Featured Speakers:
- Peter Mangione, Senior Director, Early Childhood Strategic Initiatives at WestEd
- Amber Morabito, PITC Curriculum Manager, Infant Toddler Care at WestEd
Moderators:
- Arlene Paxton, Director, Infant and Toddler Care at WestEd
- Elizabeth Crocker, Director, PITC Training and Certification at WestEd
Host:
- Danny Torres, Associate Director, Events and Digital Media at WestEd
Danny Torres:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the seventh session of our Leading Together series. In these 30-minute learning webinars, WestEd experts are sharing research and evidence-based practices that help bridge opportunity gaps, support positive outcomes for children and adults, and help build thriving communities. Today’s topic, A Responsive, Respectful, and Relationship-Based Approach to Infant and Toddler Care. Our featured speakers today are Peter Mangione, senior director of the Program for Infant and Toddler Care, or PITC, and Early Childhood Strategic Initiatives at WestEd.
We also have Amber Morabito. Amber is our PITC curriculum manager for Infant and Toddler Care. Thank you all very much for joining us. My name is Danny Torres, I’m associate director of events and digital media for WestEd. I’ll be your host. Now, before we move into the contents of today’s webinar, I’d like to take a brief moment to introduce WestEd. As a nonpartisan research, development, and service agency, WestEd works to promote excellence, improve learning, and increase opportunity for children, youth and adults.
Our staff partner with policymakers, district leaders, school leaders, infant and toddler care educators, family childcare providers, and others, providing a broad range of tailored services, including research and evaluation, professional learning, technical assistance, and policy guidance. We work to generate knowledge and apply evidence and expertise to improve policies, systems, and practices. Now I’d like to pass the mic over to Arlene Paxton, director of Infant and Toddler Care at WestEd. Arlene, take it away.
Arlene Paxton:
Thank you, Danny, and thank you for your introduction. My name is Arlene Paxton, and I am the director of Infant and Toddler Care at WestEd. And along with me today as moderator is Elizabeth Crocker, director of PITC Training and Certification. We’re pleased that you’ve been able to take time outta your schedules to be with us today and want to share with you a little bit about what you’re gonna hear. Many of you have heard us talk about the importance of relationship-based care for infants and toddlers, and today you’re gonna hear more specifically about what PITC means when we talk about responsive relationship-based care.
And you’re also gonna learn about a process that you can use in your daily practice. So on that note, I am gonna turn it over to Peter Mangione and Amber Morabito to get us started.
Amber Morabito:
Thank you, Arlene, and welcome, everyone. Thanks for being here. Arlene mentioned what our session will cover. I’m just gonna go in a little bit more detail here. We’re gonna start off by talking about what it means to engage in the responsive and respectful relationships with infants and toddlers, and not just with infants and toddlers, but their families. So we’ll give you a definition and some strategies for your practice when we think about engaging in responsive and respectful relationships. Next, we’ll move into how responsiveness and predictability can create a sense of security for infants and toddlers.
And we know that with that sense of security, that is how infants are able to learn and thrive. So we’ll talk about that. And we will end our session with talking about the impact of responsive relationships on learning and development for infants and toddlers. So what does PITC mean when we say relationship-based care? What’s important to note is that no matter where an infant is in their care setting, and there’s a variety of settings that these infants and toddlers are in, whether it be with their family, a neighbor, an au pair, a large family childcare, a small family childcare, a center, and we know that there’s different center-based care, campus care, et cetera, early headstart, the needs of the infants remain the same.
So the variety of the setting might change, but the needs are the same. Infants need to have a special close relationship that is predictable with their caregivers. So as you see in front of you, what they need is this feeling of connectedness and closeness. And it’s not only the infant, their families need to feel this as well. There are many competing demands throughout the day when it comes to caregiving. And throughout that, we know that young infants need to feel close and connected with their caregivers. It’s those caregivers that are moving about, but also are grounded.
So their infants know where they are, they can see them. If they’re mobile, they can crawl over to them. It’s that feeling of connectedness. Next, we know that young children definitely need to feel respected, not only them, but their families. Respectful interactions are things that, one, regarding and having that feeling and that value that, one, young infants need to be respected, but it’s also our practices. So it’s things like maybe before we wipe their nose, we say to them what we’re gonna do before we do the actual practice. So we might say, “I’m gonna wipe your nose,” or it’s the way that we hold them, the way that we describe the process of the diaper changing.
