Coaching Teams for Quality Improvement in Early Care and Education Programs

A review of state quality improvement (QI) efforts indicates that professional development (PD) for early educators [1] —delivered as training and technical assistance across a variety of topics and approaches—is a core QI activity.[2] The menu of PD services available to early educators varies widely across and within states depending on state priorities, the PD service delivery system (including the contractors selected to deliver services), and educators’ characteristics (including their role, program type, and geographic location).

With considerable flexibility in how funds can be used to support PD, state early childhood leaders are seeking research-based guidance on how to design a menu of accessible and effective PD opportunities for early educators.[vi] This brief is intended for state early childhood leaders to provide an introduction to team coaching as a PD approach, presenting initial data on the prevalence, level of investment, and reach of team coaching. Although not yet widely used in state PD and QI systems, team coaching shows promising evidence for improving educator practices and outcomes for educators, children, and families.

This brief is organized into three parts. First, we provide background on the PD of early childhood educators and review literature on team coaching strategies. Next, we examine how team coaching strategies are currently implemented. Finally, we describe three examples of team coaching in QI systems. We focus on two types of ECE programs that may receive services in state PD and QI systems: licensed child care centers eligible to receive Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) subsidies and Head Start centers.[3] Because Head Start Collaboration Offices are encouraged to coordinate with state-level PD offerings, the content in this brief applies to them as well as Head Start grantees and Regional Program administrators. [4]

Throughout, we summarize data gathered through the Culture of Continuous Learning (CCL) Project Landscape Study.[5] For this study, we examined publicly available data about PD and QI delivery systems from all 50 states, all U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, and Head Start Regions. We also conducted surveys and interviews with leaders of PD and QI delivery systems to gather additional insights. Because the surveys and interviews were collected from only a subset of states and territories, the findings should be interpreted as preliminary trends rather than as representative of all systems nationwide.