Five years after launching the Step Up workshops to child care professionals, educators continue to see familiar faces.
“We have participants who have taken the same trainings over and over and over again,” said Missy Okeson, lead program officer in the NMF Child Care program. “The focus on what social-emotional learning is and how to apply it in early childhood settings has really benefitted child care professionals.”
Launched in 2018, the Step Up workshops are taught by educators with Peacemaker Resources, a Bemidji-based nonprofit that promotes communication, compassion and connection to develop respectful relationships and healthier individuals, families, and communities.
“It’s proven to be a strength … to bring people together to learn from each other and from the presenters,” said Chelsea Ottoman Rak, a former teacher who now works as an SEL specialist at Peacemaker. “A lot of those things that I learned being a classroom teacher are really helpful in the Step Up program, such as knowing how I want my students to feel, how I want them to be seen, how I want their voice to be heard.”
Step Up, having started as a standalone one-day workshop, has now become a series of three workshops and offers follow-up coaching sessions.
“What we heard was that (the providers) loved it, they want more, we should give them more,” Chelsea reflected, “and there is more. There are endless amounts (of trainings) that we could offer … It was really designed as a way to continue to engage with these providers that we’ve had the privilege of working with.”
Learn more about the Step Up workshops:
www.nwmf.org/stepup
Child care provider reflects on Step Up impacts
Cheryl Thomas is among the child care professionals who have come back again and again … and again.
“I took the first one (Foundation), I think, four or five times and then the second one (Next Level) a few times, and now there’s this advanced one (Community of Belonging) that I’m doing on March 8th. I’m really excited because I’m going to learn something new! I just hope that we can keep doing it and then just adding more and more (workshops) because it really does help.”
Cheryl has operated C’s Daycare in Red Lake since 2014 where she is licensed by Red Lake Nation to provide care for up to 30 children. She has a staff of eight, and each new hire attends a Step Up workshops with Cheryl herself.
“I learn something new every time I go,” she said. “One thing I take away from the social emotional trainings is being able to focus on the child, being able to offer them ways to be successful.”
Cheryl has also worked hard in her work to obtain and increase her Parent Aware rating to Four Stars. She has long been intentional about seeking out trainings and certifications.
“I want all the training and I want all the knowledge,” she said. “I want for my families and children to be more than just being a babysitter. I want to be known as a daycare provider who is a child educator.”