When we think about their families, when they drop their child off for care, are we greeting them by name? Are we being respectful of their family values and practices at home and trying to replicate that in the care setting? All of those things have this ability to help that child and family feel affirmed, feel valued, seen and known. Next, we talk about responsiveness, this idea that when the child has a bid for our attention, we are responding to their verbal and their nonverbal cues. And Peter’s gonna talk about in a moment what we mean by responsiveness, and get into that more deeply. But it is responding in a timely manner.
So if that child is crying, it’s responding in that moment. If we’re not able to get there physically, using our words to say, “I hear you, I’ll be right there.” Peter will walk us through more strategies in a moment. And then finally, that our care is predictable. So having this orientation around closeness and building a relationship, we’re able to learn our children’s routines, we’re able to learn their cues and provide care in a way that is predictable. We can anticipate that they’ll get tired at about this time, they’ll get hungry at about this time, and therefore be able to meet their needs.
I remember when I was in the care setting myself providing care for infants and toddlers, I moved into an administrative position, and I would give tours of their early childcare setting. And I had a parent once say to me, “Why is it that I don’t hear any infants crying in the infant room?” And I said to the parent, “It’s because the children’s caregivers are predicting their needs. The children don’t have to cry to get their needs met.” And so that is what we mean by predictable care. So Peter’s gonna walk us through a little bit more responsiveness.
Peter Mangione:
Thank you, Amber, and welcome, everyone. It’s great to have you with us today. I am going to pick up on this first idea that Amber talked about, which is being responsive is being timely in responding to the child’s verbal and nonverbal cues. And by timely, we wanna explore what that means. It doesn’t mean it has to be immediate, just this moment, rapid fire. That isn’t what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a promptness. We’re talking about being in rhythm with the child and going at the child’s pace, and picking up how to respond to that child.
Now, some children will be different temperamentally, and when they’re different, they may need a more rapid kind of response, and other children may need time to relate. So we wanna gauge by each child how that child’s responding to us and get in rhythm. A very important part of responsiveness is listening and observing. And the quality of doing that, I often think of Magda Gerber’s concept of empathetic attention, that we’re there, we’re present with the child, and we’re letting the child communicate to us, letting the child be. Sometimes the child is not ready to communicate and maybe giving a cue, “I need to focus on my play right now.
I like having you here with me, watching me, but I’m not ready for interaction.” Other times, it will be a readiness for interaction. If we’re listening, observing, taking the child in, being with that child moment by moment, we’ll know when that child needs a response from us. This quality comes from spending time in a relationship with a child. It doesn’t happen all at once, but when we’re caring for an infant, what we want to do is deepen that relationship over time. Learn from each other how to engage, what the child’s cues are, what the child’s interests are.
I often think about, actually, I’ll tell a little story. I was looking at some video of my daughter when she was about eight, nine months old, a little older, 12 months, with my daughter now, who’s an adult. And my daughter said something, and I knew right away in the video what she said. And my daughter looked at me and she said, “How did you know what I said? I have no idea what I said in that video.” And I knew because of the relationship, I knew because we had spent time together building that relationship and really became familiar with each other and had that deep understanding.
Nurturing and affirming, that’s such an important quality in being responsive. Ron Lally, who was the founder of the PITC, he came up with this very simple list, which I think gives us some insight into what affirming means. He asked the question, “What does a baby learn, what does the infant learn from interaction?” And he had simple responses. He said, “The infant learns, ‘I am listened to or I am not.’ The infant learns, ‘What I choose to do is accepted or isn’t.’ The infant learns, ‘How I express emotions is accepted or it isn’t.’ The infant learns, ‘I am allowed to explore, to follow my interests, or I’m not allowed.’ And the infant learns, ‘My needs are mostly met or they are not.'”
If we are answering yes to this, and think about how powerful that yes response, that responsiveness, that we’re paying attention to the infant and we’re responding in a way that’s in rhythm, that’s appropriate to what the child needs to us, that’s connected, that’s affirming the child, that’s nurturance. And then the last point here is, we wanna be predictable, and the next four words are very important, most of the time. We don’t wanna set a standard for ourselves that’s impossible, and that is to be perfectly responsive.
