CHASE Fund’s Training for Early Childhood Practioners

One hundred and fifty early childhood practitioners now have a chance to improve their skills in delivering effective learning programmes, free of cost.

This follows the Culture, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) Fund’s donation of $8 million to the United Way of Jamaica (UWJ), a not-for-profit organisation focused on improving the quality of early childhood education.

Chief Executive Officer of UWJ, Taneshia Stoney Dryden, says the organisation is now finalising preparations to train the professionals under its Improving Capacity in Early Childhood Education (I.C.E) project over a 12-month period.

The complement of practitioners will include teachers and administrators, who will be selected from a pool of oversubscribed applicants.

“The assistance from the CHASE Fund… will give us a wider reach, so we are going to scale up. However, the teachers who will be prioritised are those who are coming from the underserved parishes,” Mrs. Stoney Dryden explains.

The practitioners will be exposed to the Read Right From The Start (RRFTS) strategies, receive one-on-one coaching, and get access to the resources of the Rollins Centre for Language and Literacy’s online Cox Campus.

The CEO says the RRFTS will equip the participants with the support and resources needed to help bridge language and literacy gaps in early learners.

“We are not reinventing the wheel. This RRFTS is to supplement the other learning programmes that we have in Jamaica; and I want to say a big thank you to the CHASE Fund. We rely heavily on donor partner funding. So, when [others] come on board and invest in us so that we can really transform lives, we are always grateful,” Mrs. Stoney Dryden adds.

She says with the CHASE Fund’s input, the UWJ can also address other pressing needs in the early childhood sector.

Hence, the organisation will be expanding the Early Childhood Commission’s (ECC) legacy project and retrofit three infant schools to support the holistic development of children with special needs.

CHASE Fund Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Wilford ‘Billy’ Heaven, is anticipating the major outcomes of the project.

He notes that the organisation is supporting the UWJ because of its strategic emphasis on early childhood education, an approach that is mutually shared.

The CHASE Fund is renowned for financing initiatives focusing on building, upgrading, and equipping early childhood institutions and resource centres.

“The goal of the project (I.C.E) fits neatly into the objectives of CHASE’s early childhood education objectives. We saw it as an opportunity to extend our efforts to contribute to capacity building for institutions and partner for additional infrastructure development and the acquisition of vital educational aides and resource materials,” Mr. Heaven says.

He maintains that the organisation is encouraged to support programmes focusing on language and linguistics because of the significant outcomes of past sponsorships.

The CHASE Fund also provides support in the development of early childhood materials to enhance the cognitive development of children, and scholarships for specialist training in early childhood education.