Building on Teachers’ Experiences With the Desired Results Developmental Profile to Advance the California Infant Toddler Workforce

The infant and toddler years are like no other, with children experiencing rapid, individualized changes influenced by the people around them. Infant and toddler teachers have a unique opportunity to assess children’s developmental paths and resource needs, yet they typically lack the training and resources to do so well.

These gaps may prove especially problematic in California as the state rolls out Transitional Kindergarten to all 4-year-olds, leading early education providers like Head Start to pivot to serving infants and toddlers.

This brief presents opportunities for California to strengthen the Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP) for Infants and Toddlers, a mandated assessment tool, by shedding light on challenges to implementing the tool and interpreting its results. Findings stem from a study codesigned by JBA, Tipping Point, and three grantees in California’s Bay Area. For example, teachers—

• Reported being unable to capture the full range of behaviors and developmental milestones for each child
• Found themselves having to infer or extrapolate ratings from limited observations due to low attendance
• Expressed a desire for flexibility administering the DRP, such as allowing for extensions or modifications to the assessment timeline

Focus group participants also reported insufficient assessment training, education, and prior experience among applicants for infant toddler teacher roles.

The brief concludes with a call to action for boosting workforce development among infant toddler teachers. Suggested strategies include—

• Increasing funding to provide enhanced training focused on infant toddler quality of care
• Prioritizing infant toddler workforce improvements by implementing equitable wages and promoting multilingualism
• Including infant toddler teachers in designing workforce development improvements to increase the quality of child outcomes
• Strengthening family engagement in DRDP assessments through improved teacher training