Municipal Early Childhood Education Director
The role of the municipal early childhood education director requires a background and experience in the fields of child development, education, and community. It is the duty of the director to integrate the entire array of municipal services for children from birth until the age of six. The director must also initiate the planning and creation of additional services as necessary in addition to recruiting and developing the appropriate human resources. Furthermore, the director is responsible for the formation of a cooperative network of personnel working within the municipal authority as well as at government ministries, community organizations, and other neighboring localities. The position is essentially a one-stop address for all the children born and raised in the municipal authority’s jurisdiction so that they can receive the best care possible during a phase that is so critical for their future development.
Training Course for the Director of Early Childhood Care at a Municipal Authority
The Agnes and Beny Steinmetz Foundation works in a variety of ways to strengthen and contribute to the Israeli society. It is very active in improving services for young children and adolescents, with an emphasis on early childhood education. As part of its efforts to generate profound and effective change in this field, an innovative and unique course was created in 2013—a training course for how to run a municipal authority’s early childhood department.
The foundation’s operating agenda is that every local authority needs an individual responsible for the welfare and development of the children born and raised within its jurisdiction. This is a responsibility that has not yet been assumed in an orderly and supervised fashion at many local authorities.
The role of the early childhood education director is to ensure the integration of the activities of the various relevant organizations, to create a continuum of professional care, and to coordinate between all the bodies providing services to preschoolers and their parents.
About the Training Program for the Management of Early Childhood Care
The training program for a director of early childhood care at a municipal authority is a proactive measure taken by the Agnes and Beny Steinmetz Foundation. The purpose of the program is to train appropriate candidates and to promote awareness for the importance of early childhood care. It is also meant to encourage the opening of positions that do not yet exist at many municipal authorities. The Steinmetz Foundation believes that the municipalities that do not yet have any organized management of early childhood care are the very ones at which these programs should begin because they are the perfect place for true and real change to be made.
The course was designed by the Steinmetz Foundation in 2015 to give early childhood department directors the necessary tools that would enable them to build a comprehensive system in each city both for parents and for children from birth until the age of six. To that end, a unique amalgamation of expertise, networking, and capabilities is necessary. The foundation aims to develop these skills together with the participants during the course so that they can go out and build the supportive structures that the children of their cities need.
Each course consists of eight full days of training in which different issues will be discussed. These will include various models for the management of early childhood care aw well as challenges, and difficulties likely to arise as part of their future work. The directors will need to work together with local authority chairpersons, pool resources, formulate budgets, collaborate with volunteers, understand how child-development departments function, plan how to care for children from troubled families, and more. The training program is held at various municipal authorities across the country and includes meetings with relevant policy makers.