Collaborative Learning Opportunities for Early Educators
About CLOEE
CLOEE, or Collaborative Learning Opportunities for Early Educators, serves as a Child Care Health Consultant’s (CCHC) opportunity to bring early care and education (ECE) programs together to learn, blending online meetings with in-person visits. CCHCs support ECE programs as they identify practices that need improvement and collaborate to create quality improvement (QI) plans to move toward better practices. CCHCs are available to give support in creating plans to sustain new practices and build sustainable, healthy habits.
Collaborative Sessions
Collaborative Sessions are learning opportunities held in person or virtually. The sessions focus on the CLOEE topic and allow for ECE Programs to share challenges and successes with others in the group.
View the recording of Session 1(Passcode: sX=$N2YN).
Resources from Session 1:
Resources from Session 2:
Think about the following questions and discuss them with your Leadership Team and CCHC:
How do you organize passing along important information to staff?
- Do you deliver it in stages or give it all at once?
- Do you give opportunities for staff to sit with it and absorb it before coming back to you or the group with questions or concerns?
- Is it through email, staff meetings, or bulletin boards?
Do you have an open-door policy where staff feel comfortable asking questions about new practices or changes?
- Are you comfortable answering those questions?
- What resources do you have/need to support you?
CCHCs assess the knowledge and behavior of early educators and the indoor and outdoor environments of ECE programs using the NC HSAET tool. Assessment includes on-site observation, conversations with early educators, reviewing forms, documents, and policies, and identifying unmet health and safety needs. Assessments are conducted in a classroom or other appropriate areas of the ECE program, such as a kitchen, playground, or where paperwork is stored.
CCHCs support early educators in implementing the strategies identified in the QI planning process through a series of encounters. For example, by providing training and technical assistance, developing and implementing a new policy, behavior change, or environment modification.
After implementation of the quality improvement strategies, a follow-up health and safety assessment is completed on the areas chosen for quality improvement. This is an opportunity to evaluate whether areas identified as needing intervention were comprehensively addressed with sustainable outcomes.