Behavior support specialist offers unique benefits to Expressive Beginnings Child Care

At the three Expressive Beginnings Child Care locations in the Rochester area, serving children with behavioral challenges is a priority.

Our behavior support specialist is a resource for all three centers to assist with children who require behavioral supports.

She observes in the classrooms, creates individualized plans to help the teachers support the children, works with the teachers on implementing the plans and provides training and coaching for the teachers.

This is a huge benefit for the teachers, as it gives them a resource who has specialized training in supporting children with challenging behaviors.

Behavior support specialists have been instrumental in working with children to navigate the waters of limiting the spread of Covid-19, and it’s work that continues.

A toolkit for supporting children around mask-wearing was developed last year by licensed psychologists at the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center. It has great ideas for ways to encourage children to wear masks — and to keep them on.

These ideas from behavior support specialists are important in helping manage the spread of Covid-19.  Compared with adults, children and adolescents who carry the coronavirus are more apt to be asymptomatic (never develop symptoms) or have mild symptoms. While children are less likely to develop severe illness or die from Covid-19, they can spread the coronavirus to others when they don’t have symptoms or have mild symptoms — when it might not be obvious that they’re infectious.  In addition, it’s still not known how Covid-19 might affect children over the long term.

For children attending Expressive Beginnings Child Care, as those over the age of 2 continue to wear masks, the support of experts is designed to make riding the “coronacoaster” a little less scary.

Because of our success with serving children who need some additional support, local school districts and therapists frequently refer children to Expressive Beginnings.

When you’re comparing child care opportunities, be sure to ask whether the center you’re considering offers the expertise of a behavior support specialist.