FAMILY CHILD CARE RULE CHANGE ON SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

In November 2009, revisions to the Colorado Department of Human Services, Division of Child Care Rules Regulating Family Child Care Homes passed with some revisions that relate to how providers can support young children’s social and emotional development. The rule change relates to the continuing education requirements and reads as follows :

Licensees requesting continuation of a permanent license shall complete an additional fifteen (15) clock hours of training each year. Three (3) of the fifteen (15) clock hours must be in social emotional development

The three clock hours of required early childhood socialemotional professional development/training for every licensed provider (7.707.32 B) must relate to at least one of the following topic categories:

1. Nurturing and responsive relationships with children, families and coworkers
2. High quality environments that promote healthy social-emotional development
3. Teaching social-emotional skills in group care
4. Interventions and supports to address concerning behaviors and promote healthy social-emotional development in group care
5. Understanding early childhood mental health consultation

Examples of trainings that could meet the requirement include but are not limited to:

• Circle of Security
• Devereax Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) ECE Care
• Expanding Quality in Infant/Toddler Care (EQ I/T)
• The Incredible years
• Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect: Parent- Provider Partnerships in Child Care (PCAN)
• The Pyramid Model
• Relationship Roots
• Touchpoints
• Training provided by an Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant related to the above topic categories

College coursework and informal trainings and workshops are also acceptable to meet the three clock hours in social-emotional content within any one of the five topic categories. Additionally, early childhood mental health consultants can help identify and provide appropriate training.