Professional Goals, Hopes and Dreams

           I chose two websites, The Global Fund for Children which I spoke upon previously and now I would like to elaborate on the National Head Start Association (NHSA) at http://www.nhsa.org/. I didn’t know the National Head Start Association is located in Alexandria, VA. This is not too far away if I ever wanted to discuss and rally for social equity. 

           To say, “Without structural support and only a meager paycheck, what will keep a director or teacher motivated to continually self-assess in order to improve their work and its outcomes? What will sustain their commitment to stay in our centers for any length of time? What kind of quality have we achieved if morale is low and relationships are continually disrupted by staff turnover?” The same way nursing had to be established as a profession deserving to be paid its worth, we as ECE must do the same. I would like to see early childhood education become part of the K-12 public school curriculum that is mandatory. To increase the pay of our educators who cultivate future doctors, lawyers, engineers, and every profession you could ever think of. Reviewing their webpage, I came across a tab called Potential Candidates. This is, “The NHSA Health Services Credentials Program designed especially for Head Start health services providers!” (http://www.nhsa.org/). Registration is open all year round for enrollment. They have a fee for NHSA members and non-NHSA members (must pay more) which is an unexpected expense I did not know I had to prepare for.

            Upon completion of this course, some of my professional hopes dreams and challenges are; to open up my own childcare center that services the Early Head Start and Head Start community. The information reviewed from the website is something I must prepare for just to be considered as a service provider. In order to begin this professional development process, I must first reach out to credentials@nhsa.org. Since I am not as knowledgeable as I would like to be regarding the Credentials Program it led me to look into save the dates news and events regarding upcoming conferences tab. I then reviewed how to become a member tab. NHSA has 4 different membership fees and plans. This made me wonder if Walden University held an Associate membership for NHSA, so I called my advisor and she said no. This shocked me because I know so many co-workers and friends who graduated from Undergrad and Grad programs from Walden University with a degree in Early Childhood Education. I do hope she misspoke and Walden Univ. has a place for membership in support of our NHSA community. If all else fails I can still sign up individually as a student which is grand.

            NHSA offers scholarships to all applicants who, “must be current staff or parents of a Head Start program that hold an active membership with the National Head Start Association and are in good standing” (http://www.nhsa.org/). There’re 5 scholarships available so this will prompt me during our next policy council meeting to ask how many names we submitted for any of these scholarships and did anyone win. I believe that any institution you favor and recruit individuals to sign up, participate and support with donations is something you should be well informed of. I appreciate this assignment greatly because it taught me so much about NHSA I knew not of just by taking the time out to explore the website.

Resources

Castle, (2009). What do early childhood professionals do? Dimensions of Early Childhood, 37 (3), 4-9.

(http://www.nhsa.org/)