Inclusion Without Support: Who Is This Actually Working For?

🎙️ In this episode, Jess takes a closer look at the support needed in childcare and why it matters more than ever. From staff support and professional development to communication, resources, and leadership, she explores what truly helps educators thrive.

Jess shares insight into how strong support systems not only improve staff morale and retention but also directly impact the quality of care children receive. This episode is a valuable listen for anyone looking to strengthen their team and build a more supportive, sustainable childcare environment.

Transcript

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Hey everybody, welcome back to Childcare Confidential. I'm Jessica Hampton, and it is just me today, but I want to talk to you about something that has been coming up a lot lately in conversations, in DMs, in director circles, and honestly, pretty much everywhere. And it's been coming up in the quiet way where you can tell people are feeling it, but they're just not saying it out loud. Which is where we come in, where we talk about real talk and what's really happening in the field. So today we're going to talk about inclusion. And let me be clear from the beginning: this is not a conversation about anti-inclusion. This is about the truth and what's actually happening conversation. Those two things are not the same. Inclusion matters. Children deserve to be in environments where they feel safe, included, where they belong, and where they're supported, where they're not excluded. We all agree on that. I think we're all on the same page. At least most providers I know, they're not pushing back about inclusion. They're saying yes over and over. But here's where that part gets harder and harder to carry. That yes, that all of these owners and directors are saying is happening without the support that we need, the support that should come with inclusion. Think about it. This is where the system starts to break down. We're for inclusion. We want to invite all of the children in and take care of them and teach them and educate them and make sure they're loved and included. That's what we do as early childhood educators. But the system is breaking down. So let's break it down for a second. The intention behind the inclusion policies are good. They're amazing. Their goal is to keep children in natural environments, to keep them developmentally alongside their peers, and to avoid unnecessary exclusion. All of that matters. We all agree. But there's something happening inside programs right now. There's no additional staff, there's limited access to specialists. Early intervention can take months to get through. And honestly, we all know that the training for inclusion is minimal in most centers or schools or in-homes, whatever kind of type of setting you're in. We know that the training is minimal that supports children in these areas and supports the teachers. So we have classrooms running on max ratio, right? And we've created this gap between what we want to see happen and what's expected, and what's actually possible. When we first started our schools, we had maybe one kiddo that went to the developmental preschool. That's easy to manage. You give teachers support, you have the director as backup. It's when we've all been through it, through COVID, through everything that has happened. We see more and more children that need developmental preschool in these types of settings. However, we're putting them into child care where they're not getting the support that they need, right? Let's paint a picture real quick. You've got one teacher to five toddlers, right? One teacher, five toddlers. One child needs almost constant one-on-one support. And there's no extra help because who has the funding right now to have a ton of extra staff in their buildings? We just don't. Everything is stretched thin in childcare right now. So there's not a lot of extra help. So we have this one teacher with five toddlers and a child that needs one-on-one, really. So now that teacher is managing the safety of all the children in the classroom, supporting behaviors, trying to make sure they are in ratio and doing everything that they can. Obviously, ratio is a big deal. Do not go out of ratio. There's my little plug. Um, then they're documenting everything because we expect that now. We expect the app and all of the updates, and parents expect it like right now. Um, so we're doing all of that too, and communicating with all of the families, all of that at the same time. And by the end of the day, how does that teacher feel? The teacher feels inadequate, they feel like they didn't do enough, the other kids didn't get enough. And the child who needed the support the most, she didn't truly get to give them what they needed either. That's the part that's hard to say out loud. Without support, no one is actually being served well. So it's great. Inclusion's great, and it's great that states do not want you to expel children. I completely understand. However, there's a breakdown in the system, like there often is in this field, it seems like we've all been there. So, what do we do? Let's talk about the emotional reality, and this is where I want to sit for just a second. Because this isn't a staffing issue, it's emotional. Providers are walking around and carrying the guilt, the stress, the second guessing, the fear of licensing, the fear of parent complaints, and at the same time, they care deeply about these kids. Because we all know if we're not in this field, you know, to make a ton of money, we're in this field because we feel called to it. We feel like this is what we're supposed to be doing. We care deeply for each of the children in our schools. So when something isn't working, it doesn't really feel like a system issue. It feels personal, right? We take things deeply when we care deeply, and it feels personal. I know I've been in that position where I'm like, I should be able to handle this, I should be fine, and sometimes that's just not true. It's the hard truth. Here's the truth that we need to be willing to say. Inclusion without support, that's not inclusion at all. And honestly, it's something that we have said as a school to our licensing um people. They expect us in Indiana not to expel children. And I understand, but when we don't have the support that we need from licensing and other agencies, you're putting us in this impossible situation. The expectations don't meet the reality. Inclusion needs support, it's expectation right now without infrastructure. It's asking programs to stretch teachers' abilities, whole program abilities beyond what is actually sustainable. And then quietly blaming the program when it doesn't work. Who does that serve? It doesn't serve the program, it doesn't serve licensing, it doesn't serve the child, it doesn't serve the teacher, and it doesn't serve the rest of the classroom. Think about it. Have you been in the classroom with inclusive children that you're trying to help, but