Be the Reason!!!

 

Love this quote!

 

 

We definitely need more lifting of each other up, more seeing the abundance of opportunities out there verses seeing others as in competition with us, more collaboration and support for each other, more sharing of our life and business stories so others can learn from both the successes AND failures or others rather leaving others floundering to get hit by the bus of life’s tough lessons. 

 

Life can be so hard sometimes and a simple smile, a hand to reach out for or an ear to listen to can make the world of difference for someone! 

 

Be the reason someone smiles today! Looking for more inspiring conversations come join us in the Totallywake4-life & Nailin' It Together community!

 

Know someone who could use some pampering? Or do you want to enjoy some pamper time yourself? Check out the GelMoment body spa line for some amazing scrubs and bath products to help you escape and recharge! 

 

Margaret

Live.Laugh.Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

*post contains affiliate links 

Professionalism in the age of Internet

 

Just wanted to share a PSA to remember it is important to be cautious about what we post on social media, about how we speak out on social media and so forth because under the CECE Code of Ethics and Standards for Practice we can all be held accountable for violating those standards by the College even when you are NOT AT WORK or engaged in your scope of practice - for example one of the CPL groups on Facebook where ECE often vent has over 14,000 members and you just do not know who is reading/watching or taking potential screenshots of the professionalism, conduct and potentially negative opinions of the field of the ECE within here. 

 

 

 

If you read the CECE newsletters there was a recent disciplinary actions filed against a member of the College for behavior that happened AFTER HOURS between two colleagues who had chosen to socialize outside of work and an altercation happened that ended up being reported to the College and the person was found in violation of the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice and disciplined as a result.

The reality is that whether we individually agreed with it the College of ECE is something that MANY in the field, the AECEO membership and OCBCC and other early years advocates and so forth, have all advocated for DECADES to see happen - actively petitioning the government to help make it happen by changing the laws. creating new laws and providing start up funding to get it up and going as the first step in ECE being recognized as the professionals we are. Seriously as a new grad in 1990 this was the 'goal' talked about by professors and it took over 20 years from it to be an idea to be a reality - cause the change in our sector is SLOW.

Like it or not it is now been made a legal requirement under the Early Years Act to have a college that oversees and regulates the ECE sector so all the venting and complaining in the world is not going to charge the reality that the College is not going anywhere. So IMO we need to find a way to accept this as a professional requirement to practice now on top of the diploma and do our best to let the anger/negativity go because it honestly does not serve us - it creates a mindset of this field sucks where we stop remembering the things we love about the field and our WHY for entering it. 

 

 

IMO it also does not send the message to the public that may be reading our comments or overhearing us at Starbucks that we are ARE professionals who understand the importance of having a regulatory body to protect the PUBLIC, to build their trust and respect in knowing that there is an organization that oversees the profession and holds practitioners to a higher standard than was previously exhibited and can actually prevent someone from practicing entirely. The time where substandard ECE who managed to pass college but do not have the actual skills or motivation to thrive in the sector were able to just jump from centre to centre after being fired with no way to 'communicate' to future employers that they should NOT be practicing. Sadly police checks ar NOT ENOUGH because you can not belong in this field and still not have broken a law yet that would show up on one. Sadly even references are NOT enough because no one is going to leave the person who FIRED them as a reference and most organizations have a liabity rule where they will not disclose it anyway even if they did leave them as a reference. At the end of the day THAT is the role of the College - to protect the public from substandard ECE who managed to graduate with the diploma but should not be practicing and to raise the bar on professional conduct of those it regulates. The college was NEVER about what it could actually do for US but rather how we can show the PUBLIC that we are professionals with high standards of practice who are deserving of the respect and resources of other professionals doing similar work.

Sadly we still have a LONG way to go to actually accomplish that much of which is our own fault because not enough of us are standing proud to be a member of said regulated profession and as a result most of the public does not even KNOW nor CARE that we are regulated. At the end of the day IMO if we want to be better paid and have more buy in from the public to FUND that for us we need to be doing a better job of SHOWING them everything we actually have to DO to practice ECE. Ask any parent if teachers are regulated they KNOW about the Teacher's College. The same cannot be said for US :( 

 

 

 

I also know that many members, myself included, are frustrated by the cost of membership in relation to our low wages - a very valid concern and that is something we can actually work to advocate to change while still remaining professional about the College and its role in public safety. As members we VOTE on who is going to represent us on the Colleges Board - so vote for someone who is going to actively champion ways to reduce the cost of membership and create policy where membership is reduced if retired/on parental leave/ medical leave! Perhaps relocating outside of GTA to lower the enormous cost of rent and other expenses in that region is the first place to start ... living in a digital era with remote work and remote meetings there is NO reason that the College has to be located where it is and for the amount of money the College spends on RENT alone the College could BUY a property in a region of Ontario that has lower cost of living - heck they could partner with other early years to house some rental space and actually generate INCOME for the College to reinvest in keeping membership fees low and offering more to membership! 

