Connecting Providers: Educators

Are you struggling with a child’s behavior in your classroom or need information on local resources to help a family? Help Me Grow stays up-to-date with information on community resources and services for families with young children so you can spend your time directly teaching and caring for children!

As an educator, you play a significant role in promoting young children’s healthy development and ensuring that all Vermont children reach their full potential. Help Me Grow (HMG) staff want to partner with you to help ensure parents and caregivers are connected to resources and services that will assist them in raising healthy and happy children. HMG connects families with young children served by you to basic needs, high quality parent education information, and developmental resources - including tools to support your conversations with families about their child’s development and learning. Trained child development specialists are available to answer your questions about available community resources and take referrals on behalf of prenatal parents and families with children up through age eight. Refer a child and family by dialing 2-1-1 ext. 6 or

SUBMIT REFERRAL

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Development Monitoring & Screening Resources for Educators

  1. In Vermont, early educators provide developmental monitoring and screening using standardized developmental screening tools. Preferred screening tools are included in Vermont’s Universal Developmental Screening (UDS) registry, a comprehensive screening, data collection and communication system that ensures all Vermont children’s development is monitored over time and across settings. The registry enhances collaboration among health care providers, early educators and community service providers for earlier identification of developmental concerns. Learn more about how the UDS registry can support your monitoring, screening and referral efforts. To request access to the UDS registry call 802-951-1218 or email AHS.VDHudsregistry@vermont.gov.
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Milestone Tracker App

New FREE app for teachers and parents: Milestone Tracker. As an early care and education provider, you know the importance of tracking children’s developmental milestones, but did you know there’s a new, FREE app from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help make it easy, fun, and a great way to engage parents? CDC’s new Milestone Tracker app helps teachers and parents better understand each child’s skills and abilities, track and celebrate developmental milestones, and share developmental progress from ages 2 months through 5 years.

Encourage parents to use this FREE app. Access a printable poster (8.5” x 11”) for your classroom or center, a web button for your website, and more at the CDC Milestone Tracker App site.

Translated Materials

Vermont has translated the Milestones Brochure into several languages: Arabic, Bosnian, Burmese, French, Nepali, Somali, and Swahili (PDFs attached). Find more translated materials here

Learn the Signs. Act Early

Learn more about how CDC's Learn the Signs. Act Early. for Child Find free materials support Child Find requirements of the Part B and Part C section 619 of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). To order free materials customized for Vermont email at AHS.VDHudsregistry@vermont.gov.

Birth to 5: Watch Me Thrive!

Birth to 5: Watch Me Thrive! is a coordinated federal effort to encourage healthy child development, universal developmental and behavioral screening for children, and to support the families and providers who care for them. Early care and learning providers can take a FREE, 1-hour online, continuing education course, Watch Me! Celebrating Milestones and Sharing Concerns. Access this training to help you monitor the development of children in your care and talk with parents about developmental concerns. This course is approved for credit by Northern Lights at the Community College of Vermont.

Social and Emotional Development

The Vermont Agency of Education offers early childhood educators training on the Early Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (Early MTSS) Pyramid Model developed by the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) and National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI)

This tiered framework of universal promotion, prevention and intervention is the model for delivering a comprehensive range of evidence-based practices, strategies and resources to families and early childhood practitioners with the goal of improving early learning, social and emotional well-being and competence for Vermont’s young children birth through age 8. Watch a video about the Pyramid Model here

 

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Resource Library & Blog

Find more information about child development, tools for providers, tips for parents, and read our blog.

Community Approaches to Toxic Stress

Community Approaches to Toxic Stress

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Family-Engaged Developmental Monitoring