The Program for Infant/Toddler Care Trainer Institutes

Who Should Attend

• Infant/toddler program administrators and managers
• Staff with training responsibilities in an infant/toddler program or a resource and referral agency
• Teachers of infant/toddler classes in two- and four-year colleges
• Independent trainers of family childcare providers and/or infant/toddler caregivers in center-based programs
• Infant/toddler teachers/trainers in one of the following programs: high school vocational education, parent and teen parent education, migrant infant/toddler, early intervention or special needs

Goals of the PITC Trainer Institutes

Trainers deepen their own understanding of the Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC) philosophy and relationship-based curriculum and acquire skills in the integrated presentation of the concepts contained in the PITC videos and guides. The institutes also support the efforts of caregivers and program managers to develop and implement infant/toddler program policies that assure high quality standards of care.

Format of the PITC Trainer Institutes

California Institutes: The four training modules are presented in two separate week-long institutes at locations in Northern and Southern California. The institutes are presented free for qualifying residents by the California Department of Education, Child Development Division (CDD), in conjunction with the WestEd Center for Child and Family Studies. Activities include seminars and other instructional exchanges with noted infant/toddler experts and core faculty from CDD and WestEd. Training sessions in each module also focus on adult learning and teaching strategies. Beyond California: WestEd also conducts PITC Institutes for trainers and caregivers nationally and internationally, by arrangement.

What You Learn

Module I: Social-Emotional Growth and Socialization. In addition to investigating the relationships between social-emotional development, temperament, and responsive caregiving, participants learn about guidance and discipline in group care and understanding and supporting the individual needs of infants and toddlers.

Module II: Group Care. Participants explore the importance of primary caregiving and continuity, how to work with small groups and to provide individualized care, how to make the most of caregiving routines, and how to structure the environment for group care.

Module III: Learning and Development. Participants focus on brain development in infancy, how to stimulate brain development and cognitive and language development, and how to include children with disabilities and other special needs into the group learning environment.

Module IV: Culture, Family, and providers.Participants consider the crucial role of cultural competence and culturally sensitive child care
and how to form partnerships with parents on each child's behalf.

Who Facilitates Your Learning

Institute faculty include early childhood experts, consultants from the California Department of Education, and staff of WestEd. Most faculty are professors and instructors at universities and colleges, and many contributed to the development of the training materials.

What Resources Support Your Learning

The full PITC curriculum for caregivers, based on training videos and curriculum guides, is supplemented with trainer manuals and supplementary resources.

What the Research Says

PITC is based on the work of many researchers, including Piaget, Vygotsky, Greenspan, Brazelton, Chess, Bornstein, Watts, Kuhl, Lally, Yarrow, Gordon, and Caldwell, and the theoretical and clinical work of Fraiberg, Mahler, Erikson, Gerber, Derman-Sparks and others. Its practice is consistent with the conclusions of two recent studies of early childhood development research conducted by the National Research Council, From Neurons to Neighborhoods and Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers. PITC has drawn on research to create science-based themes of study for those working with infants and toddlers in groups. Each workshop module is anchored in research findings and presented in a way that makes that research understandable to practitioners.

Cost

• California Participants: Sixty fellowships are awarded by the state of California per each two-module institute. (See the PITC website for enrollment requirements. Academic units are available for a fee.
• Out-of-State Participants: The registration fee for each two-module part of the institute is $3,200, or $6,400 for all four modules. Fees cover tuition, PITC curriculum guides, trainer manuals, supplementary reading materials, hotel accommodations (double-occupancy), and most meals. Single-occupancy rooms are available for an additional fee. Academic units are available for a fee.

Contact Information

Alicia Tuesta
415.289.2319
atuesta@wested.org