Family Educator Early Head Start

Child-Parent Centers, Inc. • Tucson, AZ

7d • $17 - $20 • Onsite

About The Position

Child-Parent Centers (CPC) is seeking professionals who share our values and principles for building trusting relationships with children, families, and colleagues. Successful candidates welcome individual differences and perspectives, respect cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and are sensitive to current circumstances. Candidates display a commitment to teamwork, open communication, and are eager to work in a fast-paced, high quality early childhood environment. This is a great opportunity for organized and dependable early childhood or social service professionals with strong work ethic and a desire to grow. CPC provides opportunities and financial support for family educators to grow professionally including attainment of an associate or bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, child development, or social services. If you have previous experience working with families in an early childhood setting or through a home visitation program and are interested in joining our growing team, we encourage you to apply.

Reporting to the site supervisor, the Family Educator engages families as full partners in their own and their children’s development and learning through ongoing and regular support in developing and reaching realistic and achievable long and short-term goals, engaging them in assessing their needs and strengths, and supporting them in taking actions to reach their goals. The Family Educator works with ten enrolled participants and their family through weekly 1.5-hour home visits and bi-monthly 2-hour group socializations. The Family Educator works 8 hours per day, Monday through Friday. The Family Educator receives ongoing support and development through the site supervisor and individualized coaching for the agency's curriculum approach through the Home Base Specialist.

Requirements

• Possess an Associate’s degree from a recognized educational institution in the field of Early Childhood Education, Child Development, Human Development, Family Studies, Social Work, Social Services, Counseling, Psychology, Human Services, Marriage and Family Therapy, Early Childhood Special Education, Education or agreed equivalent that supports high quality implementation of our program as determined by the agency. (Note – applicants who do not possess an associate degree must have a Child Development Associate credential (CDA) and will be required to enroll in coursework to obtain the associate degree).
• Minimum two (2) years documented work experience with adult development and working with infants and toddlers.
• Demonstrated proficiency using Office 365 (Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Must be 18 years of age.
• Possess a valid Arizona driver's license and excellent driving record.
• Must be able to read, write, and speak English and Spanish (bilingual)

Nice To Haves

• Possess a bachelor’s degree from a recognized educational institution in the field of Early Childhood Education, Child Development, Human Development, Family Studies, Social Work, Social Services, Counseling, Psychology, Human Services, Marriage and Family Therapy, Early Childhood Special Education, Education, or closely related field as determined by the agency.
• Three (3) years’ work or volunteer experience in instructing and enhancing growth in adults including those from a variety of ethnic and socio-economic groups.

