She has developed a
comprehensive professional development program for child care
professionals of all skill levels to participate in. The
program is most commonly referred to as: Build
Constructive Communication Patterns.
It's a program that
extends beyond team building.
It's a program that
helps staff members develop the motivation to want to make
change happen and then it provides them with skills so they can
strive towards becoming top-notch child care professionals.
The main objective of this
interactive
program is to help child care professionals who work together
function as a dynamic team. This includes: building
constructive communication patterns and eliminating those
destructive ones (like gossip) that seem to tear teams apart and
cause much unwanted stress, frustration, and anxiety. It also
includes breaking down communication barriers between staff and
leaders, and between co-workers.
The program provides immediately applicable
strategies and helps participants feel motivated to make change
happen. Yes, this program helps
participants feel motivated to make change happen, a
very important
element in achieving long-lasting, positive results.
The program
is customized to meet your professional development objectives,
anticipated number of participants, and time frame. The most
popular time frame for this program is 8 hours.
Here are a few of the most
common objectives of this program.
Participants discover:
*How to break the gossip chain
*How to increase professionalism
*How to manage their time more effectively
*How to deal with difficult parents and co-workers
*How to communicate constructively with staff, parents, children
*How to focus on solutions
(instead of gossiping or taking
things personally)
*The impact of the work they do and
how it extends
beyond their own classroom/workspace
*The essence of team work and the value gained
from doing more than one’s fair share of the work
*How to resolve conflicts and other issues
(including how to differentiate between problems they
should handle on their own and problems where they
must involve their leader)
Additionally,
teams participate in a communication activity
to help break down communication barriers and establish specific
guidelines for communicating constructively. In the process,
participants gain a clear understanding of what destructive communication
is and how their actions - destructive or
constructive - play a major role in determining team morale.