The Team:
The classroom teams are the backbone of instructional collaboration at St. Ben's. Building collaborative teams is a process that takes time and energy. Finding the time for effective team development requires support at the administrative level to make certain team members are available to meet together. Team members need time to develop a willingness to trust each other and work together on strategies to meet children's needs. Some ideas may be new to an individual member; you need to trust the people you work with to be able to commit to following unfamiliar ways of doing things.

At St. Ben's, primary teams consist of the early childhood regular education teacher and assistant teacher, the early childhood special educator and paraeducator, and the speech therapist. Other members of an individual child's instructional team may join a meeting as needed; these may include the behavior specialist, occupational therapist, audiologist, physical therapist nurse, social worker, language interpreter, foster care worker, etc. The director of the Center is also available for assistance and consultation as needed and is often a valuable link to facilitate communication with parents.

The Team Meeting:
Team meetings provide ongoing opportunities for members to plan daily classroom lessons, share ideas, vent frustrations, identify problems, brainstorm solutions, and structure strategies. It takes time and trust to develop relationships that allow each member of the primary team to communicate openly and honestly about concerns. We meet as a group each week for a minimum of 45 to 60 minutes during the children' naptime.
Our weekly agenda is as follows:

Discuss successes and failures of the week

Child specific issues/strategies to use

Lesson Plan for next week(s)

Wrap up: who will prepare/provide materials for lessons/strategies

Each team member receives a copy of the lesson plan for the upcoming week and 2 are posted in the classroom.

Team Problem Solving Strategies:
While it is easy to mouth the words "teamwork" and "respect", they can be difficult concepts to bring to life on a daily basis. In the childcare collaborative setting there are compounding issues that can make this even more difficult. Differences in levels of education and training, differences in cultural backgrounds and expectations, differences in length of experience in the workplace and/or working with young children, differences in the amount of time spent each day/week with the children in the classroom, differences in wages and other compensation, differences in age/gender/family situation and life experience can all work for or against the team process.

Having stated the above, we can demonstrate that when all members of the team view each other as equals (we all know something about the children in the classroom), as professionals (we are all here to do the job of nurturing the growth and development of all the children), as valuable members of the team (not one of us knows everything, each of us has valuable information to contribute about the children in the class); then we set the stage for open and honest communication. We listen to each other and respect other's feelings and ideas. We honesty express our own concerns and work together to constantly meet the changing needs of the children.

Roadblocks to Teamwork:
We have only been together as a team for two years and our path has not always been smooth. Over the past two years our team had dealt with staff who:
1. Were preoccupied with their own agenda.
2. Were too busy with other "stuff' to join the meeting.
3. Did not listen to other team members.
4. Made comments that were not about the subject under discussion.
5. Did not offer ideas or contributions.
6. Assigned or evaded "fault" and became defensive when problems came up.
7. Were unable to move on to answering the questions "What do we need to do so that this won't happen again?" or "What will we do when this does happen again?"
8. Had difficulty following behavior management plans.
9. Were unable to stay on task with the children in the classroom.
10. Were not open and honest in expressing concerns about classroom issues.
11. Complained of the workload, but had a hard time organizing and delegating tasks to others.
12. Engaged- in inappropriate behavior management.

Our team brought these and other issues to our meetings as general classroom or team issues. The focus remained the children and how we could improve our work with them. We avoided pointing a finger at any one individual. (NOT "Jessy, you were so busy talking to Jane out on the playground that you let Carlos beat up Jamal." Rather "Carlos really hurt Jamal on the playground yesterday; we all really need to make sure we're aware of all of the children and what they are up to when we are outside. How can we improve what we're doing?") This process allowed members to vent frustrations over situations and issues (not each other), identify problems and work toward solutions as a group. Sometimes issues were fully resolved or the situation at least improved. But other problems proved to be ongoing. If necessary issues and concerns were brought back to the table or became part of an ongoing dialogue. Despite the issues noted above we continued to demonstrate respect for each other in the team meetings and in the classroom. Using this process over time allowed us to identify strengths in each other that helped the team grow stronger. We were able to accept that we didn't need to be clones of each other to have an effective team. We could accept each other's weaknesses as well and provide support rather than constant criticism. Each member of our team improved teaching and collaboration skills and continues to do so.

Change in Staff:
When a team member left mid-year, the remaining members were able to keep the classroom on track minus a staff member for several weeks. We discussed, at a meeting before her arrival, not shutting her out because we were so used to working together. We all had to work through our feelings about the departing staff member both as Individuals and as a team. This helped us open the team to full participation by the new staff member.

We also had to prepare the children for the change in staffing. The departing staff member drew out a story of her new routine. Going from her home to "grown-up" school (college). She went over this several times before she left and we continued to use her drawings for several weeks to remind the children of why the change occurred. In addition, we drew a Circle Time drawing showing a "mystery" teacher. We asked the children to tell us what we could say to the new teacher. They came up with many ideas. We reviewed our story daily and used it to guide the children's initial interactions with the new staff.

Our new staff member was able to join a strong existing team. We all worked hard to allow her time to become acquainted and comfortable with the children and with each of us. She has quickly become a strong member of our team. Having a comfortable team process in place could be a help or a hindrance. Being open to new and different ideas and ways of processing within the team allows new members to join in with confidence.