Know

"Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved."- Mattie Stepanek

As you reflected on your abilities to manage day-to-day experiences or activities in your life, in the previous lesson, you probably acknowledged that working with others is to some degree part of your daily routine and helps get things done. We are by nature social beings and our relationships with others greatly affect our personal and professional lives. Think about your daily life and how working with others helps you when sharing household responsibilities, taking care of children, taking care of parents or other loved ones, or taking care of yourself.

合作is a dynamic process in which individuals come together and share their knowledge, experiences, resources, and strengths to promote growth and development. When it comes to caring for infants and toddlers, these individuals are family members, caregivers like yourself, related service providers, administrators, and community partners. Collaboration builds on the expertise, interests, and strengths of everyone involved in the process. By acknowledging that each of these individuals has something meaningful to offer, collaboration creates opportunities to set goals and objectives, make plans for implementing those goals, monitor progress, and solve problems jointly. It assumes the thinking that "all of us are smarter than one of us" (Turnbull, Turnbull, Shank, & Smith, 2004, p. 80. The goal of collaboration is to ensure progress and growth for each infant and toddler, their family, and ultimately, your classroom and program.

创建协作团队的过程

就像我们所做的一切，学习与他人一起工作是一场不会在一夜之yabo电子游艺间发展的技能。相反，它是随着时间的推移发生的过程。就像你在学习任何新技能或经验时，你必须投入时间yabo电子游艺和努力了解信息和练习新事物，能够与他人合作，需要持续的工作，能源和承诺。请记住，您参与的每个人都是一个独特的个人。在与婴儿的日常互动中，幼儿，家庭和同事，您总是带来您的兴趣，您的个性，您的气质，您的背景经验以及您的特殊能力和人才。您认为自己作为团队成员的方式可以定义与婴儿，幼儿，家庭和同事的互动和关系。当您与同事和家庭共同努力时，合作的时间可以让婴儿，幼儿，家人以及自己受益。

建立协作关系需要时间，努力和关注，但在提高计划的整体质量方面往往具有有意义的结果。与您在婴儿幼儿提供商一样，您的T＆CS或管理人员工作时，您应该有机会分享成功以及彼此的挑战。您也可能将这些经历视为与您与您有类似兴趣的其他人建立新朋友和网络的机会。

Two of the country's leading experts on building collaborative teams, Jacqueline Thousand and Richard Villa, identify five elements as critically important in creating a collaborative process. (Johnson & Johnson, 1997; Thousand & Villa, 1990, 2000, p. 258). As you read these, think about how they reflect your experiences with collaboration in your program:

1. Face-to-face interaction among team members on a frequent basis
2. A mutual "we are all in this together" feeling of positive interdependence
3. A focus on the development of small-group interpersonal skills in trust building, communication, leadership, creative problem solving, decision making, and conflict management
4. Regular assessments and discussion of the team's functioning in setting goals for improving relationships and effectively accomplishing tasks
5. Methods for holding one another accountable for agreed-on responsibilities and commitments

In your daily work, you make conscious, intentional decisions about how to interact in daily encounters with infants and toddlers, family members, and colleagues. Being part of a team requires that you enter partnerships with a positive attitude and commitment to ethical behavior. No matter how experienced you are, being part of a collaborative workplace should be central to your practice as an infant-toddler provider. Child-care settings are primarily people-centric workplaces. The biggest resources are people. The outcomes should be happy, secure infants, toddlers, and their families.

与家庭合作

Family-professional partnerships are a central part of your work as an infant-toddler provider. One key feature of a successful family-professional partnership is a sense of equality between family members and professionals (Turnbull et al., 2004). As highlighted in the Professionalism Course, individuals who deal directly with human welfare have a special obligation to behave in ways that benefit those they serve. Values that are foundational to professions based on human relationships are caring, compassion, empathy, respect for others, and trustworthiness (Feeney, 2012). Effective infant and toddler providers above all are dedicated to serving the needs of the young children and families they work with. Your program’s parent handbook is the ideal place to share with parents your program’s vision, philosophy and offerings. Your program should also have a clearly articulated shared mission and philosophy that is demonstrated by everyone who works in the program and that全部staff understand. You should familiarize yourself with this mission and philosophy.