A lot of times, not a lot of times, sometimes we’re just not going to be able to pick up on what the child needs from us. Sometimes we’re going to have to attend to something else. Ideally, we’d limit the amount of time we have to attend to something else, but there will be those times. And this is an important learning for the infant. Daniel Stern, a psychiatrist who did a lot of infant research years ago, would say that’s part of learning what it means to be in a relationship, that we learn about this, that we’re going to mostly get our needs met if we’re in this kind of nurturing, responsive relationship, and we learn that relationships are not perfect. And that’s a very important learning in life.
So this is the essence of what we mean by responsiveness. And what I’d like to do now is go to the next slide and talk about a process, what we call the responsive process in the PITC, to help people do this. Now, everyone can work on this, no matter where you are in a relationship with an infant, no matter how much experience you’ve had in the field, I think these three steps are very helpful. The first step is watch. And if we think about that listening, observing, taking in the child, being in rhythm, giving that empathetic attention, that’s what we’re talking about by watching. It’s taking the time to find out what the child’s cue is, what the child is communicating to us.
And then the next step, we named it ask. And by ask we mean, yes, asking the baby. It’s both non-verbally and verbally communicating to the child, “I’m interested, communicate to me, let me know what you’re trying to communicate to me. What is your message?” But it’s also asking yourself, it’s a reflective mindset, if you will, that, “I don’t know what this infant needs from me right now, I don’t know what interest this infant is expressing right now. What is it, I wonder?” I try to find out. And so it’s that’s attitude of inquiry and discovery which is so important in this process.
And then finally we get an idea. We think, “Oh, in this moment, this is what the baby needs from me,” and we adapt, we give a response. And sometimes our response is exactly in tune with what the baby’s message was, and sometimes it isn’t. And when it isn’t, what do we do? We continue watching, asking, and we adapt again. So that’s how we work this responsive process. It is a cycle that we are always going through, and it’s grounded in that presence of being with the baby and really trying to deeply understand the baby in this moment and what that communication means. I’m going to now ask Amber to talk a little bit about the benefits of this kind of experience.
Amber Morabito:
Thank you, Peter. So as you’ve heard Peter speak about responsiveness, and we talked about that affirming piece, and we talked about what that does, how we show up in responsive ways for the child, I want you to think about the last time you felt seen, known, or heard. Give you a moment. Hold on to that, and that feeling is what happens for young children when they feel that their person that is taking care of them really knows them and sees them and heard them, it’s really a gift. And so that’s one of the benefits, to know that, my person knows me.
She knows I like my bottle this way, or she heard me when I cried or when I whispered her name. And next, it’s that sense of belonging, that I have a place here. This is my safe place. These are my people. And I will note we’ve been talking about the benefits for the child, but it is a parallel process because it’s also the benefits for their families. When we’re responding in ways, responsive ways to the children, we should also be responding in responsive ways to their families, help them feel seen, known, and heard, and create a sense of belonging for them as well.
It also provides that sense of security, trust, and competence. And what’s important about competence is that it plays into this idea of security and trust. “Do you know how to take care of me? Do you know what I like?” And when we think about the family, families need to know that you are gonna keep their children safe. They need to know your competencies as well. And when, and the research supports this, when young children feel that sense of security and trust, they then are more confident to explore, branch out, and do their learning. Once they’re mobile, they might crawl away from you. They might look back to make sure you’re still there, but they have that sense of trust and confidence.
I often do a lot of coaching all over the country, and I talk to many educators doing the work with young children, and I ask them to think about the last time they transitioned a young child into their care. And we talk about how there’s such a progression from the moment that child starts until we can maybe assess that they’re a little bit more comfortable. On that first day, that first week, maybe they’re not eating as much as they used to, that our families told us that they did.
They’re not able to nap, maybe they’re not engaging. And so over time, when they have that sense of security and more trust and they’re confident, we start to see them engage more, interact in ways that their families have told us on their intake forms that they do, et cetera. Okay, so we’re gonna move to a quote that Peter has brought to us.
Peter Mangione:
Thank you, Amber.
Amber Morabito:
You’re welcome.