also dealing with parents that might not understand the biting issue or what is going on? And you can't tell them what's going on because that's confidentiality. All right, we gotta find this important balance, right? And let me just say this carefully because this matters. Children with higher needs deserve quality care, they deserve access, they deserve to be included. That is not the question here. The question is why are we placing that responsibility almost entirely on child care providers without giving them all that they need to do it well? When you first start a team member at your school, do you just throw them in a classroom on the first day? Or you try to make sure that you're supporting them and setting them up for success? Are we doing that same thing when we have inclusive children in our classrooms? Are we giving teachers the support that they need? How does that support come about? Lots to think about. What would real support even look like? Do we even know? So let's talk about that. What would it mean to actually have this work well? Not perfect, but better. Because nothing's perfect. We all have some give and take, right? We're talking about things like access to early childhood mental health consultants, maybe. Or maybe we could figure out a way to get quicker early intervention from the public school system. We need real ongoing training, not the one-hour modules that you set somebody in front of a computer and they click the space bar over and over till they can take the five question test and pass it without even thinking. And that is not the training we need. We need real ongoing training. We need flexible staffing and actual partnerships between the system that your state has created and the providers that are actually doing it. It's great to put all these ideals out there as far as state licensing ideas and things like that and how things should be done. But come back to me when you're in the classroom. And let's see how we think differently then. And honestly, even just being able to say, we need help, we need help in early childhood without fear of judgment or consequences. That's a big deal. How many times have you reached out to your licensing system and you were nervous about there being consequences versus help? That's a system breakdown. All right, let's give you some language we can use because I know someone listening is in this situation right now. We've seen it, we've heard it, we've been getting messages about it. And sometimes the thing is, the hard part is just knowing what to say. So when you're talking to parents, I think Lucy's children, you can say things like, We're committed to supporting you and your child, and we just need some additional resources to do that effectively. Maybe the family can provide a one-on-one to support your teacher in this situation. You don't know unless you ask. We need to work together to support the child effectively. You could also say things like, right now we are not able to safely meet all the needs without extra support. Maybe the parent would have an idea for support. Maybe the parent can come in for part of the day. We've had lots of different situations like that in our school. You could try saying, let's work together to figure out what support we need to put into place. We're not excluding the child. We're being responsible about the child we are taking in and making sure that we are adequately prepared to care and nurture this child in the way that they should be. Because if you're not, you shouldn't be accepting them. And that's just the hard truth. If you have five teachers to one or five children to one teacher in a toddler room, and you can't give that teacher the support they need to add an inclusive child into that environment, you should not be enrolling them. And that's hard to say, but that's the responsibility that comes with it and the truth. If you're in a space right now and you're trying to balance doing what's right, because we all want to say yes, we all want to take in the inclusive children, we all want everybody to have that environment where they feel they belong. But you got to remember, you've got to balance trying to do it what's right with what is actually possible in your environment. It's different for everybody. You could be an at-home provider with 10 kids by yourself. I don't know. But I can imagine having an inclusive child in that environment that may have some behaviors, it's going to be really hard to handle when you have nine other children in that classroom. And so you really need to think and evaluate the support that you have and the training that you've taken. We see you though. You're not alone. We see you. You are not failing if you feel like, you know, maybe you didn't get to sit with that child enough today. Maybe you didn't get to focus on the other children enough today. You're not failing. We see you. You're navigating a system that is asking a whole lot of you right now, and it's giving very little back to you. We can believe in inclusion, absolutely, and we can advocate for the support that inclusion actually requires. Both things can be true at the same time, right? Personally, we've had a lot of kiddos through our schools that have needed inclusion and have needed developmental preschool. And we've been able to give parents the right resources. Sometimes it's a great fit for us in our school. And sometimes we've accepted a child in, and it may not be the great fit that we were hoping. And it's okay to go to those parents and say, okay, now we need to have a plan. Make sure you're getting involved, you're getting, you know, the IFSP, the individual family service plan, or the IEP, the individual education plan. And you, as that child's provider, are getting those resources too from the parents and from the school system, and you're reading through it, and we're all working together. That's what's really going to support inclusion. All of us doing it together. So I'm going to leave you with this. And I'd love to hear about it in the comments. So please comment, like, and share, just as always. But how is inclusion showing up in your program right now? Are you having a lot more kiddos that are coming through the doors that need more of the inclusive environment? I know in Indiana we have been, and it's made it a challenge. What are you doing to help with that challenge? How are you supporting your teachers? So many questions. And I cannot wait to hear from you and hear exactly what you guys are doing because part of what works with what we do with Childcare Confidential is communicating and bringing providers together to come up with ideas together. We're all in this together. There's enough kiddos to go around. So, how is inclusion showing up in your program right now? And what support would need to exist in your program for it to truly work? Not just be on paper, but what about in real life? What about in the real classrooms? I would love to hear from you and I hope to talk soon. See you later. Have a great week, everybody. Bye.