 

 

The requirement of the CPL is not going away either that too so it is a waste of our time and energy trying to do away with it - it has been legislated right into the Early Years Act as a duty of the College to ensure as part of its regulation of the sector that professional development is ongoing and contains an annual self assessment component, goal setting and records of learning. Every regulated body HAS continual professional learning requirements built into their oversight mandate ... so while we cannot change THOSE things we can change what those things might look like! Members have been giving lots of professional feedback about the challenges of the current CPL process being used and some of it seeming redundant and time consuming on top of already busy lives of ECE - they have already made some ammendments in 2019 based on feedback and the last communication sent out indicated that they ARE still listening and are working on another revision to the process coming this Spring. 

 

 

Personally now that we have a membership account to log into I would LOVE to see them develop the CPL so that it can all be done VIA that membership account portal so that members donot need to stress about loosing their work or not being able to manage the formating with the downloaded copies and so forth - just create all the required components IN the membership section and record it there - and that way the College has easy access to randomly audit and there is no added expense or work to ECE called to audit having to figure out how to get their documentation either converted to digital to send via email or the cost of copying and shipping out their CPL! It is 2022 and we have 55,000 members paying $160 annually SURELY there should be money in the budget to hire a tech whiz to create a website program that could manage that! 

 

 

Basically it comes down the the serentiy prayer "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." we need to try our best to focus our energy on the things we CAN realistically change!

 

You only get one childhood. Lets make sure it is full of magic, nature and discovery! 

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

Tasty Tuesday

So what did you serve up for dinner? 

I admit I am proud of myself - I had a shitastic day yesterday with the house falling apart around us right before Christmas followed by another less than steller day at the Dr with the test results from the last round of tests trying to figure out what’s going in with my body raising more concerns than answers and with my trauma response to stress I REALLY wanted to eat a shit load of crappy comfort food to drown my sorrows and get those serotonins flowing for that temporary relief  … but I opted for some extra fresh Parmesan on my salad and I am gonna have a Keto Hot Chocolate with a shot of Forty Creek in it bit later and decompress with some PVR CSI catch up! Than tomorrow I am gonna get myself some healthy and longer lasting serotonin working out the stress in the POOL!

Bon Appetite 

Margaret 

Live, Laigh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

Advocacy for ECE

 There is lots of talk in the CPL groups on Facebook lately about creating 'noise' and an 'uprising' around challenges faced in the early learning and care field. ECE have created groups like ECE's Unite to try to organize province wide strikes and other initiatives! 

 

I admire their passion about wanting change in our field - over the past 30 years I have seen many times and many different groups try to organize walk outs and other strike type advocacy campaigns only to see them fall flat or backfire on ECE whose employer fired or reprimanded them for taking what amounts to illegal strike action and other work to rule behaviors that many ECE do not realize they cannot engage in when they are not protected by a Union and the Labor laws that apply to unionized workers!

 

I am all for advocating for change and improvement in our field but I cannot help but want to encourage these ECE that as members of a regulatory body now with the government mandate of the College of ECE we need to be very careful in HOW we advocate for change. The language we choose and the manner we choose to advocate and so forth and ensure it is done in a way that does not violate the code of conduct or Professional standards of the College. 

 

The AECEO is our designated professional association in Ontario whose mandate is to advocate for all these things and in my opinion we should be working through these exsisting infrastructures that know the rules and laws and are experts in the advocacy they have been engaged in for decades now.  These same people seem to whine that the AECEO is not doing 'enough' but the reality is that sadly their membership is very low compared to the College of ECE because it is a voluntary organization and ECE just do not choose to belong to it for various reasons. However if all the eligible ECE in Ontario joined the AECEO than they would have a much much larger budget to work with in social media campaigning, in actively having staff who were lobbying at a government level and so forth to be our 'collective voice'. Its been a long time since I sat on the London AECEO branch board but back than the total membership for the AECEO was minuscule and I do not imagine it has grown much in the past decade in comparison as with the College of ECE many former members left because they did not think they needed to have both memberships. However the College is NOT an advocacy body it is a regulatory body they ultimately serve the public   ... it is hard for the AECEO to create a collective voice when so few of us belong to it or actively support it. After 30 years in the field my active advocacy energy is dwindling but I am still a paid member of the Association to support those who still have the energy to 'fight' the good fight.