When discussing family-professional relationships, Janice Fialka, in her highly regarded合作舞蹈：为什么我的脚受伤了？(2001), compares collaboration with dancing. She reflects on her experiences as a social worker and as a parent of a child with disabilities and shares the complexities of the dancing-collaborating experience. At times, she notes, her professional partners and she do not seem to be gracefully moving together across the floor, their movements seem awkward, stiff, and uncoordinated, as if each partner is dancing to different music. Sometimes the partners may even step on each other's feet while trying to figure out what to do next. She notes, however, how important it is to have each partner's perspectives, hopes, dreams, and expectations be heard, valued, and respected at different times during the dance.

In your daily work, in order to truly get to know an infant or toddler in your care, you have to get to know their family. In this process, you need to be open-minded, flexible, and genuinely interested in order to make a difference.

There are several positive outcomes of collaboration between you and family members. During this process, families become active participants, share valuable information, and work with you to promote their infant's or toddler's optimum development. You get a window into each family's dreams, hopes, and aspirations for their young child and a better understanding of where they come from, what they need, and what their vision is for their young child and family.

Reflecting on your Own Experiences and Practices

除非这些环境对于在其上工作的成年人也有益，否则不能创建儿童的高质量环境。教育教授莉莲凯茨，Talks with Teachers of Young Children(1995)urges professionals to ask themselves the questions below. As you read each of these questions, think about how things are in your own work environment.

总的来说，与我的同事有关系：

• Supportive rather than contentious?
• Cooperative rather than competitive?
• Accepting rather than adversarial?
• Trusting rather than suspicious?
• Respectful rather than controlling?

有效的婴儿幼儿提供商价值合作并承认与家庭，其他工作人员和监事一起成功的工作非常重要。他们知道批判性地考虑与婴儿，幼儿和家庭的做法，并在需要时进行更改。他们还知道庆祝成功并承认他人和同事的努力，在日常工作中。Your program may plan joyful events that build community at different levels: among the staff, as well as among staff, children and families (e.g., acknowledging individual staff members during staff meetings, celebrating staff birthdays and life events with potluck suppers, attending a professional conference together, organizing family nights, inviting families to participate in classroom and program experiences, inviting families to spend time with children in the classroom).

While working with others is one of the most rewarding parts of your job, it can also present challenges. It requires dedication, commitment, problem-solving skills, and a willingness to learn, change, and be flexible in order to address the multiple and often complex needs of those in your care. It is your responsibility to maintain professional conduct and seek the advice of your T&C or manager when faced with difficult situations you are not sure how to deal with.

See

Working as a Team

Do

Take time to review the practices listed below, which highlight working as a team to care for infants, toddlers, and their families:

• 尊重每个婴儿或幼儿，在您的家人及其家庭中，并承认增长，背景，信仰和价值观的多样性和个人差异。邀请并包括每个家庭在规划和决策方面有关孩子的发展和学习。yabo电子游艺确保每个家庭都有机会与您分享他们的观点或想法。
• Meet regularly with colleagues to plan experiences for infants, toddlers, and their families. Regular meetings allow you to discuss children's progress, plan experiences, and make necessary changes.
• Ask clarifying questions when not sure about something. Miscommunication can lead to unnecessary frustrations, delays in getting things done, and a negative work climate. As a team member, make sure you have a clear understanding of procedures, rules, or regulations, and always talk to your T&C or supervisor when in doubt.
• 分享有关每个婴儿和幼儿的持续观察信息，并与同事和家庭成员一起使用，并使用该信息来规划个别儿童和您的小组。规划时邀请家庭的输入。
• Provide a variety of developmentally appropriate choices and experiences for children in your care.
• Have developmentally appropriate expectations about children's behaviors and be proactive when dealing with challenging behaviors.
• Be open-minded and use creative thinking skills, like brainstorming, when planning or problem-solving. Be willing to see others' viewpoints and consider multiple options or solutions when tackling a problem or challenge.
• Most importantly, have a good attitude and demonstrate respect for each individual you collaborate with. Appreciate each member of your team and welcome the knowledge, experience, or expertise that each has to offer.