This lesson introduces the concept of positive guidance and its critical importance in a relationship-based child care and youth program. You will learn how one’s beliefs about adult-child relationships, knowledge of developmentally appropriate practice, family practices, and cultural context impact beliefs about child guidance. This lesson includes an introduction to Gartrell’s six practices for positive guidance. You will learn that you as the program leader are key to facilitating partnerships among staff, children, and families to create a relationship-based community that supports the implementation of positive child-guidance principles in daily care routines and activities.

As a program director, you are the leader who promotes the use of positive guidance practices. You will ensure that program-level policies, practices, resources, and supports are in place to ensure that the program’s mission and core values are upheld.

In this lesson you will learn about the impact of a well-designed and organized learning environment on children’s and staff members’ senses of well-being and belonging. You will learn how the use of environmental assessment tools and reflective supervision practices can support staff members in their use of positive guidance practices. Resources for creating professional development activities that focus on positive guidance and environmental strategies are included.

Children’s persistent intensive challenging behaviors require a team effort to create an individualized behavior support plan. In this lesson, you will learn about how to collaborate with staff, families, and community partners in order to address individual children’s intensive challenging behaviors.