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Trauma-Informed Care for Early Educators

TODAY’S EARLY EDUCATORS NEED COLLEGE LEVEL COURSES IN TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE

As part of a collaborative effort to strengthen and support the dedicated early education and care workforce across Massachusetts, we are committed to providing ideas for the development and implementation of thoughtful and research-informed trauma-informed care content and principles for early educators.

BACKGROUND

In 2019, MASSCAP was awarded a synergy grant from The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts (THFCM) for a new early education and care workforce development initiative called READYGO, Readying Educators And Developing Young Children for Great Outcomes. The first year of the project, 2020, was a planning year. Following the planning year, the project entered a pilot phase (2021), followed by implementation (2022 and beyond). In 2023, we received additional funding from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Livable Communities (EOHLC) to continue the work and expand implementation.

The goal of the READYGO project was to maximize the number and outcomes of children in Early Education and Care/Head Start programs by creating trauma-informed learning environments through new behavioral management skills to successfully impact children’s social and emotional health and academic achievement and by increasing educators’ capacity to deliver trauma-informed care and foster more equitable educational outcomes for children.

The project included:

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Developing two 4-credit courses on trauma-informed learning environments and behavioral management skills to be included in early educators’ degree work and certification through Mount Wachusett Community College (MWCC) and Quinsigamond Community College (QCC)

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Providing workforce education and training in adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) at 3 community-based Early Education and Care/Head Start providers: Making Opportunity Count (MOC), Worcester Community Action Councill (WCAC), and The YMCA of Central MA

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Using a research-based approach to develop a scalable model for system-wide changes to provide early educators with the skills and credentials needed to optimize outcomes for children in their classrooms

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Connecting with the other Massachusetts Community Colleges and the Urban College to work on integrating this approach into their programs

THE TOOLKIT

After developing, piloting, and evaluating the set of trauma-informed care courses—and regularly discussing our progress and results with the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care—we embarked in late 2022 on a vision to share the content and principles developed as part of the original READYGO project with early educators across the state, resulting in the development of a toolkit for higher education faculty and institutions to develop course content and integrate into their programs.

Download the Toolkit

Please complete the form below to download your copy of the toolkit. This information is for MASSCAP internal use only and will not be shared with any outside party.