Source for Learning as a partner for Professional Development.
The Source for Learning’s ECE webinars…
- Feature trending topics in the ECE community.
- Are hosted by experts and experienced early childhood educators.
- Provide professional learning certificates for live and on-demand sessions.
- Are available free of cost.
The Source for Learning is a nonprofit that has been developing education professionals for more than 40 years.
Current Webinar Offerings
Racism in Early Childhood Settings: Interactions with Young Children & Their Families
April 23, 2024
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Register Now
The Impact of Raciolinguistic Bias in Early Childhood Classrooms: A Panel Discussion
May 15, 2024
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Register Now
Creating Equitable Early Childhood Classrooms for Underrepresented Children & Families
June 11, 2024
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Register Now
Looking for more info on this topic?
You can watch parts one and two of our March panel discussion any time on-demand and earn certificates to track your professional learning!
