What is your educational background?
I have a Bachelor's in Early Childhood Education some graduate in Early Childhood Special Education coursework in special education. I am also going through the process of including children with special needs, working with children from protective services backgrounds, and running a migrant preschool program.

What other experiences, or staff development has prepared you for inclusion?
I direct the child care. I am responsible for enrollment, tuition and payment, supervising the teachers on site, and meeting with parents of child care issues.

What is your role regarding the inclusive component of the program?
As we have provided more care to children with special needs, I have had to find more training opportunities for the staff so they can become more specialized and more comfortable with children with special needs. Moving into the team teaching concept has made significant changes in the program but has also created new challenges. Our program has been able to upgrade the level of professionalism in the staff because of the inclusion program. There are ongoing conflicts with all teams, most related to differences in philosophy and lack of communication. There is always a time constraint for all staff involved. The members of the teams must make a real effort to make sure they take time for weekly planning meetings. This helps with a lot of the issues. I have to make sure I communicate with all members of the team and not assume that they have the time to talk to each other to share information. There are different needs for each program. Some of it relates to schedules and days that programs are open and transportation is very necessary

What were your biggest concerns about participating in an inclusive program?
I think by biggest concern was fear of the unknown. We did not have a model for this program and we didn't know what it would or should look like. We have continued to make modifications throughout the years and change is always difficult. If we could have talked to other programs prior to this, we might have known what some of the issues would be and could have avoided those. The staff have to be committed to the idea and understand why the program is moving towards inclusion. Without the staff's support and willingness to try new things, the program would not work.

What were your experiences related to these concerns once inclusive services were implemented?
I think there were even more issues, ones I never dreamed of. When we first started the inclusive program, many of the staff and children were coming from a hospital setting. They were not used to having children in classrooms with 18 children. The staff and children were often sick that first year and begin to blame it on the building. After discussing this, we came to the understanding that the children and staff were being exposed to a lot more germs and that with good handwashing we could hopefully cut down but that kids would get sick! We used a lot of nursing assistance for the children with medical issues. This was brand new tout staff, usually children were sent home and they had limited experience caring for children with a variety of medical issues. The nursing was very valuable.

What do you see as the benefits of moving toward inclusive services?
First of all, children are being given an opportunity to learn with their peer models. I think that the social/emotional development of all children in the early childhood setting is the most important component. Children need to see normal behavior in order to develop socially. The friendships between children and the understanding that develops is extremely important to me.