Developing and sustaining pedagogical leadership in early childhood education and care professionals

Abstract

This project sought to enhance the learning and teaching opportunities in higher education and to build the leadership capacity and sustainability of transdisciplinary practices with Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) professionals. The project was designed as a means of developing and sustaining leadership in the early years’ sector in order to build the capacity of early education and care professionals to lead practice in integrated early years’ settings. Integrated practice in the early years occurs in practice settings where disciplines of early childhood education and health care and community services, work together to support children and families. Multiple perspectives and strategies were used, which are informed by evidence bases in all and not just some of the disciplines involved. Increasingly, child care settings are being used as focal points for the delivery of integrated services, with little attention being paid to how such services might be informed by the multiple disciplinary services of the staff who are working in them. The project team sought to devise a professional development strategy to support ECEC professionals to develop their leadership capacity, thereby increasing their confidence about how their own knowledge, understandings and skills might contribute to the design and implementation of integrated services in ECEC. The project was based on the notion that professional development opportunities that were designed to enhance ECEC leadership needed to be free (where possible), easily accessible and continuously available. Therefore, the team sought to produce professional development resources that could assist ECEC professionals to enhance leadership skills, particularly when encountering practice in integrated settings.