 

I know many people feel that having to pay yet another fee to belong to the AECEO is unfair - however since it is next to impossible to unionize ECE at an employer level because employers do not have the deep collective tax payer pockets of the government that public education system has the reality is that nothing is ever going to change with us being so isolated as a 'collective' so belonging to the AECEO is the only real option for getting a 'collective voice'. The IMO the $60 membership fee would be much CHEAPER than dues you'd pay to a union if you did manage to unionize your centre at an employer level and they union still would not be able to do much to actually make financial changes to wages / paid pd and other financial challenges we face anyway! Nothing is going to change much with our wages until such a time that there is a true 'universal childcare' system that works the same as public education does where the 'government' is our collective employer - and I honestly do not see us achieving TRUE universal childcare in my lifetime because we just do not have the societal value in early childhood education that is needed and it will remain unlikely until the field itself raises the professionalism bar considerably by making 'learning visible and valued' in our programs both for the children AND for ourselves!

Be the change we want to see!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

Faced with facts still denying reality

So the other day there was a lot of debate from my share about the College of ECE having no control over the 3 components in the CPL that everyone hates and despite sharing the regulations that clearly state what the college does and does not control ECE are still feeling that the college could just scrap the process because it is just too time consuming.  

So this is my response to that - YES when reading the regulations they do have 'some' control but my whole point of the post with links to the Education Act and the Regulations specific to the CPL was there are certain things legally required of the College to ensure they have as part of the process - so like it or not the self assessment, the learning goals and the record of learning components are all required under the Act's regulations. As are keeping records and the auditing process to cull that members are actually engaging. The framework of the CPL is set out by the Act and it is not going anywhere easily! The Ford government is making cuts to education they are not going to be willing to open the purse strings to revisit amending regulations for early childhood educators around professional development!

So sure within those required regulations the college has wiggle room around how those 3 steps look. So they could perhaps be able to streamline the self assessment portion somehow but the self assessment is something that needs to be done 'consistent across membership' under the Act so we all need to be using the same process/benchmarks to assess ourselves so the Expectations of Practice seems that standard benchmark since job descriptions are so vastly different they would not be a consistent benchmark, they could require us to have MORE or less learning goals than the 3 over 2 year period they could have chosen 3 annually for example. And yes they could choose to control how much PD is actually required of members in a quantitative manner and perhaps give us a stricter amount of hours or really stringent lists of what would qualify as PD.

IMO within the current process they have chosen around the actual 'pd' actually gives US a whole lot of that control back. Aside from the self assessment and dictating that we must have 3 goals over a 24 month period they have given a very broad definition of what PD actually is - technically this right here having this conversation could be PD under the current flexible guidelines if I had mentoring other ECE on the CPL completion as a goal.

So if we only want to do 3-5 PD activities a year or heck spread that over the whole 2 year period that is OUR choice the College has no quantitative definition under the CPL as how much or how little PD you actually must engage in as long as you complete the 3 step process required under the laws mandated and do SOMETHING on your record of learning for each of those goals you are technically compliant!

So do we really not have the 'time' to do this? If we look at 'time' if we were to do ONE PD activity under each goal over a 12 month period - so that is 1 activity every 4 months and it can be as little as reading a 5 minute article online and doing a little 5 minute 'this is what I learned/found interesting and this is how to plan to apply that to my practice' .... that is 10 minutes of PD and do that 3 x per year - 30 minutes out of our 43,800 minutes or 60 minutes of our time out of 87, 600 minutes of our life in a two year period. I think so many ECE are blowing this 'time it takes' up in their minds into something it actually isn't ... some people will always go way above and beyond what is required and that is their journey but if you just want to meet the requirement - stick to the space they give us in the forms. There is not a whole lot of space there for TWO years of PD. Read the samples on the college website - they are not complicated and they all stick within the space allotted in the forms.
 

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life