Infants, Toddlers, and Caregivers: A curriculum of Respectful, Responsive, Relationship-Based Care and Education, 10/e
Janet Gonzalez-Mena,
Napa Valley College Dianne Widmeyer Eyer,
Canada College
ISBN: 0078110343 Copyright year: 2015
About the Authors
Way back in the 1970s, Janet Gonzalez-Mena and Dianne Widmeyer Eyer met when they were both teaching early childhood education in a community college. The program focused on preschool even though infants and toddlers were starting to come into child care programs.
The two authors decided to do something about that problem. Janet became an intern in a program called the Demonstration Infant Program, where Magda Gerber taught her unique philosophy of respect and responsiveness for infant toddler care on which this book is based. Janet’s internship helped her earn a master’s degree in human development. In the 1980s Gerber and others created a new program called Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE), through which Janet was made a RIE Associate, the highest certification. Dianne completed a second master’s degree in special education, and together the two worked to expand the field of early childhood education to include infants and toddlers, special education, and family child care providers. Writing this book together was one of the things they did.
A few years later both authors became more involved with family child care. As director of Child Care Services for the Family Service Agency of San Mateo County, California, Janet supervised a network of family child care homes that served infants and toddlers as well as preschoolers. Under her direction, the
agency opened a new infant center and also created a pilot program of therapeutic child care for abused and neglected infants and toddlers. Dianne worked with the Child Care Coordinating Council of San Mateo County to develop a training program for family child care providers at Cañada College. This curriculum also models the Gerber philosophy of respect and responsiveness for infant-toddler care.
Janet went on to teach at Napa Valley College, retiring in 1998. Today she continues to educate infant-toddler caregivers in different settings. She trains trainers in WestEd’s Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC) and speaks at conferences in the United States and abroad. As a longtime (43 years) member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Janet served two terms on the Consulting Editors Panel. She worked on a Head Start project to create a user’s guide for their Multicultural Principles. Janet is becoming an internationally recognized author as some of her books are translated into German, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew. Janet belongs to the California Community College Early Childhood Educators, BANDTEC, a diversity trainers’ network, and serves on the board of Pikler/Lóczy Fund USA.
Dianne continued teaching at Cañada College, where she developed several curriculum specializations in early childhood education and child development, including children with special needs, family support, “Safe Start” violence intervention and prevention in the early years, and home-based child care. She has been a member of NAEYC since 1970. Dianne retired from Canada College in 2005 after 36 years of teaching and 27 years as the ECE/CD Department Chair. She continues to coordinate a grant, which she wrote in 2000, with First 5 San Mateo County to support the early childhood education (ECE) workforce by recruiting and retaining teachers in the early care and education field.
The current interests and passions of both authors still relate to education. Dianne’s interests involve supporting literacy skills for adult second language learners and providing specific supports related to career development for the diverse population in the ECE workforce. She was able in 2010 to extend the First 5 grant; “Bridges to Success” creates a curriculum specialization in “school readiness.” There is also expanded outreach to support “ready schools” in the community. In her “downtime,” Dianne enjoys hiking, gardening, and music. Janet’s up-close and personal interests lie in her grandchildren including her
young granddaughter Nika, “a RIE baby,” who is now 7 and her 16 month old grandson, Cole. She also speaks around the country and sometimes abroad about Pikler, Gerber, and RIE. Her grander pursuits involve working with early educators and others around diversity and issues of equity and social justice.
2015