Infant-Toddler Specialists Network

As stated by Zero to Three, National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, the first three years of life are a period of incredible growth in all areas of a baby’s development.  In fact, the baby’s brain is twenty-five (25) percent of its approximate adult weight.  By age 3, it has grown dramatically by producing billions of cells and hundreds of trillions of connections, or synapses, between these cells.  Because of the crucial period of development for infants and toddlers, it’s even more important to ensure they are in a quality care setting. As we know, technical assistance is a critical component and a key strategy to helping improve quality in early care programs and family child care settings where infants and toddlers are served. Providing professional development to those that provide TA services in these settings is pivotal, as well as, the alignment of these services with Grow NJ Kids and other quality activities and provides a consistent foundation in which programs can succeed in meeting higher standards. ECLI provides this consistency through professional development activities for First Steps, New Jersey’s Infant and Toddler Specialist Network, by employing the same PD framework of the Grow NJ Kids technical assistance while customizing training content and professional development activities to meet the needs of the network.