Responsibilities

• Implement the home-based option through weekly home visits (1-1/2 hours each visit) and bi-weekly two-hour socializations. Plan, document, and evaluate activities with parents.
• Engage families as full partners in their own and their children’s development and learning by helping families develop and reach realistic and achievable long- and short-term goals, engaging them in assessing their needs and strengths, and supporting them in taking actions to reach their goals.
• Strengthen parent-child relationships by helping families recognize the satisfaction and value of engaging with their children and supporting their learning through daily, routine experiences in the home and community.
• Build families’ and children’s self-esteem by drawing on their cultural strengths (e.g., family child bond, extended family, health and nutrition practices) to influence child-rearing skills and to foster positive family interactions.
• Support families in addressing challenges (e.g., mental illness, substance abuse, disabilities, family violence) that affect their well-being, by discussing issues and/or linking them to community.
• Individualize approaches to working with families by drawing on a sound understanding of family development issues and the unique needs of each family.
• Help children develop emerging skills and practice existing ones by providing families with current information about how children learn and equipping parents with the tools and know-how to foster their children’s development and learning.
• Promote children’s development of fine and gross-motor skills by helping families recognize and use opportunities and materials available in the home and community (e.g., walking on sidewalk line or curb, threading buttons on a cord, running outdoors)
• Promote children’s curiosity, engagement, reasoning, and problem solving by helping families use a variety of opportunities to extend conversations with children during everyday home and community experiences.
• Help children gain independence and autonomy in eating, toileting, dressing, and hygiene by supporting families in presenting age-appropriate and manageable tasks encouragingly and by recognizing children’s accomplishments.
• Build children’s awareness of and ability to follow basic health and safety practices by helping families recognize the many opportunities for health and safety learning in daily home and community experiences (e.g., crossing streets, understanding that medicines are administered by adults, washing hands).
• Build children’s oral language skills and support the development of their content knowledge by helping families use a variety of strategies to facilitate mutual sharing and exchange of ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
• Support parent-child interactive book reading by helping families gain access to high-quality children’s books and by providing encouragement and guidance on book reading techniques.
• Help children develop emergent writing skills and encourages their awareness of print and the varied purposes for writing by supporting families in using environmental print (e.g., food labels and boxes, mail, traffic signs, billboards) and by offering a range of writing opportunities at home.
• Support children’s interest in and awareness of numbers, counting, and problem solving by helping families engage children in counting games and provide experiences and materials that link number concepts to numerals and mathematical understanding and vocabulary.
• Promote children’s understanding of size, shape, color, and directionality by supporting families in engaging them in small- and large-motor activities that require them to sort, match, identify patterns, group objects, and measure objects.
• Build children’s ability to compare and talk about the similarities and differences between objects by supporting families in offering experiences with sorting, matching, making patterns, grouping, and measuring.
• Encourage the development of children’s questioning, predicting, investigating, collecting, and analyzing skills by helping families provide opportunities for children to experiment, observe, and express their thoughts, ideas, and experiences.
• Support families in fostering safe, healthy, and nurturing home environments by demonstrating and applying knowledge of the issues they face (e.g., housing, employment, access to services)
• Build children’s understanding of their own and other cultures by helping families provide opportunities for their children to learn about their culture and traditions and those of others within the greater community.
• Foster children’s development of age-appropriate, self-regulated behaviors through helping families establish routines and realistic expectations for their children.
• Support children’s decision making and autonomy by helping families provide children with opportunities to make decisions and resolve conflicts independently.
• Support families’ goals and self-sufficiency by helping them understand and link to resources and programs.
• Help families access and follow up on treatment, support, and intervention programs, including medical homes, by explaining screening and assessment results that require follow-up, initiating referrals, supporting the family in scheduling appointments, and following up to determine results.
• Ensure families’ interest and attendance by involving them in determining the focus and design of education and home-based socialization activities and offering them at convenient times.
• Recruit eligible Head Start families to maintain funded enrollment.
• Identify self-growth, development goals, and strategies for achievement with support and input from supervisor.
• Commit and participate in consistent and planned meetings with supervisor to further professional growth by seeking feedback, reflecting on and assessing own practice, and taking advantage of opportunities to improve skills and knowledge.
• Track family’s progress in accomplishing the goals developed in partnership with them by reviewing goals with the family and documenting achievements on paper and/or in electronic information systems (SmartTeach, ChildPlus).
• Meet federal, state, and program documentation requirements by maintaining accurate, objective, complete, timely, and well-organized child and family records in digitized systems (SmartTeach and/or ChildPlus) or agency electronic files.
• Monitor children’s and family progress per the goals developed by self and other staff and specialists by observing and documenting children’s play, conversations, routines/schedules, and work samples and through conversations with families.
• Prepare and submit a variety of reports with child and family information on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis as required (Home Visit Plans, In-kind, etc.).
• Responsible for reporting (including self-reporting) any unsupervised child incidents to the supervisor and to those with a need to know.
• Participate in center staff meetings and the planning of center activities. Identify emerging needs, initiate requests for additional assistance, and participate in on-going improvements to program policies and procedures.
• Advocate for and secures community services and resources by maintaining constructive communication with a range of organizations and community service professionals.
• Work collaboratively with a range of specialists (e.g., medical, dental, speech, nutrition, mental health) by sharing child and family information, identifying approaches to solving issues, and developing follow-up plans.
• Encourage families’ involvement in program decision making by informing them about various groups (e.g., policy group, service area advisory committees), extending personal invitations to meetings, arranging necessary transportation, and debriefing with families after meetings.
• Assist with training of family educators as assigned.
• Coordinate transportation for families for classroom experiences and field trips.
• Answer center phones, greet visitors, etc. on a limited basis.
• Understand and model the agency's vision, mission, and philosophy within the agency and the community.
• Demonstrate approachability, ownership, accountability, and life-long learning.
• Use the agency's communication and problem-solving approach.
• Seek perspective of others.
• Identify emerging issues and contribute new knowledge.
• Work to de-escalate when emotions and stakes are high.
• Maintain professional behavior and relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Use agency systems and technologies to accomplish work.
• Maintain a high level of attendance to support ongoing service delivery.
• Recognizes children's safety as the first responsibility of all staff and acts swiftly to ensure no child is unsupervised.
• Implement agency policies and procedures for safeguarding confidential or sensitive information about employees and/or program participants. Restrict access to paper or electronic documents to those with a need to know.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Benefits

• Paid Leave - 26 paid holidays, 5 days paid vacation after one year and 13 days each year thereafter, 8 days paid Personal leave first year, 9 days each year thereafter, up to 5 days paid Sick leave each year.
• Insurance benefits - dental, Flexible Spending Accounts, Health Reimbursement Arrangements, Health Savings Accounts, PPO medical (3 plans), Vision, and Supplemental Life coverage for self, spouse, and child ($25,000 basic life and Accidental death and disability provided by employer)
• Retirement Plan - Agency contribution after years of services and hours eligibility criteria are met. Employee 401k deferral once eligibility is met.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Associate degree
• Number of Employees: 251-500 employees