Michigan’s Child Care Expulsion Prevention (CCEP) Program, Early
Childhood (0-5) Mental Health Consultation Services
DATE:
March 27, 2008
TO:
DHS-Funded Child Care Expulsion Prevention Projects
MI4C Regional Offices
MSUE Better Kid Care Projects
FROM:
Sheri Falvay, Director
Mental Health Services to Children & Families, MDCH
Mark Sullivan, Executive Director
Michigan 4C Association
Dr. Cheri Booth, MSUE Assistant Director and State Leader for
Children, Youth and Family Programs
Michigan State University Extension
RE:
MI4C, MSUE and MDCH-CCEP FY 08 Plan to Collaborate on
Social-Emotional Development Training for Parents and Child
Care Providers
MI4C, MSUE and MDCH-CCEP have developed a FY 08 Plan to Collaborate
on Social-Emotional Development Training for Parents and Child Care
Providers. The plan is attached for your information. Please take special note
of the following points:

The goal of the plan is to ensure collaboration among MI4C, MSUE, and
CCEP in providing social-emotional development training for parents and
child care providers in Michigan in FY 08. The Department of Human
Services (DHS) child care licensing rules requiring child care providers to
participate in training have increased the demand for training opportunities
across the state. Collaboration is essential to meet this demand in a
proficient, cost-effective, and consumer-friendly way.

MI4C, MSUE, and CCEP strongly encourage our local/regional
counterparts to continue to develop and strengthen ongoing collaborative
relationships with each other in order to coordinate training schedules,
develop a cross-referenced training calendar, publicize each others'
offerings at trainings and through newsletters and web sites, and improve
the quality of professional development activities related to the social-
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emotional development of children birth to five years for child care
providers and parents. We are well aware that you made great strides in
this direction in FY 07 and we sincerely appreciate your efforts.

If a local/regional 4C or MSUE office asks a CCEP consultant to facilitate
or co-facilitate the social-emotional session in one of their regular (16 to
36 hour) training series, the CCEP consultant will report this session to the
DHS as “collaborative outreach,” and the 4C or MSUE office will report it
as “training.”

If a local/regional 4C or MSUE office hosts a special, stand-alone training
on social-emotional development and asks the CCEP consultant to
conduct the training, the CCEP consultant, not the 4C or MSUE office, will
report the session to the DHS as “training.”

In FY 07, we completed a comparative analysis of social-emotional
development content across MI4C, MSUE and CCEP training curricula.
Based on this analysis, we agreed to use common definitions and core
concepts in seven key areas, so that we all give consistent, basic
messages about social-emotional development in our trainings. This year,
we are working together to specifically plan how we accomplish the
following objectives:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Use the same definition for social-emotional health.
Use the same definition and source for the topic of temperament.
Provide referral information for all three projects at trainings.
Emphasize the importance of the caregiver’s emotional health.
Emphasize the importance of nurturing, responsive caregiving and the
importance of having a primary caregiver.
f. Use a common source for social-emotional milestones.
g. Emphasize the importance of true partnerships between parents and
caregivers in promoting social-emotional health.
We intend to implement these changes in FY 09.

We are jointly issuing this memo to make it very clear that our three
agencies have endorsed the attached plan. We strongly agree with our
funding sources (DHS for CCEP and ECIC for MI4C and MSUE) that by
working together, we will do a better job of supporting child care providers
and families to promote the social-emotional development of Michigan's
youngest children. We appreciate your strong commitment to children and
families and your continuing cooperation with this plan.
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