Professional Development
Professional Development is embedded in our core values. It is an expectation of employment and every member of our team participates in professional development opportunities relevant to their position. Professional Development opportunities include attending workshops and training sessions, participating on network sessions and facilitating workshops for parents/guardians and other professionals.
We believe that early child development sets the foundation for lifelong learning, behaviour and health. Our early childhood professionals have knowledge and observations of the children’s interests and development that they use to plan their programs. They exchange information with families about their child’s developing skills. Knowledgeable, responsive early childhood professionals are essential. Our staff is given opportunities to grow professionally. They bring a wealth of education and expertise which they share within our programs and in the community.
Whitehills Childcare Association is a participant in the community, peer driven accreditation program “Raising the Bar”. As part of our commitment to “Raising the Bar” our program staff (educators, cooks and supervisors) are required to participate in a minimum of 4 professional development opportunities per year.
Staff are encouraged to participate on community committees and networking groups. Some of our educators go out into various communities to present workshops for other professional on topics such as Emergent Curriculum and Ontario’s Early Learning Framework. We host opportunities for other professionals to come into our facilities to learn from our best practice.
Leadership and Mentoring
It is very important to Whitehills Childcare Association that we have leaders who are connected with the child care community and the broader children’s services community. Program Supervisors, our Executive Director and our Financial Manager are all involved in community committees and sub-committees. They share a wealth of knowledge and are active participants. They bring information back to their staff and management team.
Mentoring is an important component of professional development. It helps to ensure that all members of our team are given the time to understand the core values and curriculum approach of the organization, to ask questions and to learn new strategies and best practice. Mentoring takes many forms within our organization, supervisor to staff, staff to supervisor and peer to peer. This extends to the community where our staff are involved in mentoring other child care programs and children’s services in the best practice of Ontario’s Early Learning Framework.