Professional Development
The Institute’s professional development initiative works to ensure that New York’s early childhood workforce has access to a comprehensive suite of high-quality training and technical assistance offerings that are aligned with professional competencies and that prepare them to support children’s well-being, learning, and development.
Our team develops and pilots training content and technical assistance models to address identified gaps in educator knowledge and practice.
Areas of focus
Develop and support New York's early childhood professional preparation workforce
We collaborate with our partners to build a pipeline of skilled faculty, trainers, and coaches.
Develop content for professional learning
We create professional learning content that can be implemented statewide for caregivers and educators in various roles, programs, and settings.
Develop and implement innovative models of relationship-based professional development
We develop and test coaching, mentoring, and peer-learning models that can be scaled for implementation to support educator and leader effectiveness and program quality statewide.
How we work
Public and private funding help our professional development team innovate. Our team has implemented several key initiatives aimed at strengthening teacher and leader capacity and effectiveness. Here is an overview of our current and past projects:
Coaching for early childhood programs
The Institute provides coaching to principals, executive directors, educational directors, family workers, teachers, assistant teachers, and aides. Our coaches work in a variety of settings, from home-based to center-based, to current and emerging leaders who are part of our Early Childhood Leadership Initiative, to fee-for-service clients across the city in infant-toddler and pre-K programs in centers and schools. Find out more about Institute coaching.
Induction coaching
The Institute provided coaching for lead/head teachers beginning their careers, with the support of a generous grant from the Kellen Foundation through 2021-2023. The goal of this coaching initiative was to retain high-quality early childhood teachers and reduce turnover, which compromises program quality. Teachers who receive coaching during those critical first years are more likely to feel competent and confident in their practice and thus more likely to continue their career in early childhood education.
Coaching in QUALITYstarsNY programs
As part of an initiative to improve program quality, the Institute launched a coaching initiative in 2023 to support participating QUALITYstarsNY programs and their teaching staff through coaching. Coaches use the New York State Core Body of Knowledge to anchor practice-based classroom coaching in QUALITYstarsNY programs across New York State. Coaches support various program types, including family child care, center-based, and school-based programs.
Sustaining the mental health environment in early childhood classrooms
The Institute piloted and implemented a coaching initiative to support the social and emotional climate of early childhood classrooms in select QUALITYstarsNY programs in 2020-24, supported by a generous grant through the Robin Hood Foundation. The Institute implemented a coaching model aligned with the Climate of Healthy Interactions for Learning & Development (CHILD) tool. This observation tool measures the mental health climate of early childhood classrooms through a focus on interactions, adult collaboration, and social and emotional learning.
Leadership coaching
In collaboration with the Institute's Early Childhood Leadership Initiative, Institute coaches provide individualized, strength-based, reflective coaching to early childhood leaders who have determined a need and want to meet their self-identified, competency-based professional development goals.
Meet our team
To learn more about our professional development team, please visit our staff page.