One of the hallmarks of being a professional field of practice with a united commitment to a competent and accountable workforce is having a set of agreed upon practice standards that guide practitioners and families about the most effective ways to improve learning and enhance outcomes for young children and their families. The 2014 DEC Recommended Practices represent the practice standards for EI/ECSE. DEC seeks your input and involvement with the dissemination and product development plan to ensure that the 2014 DEC Recommended Practices are understood and implemented across the broad field of early childhood, including Head Start, public pre-k, early care and education, and family support. Share your perspective, brainstorm with colleagues, and strengthen dissemination efforts.

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Participants will explore a research-based approach to STEM professional development for preschool educators using hands-on explorations and rich discussions in the context of the garden.

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DEC seeks your input and involvement with the disseminiation and product development plan to ensure that the 2014 recommended practices are understood and implemented across the broad field of early childhood. Share your perspective, brainstorm with colleagues, and strengthen dissemination efforts.

The new DEC family recommended practices provide home visitors with specific guidance about enhancing families' abilities to engage their children in learning activities. Participants will learn how to use the new DEC family practices through video demonstrations and how to use a self-reflection tool developed for the DEC family practices.

The project was designed to study the nature of the burnout phenomenon among Head Start Social Services Coordinators in eight southeastern states. The association of age, sex, marital status, years employed, program size, caseload, race, education and perceived level of stress to the three subscales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) were correlated on a population of 59 coordinators representing 25% of the total population. Years employed was shown to be negatively correlated to the Emotional Exhaustion subscale. Perceived stress levels due to workload were most strongly associated with emotional exhaustion. Relationship to the other factors studied was not significant. The findings provide support for the contention that burnout does exist among members of this population and that steps need to be taken at the individual and agency levels to combat the stressful conditions related to burnout. While emotional exhaustion and lack of personal accomplishment were shown to exist, the subjects showed little to no evidence of depersonalization in working with their clients.