Peter Mangione:
This is a quote from an article that Ron Lally and I wrote together, and I’d like to highlight a couple points from this quote. One is an idea that Amber mentioned, which is really getting to know the family and knowing the child’s whole experience. And the child has experience with us in our programs, in our early learning and care settings, and the child also has experience with the family in the community. We wanna learn from the family about that whole experience of the child. What language or languages is that child experiencing? All of that’s going to have an impact.
The next point is, when we think about our interactions and being responsive, we want to focus particularly on the emotional tenor. Babies, infants, young children are particularly sensitive to the emotional tone that we convey. So we wanna be self-aware. What are we communicating to the child? What is our emotion in this moment? And it is that openness to ourselves and awareness to ourselves that will help the baby learn from us. All of this influences the developing brain. And if we give attention to these factors, we will provide the kind of caring relationships that help the child feel secure and open up a world for the child to explore and learn.
And I want to close with the thought about that whole experience being essential to learning, and that whole experience is grounded in relationships and is especially powerful if those relationships the child experiences are responsive, because what we know is that the child’s intellectual development, their language development, are first stimulated by their early experiences with the people caring for them, and that early experience is at its heart emotional. And that’s what the baby is attending to, first and foremost.
And finally, we know from all the research that early experience, that the baby’s growth in intellect and knowledge and language is all based on those first experiences, built upon that foundation. And it’s those early interactions that will make a great difference in the child’s life, in the moment you’re with the child, and then as the child continues to develop and grow. Let’s now move, Amber and I have been sharing our thoughts, we’ll hear if you have some questions for us, and we can have a little bit of conversation.
Elizabeth Crocker:
Hi, Amber and Peter. While we’re waiting for questions to come in from everyone that’s joined us today, I’m just curious, Amber, does the type of childcare setting impact the priority of building and nurturing relationships with each child?
Amber Morabito:
Thank you, Elizabeth. The quality, no, absolutely not. The type of, we talked about that there could be various varieties of the care setting, and the answer is no. The quality of relationships the child has with their caregiver transcends the care setting. The quality of the relationship should be at the foundation, no matter the care setting. Now, I will say, the strategies for establishing the nurturing relationships with the child and their family may vary. And this makes sense because, for example, in a large group setting, Peter talked about time.
It may take more time, because there’s more children, there’s more staff. And the strategy that we hope we would see in a large group setting might be things like primary caregiving. So we have a smaller group size, so a smaller group of children and families to get to know more deeply. We would hope to see the practice of continuity of care. So it’s that relationship over time deepening. So the deepening and then the continuity over time. And then things like if we, because if we think about the different settings, like I talked about family, friend and neighbor, we might have a smaller group. So it’s really, again, the relationship, the priority to the relationship should always be the priority.
I will also add that it’s also important that the environments are set up in a way that this is possible, that the foundation of building these relationships continues to be possible. So simple strategies like making sure we are knowing all the families’ names and having moments where we can check in at the beginning of the day and the end of day, these type of practices absolutely help. Establishing other practices, like individualizing care, prioritizing a deep curiosity about knowing the child’s family’s culture. And we know that culture is very much their family’s values and beliefs. All of these things will support establishing nurturing relationships.
Elizabeth Crocker:
Thank you, Amber. And we have a question in the Q&A from Joyce. She’s asking, “In group care settings, what it is the most ideal caregiver-kiddo ratio, especially in a setting where infants are all seeking attention of the caregiver, to be held, needing it at all at the same time, especially when they are pretty new to the program, coming from one-on-one attention at home, and they have to be now present with three to four children?” Can you talk about that transition and the ideal ratio?
Peter Mangione:
Sure, thank you, Elizabeth, and thank you Joyce for the question. We recommend in the Program for Infant and Toddler Care a group size for those young infants of, I’m sorry, a ratio of three and a group size of of six, so that there would be a very small group. For the very young ones, I’m talking about children five, six, seven months of age. And then as they get older, the group can get a little bigger. We would maintain that ratio at that older toddler age, let’s say starting around 20 months, take a child 20 months, 22 months, we think one to four can work and group sizes of 12.
And the question of children all needing attention, I think it’s true when a child first enters a program and is starting a relationship with a care educator or care provider, that that child needs very focused attention. But over time, I think what children learn is that you’re present and you’re available, you’re emotionally and physically available when they need you to be emotionally and physically available. If we can provide the kind of responsiveness that Amber and I have talked about today, it helps children learn that you might not be able to come right now, “But I know you’re here, and you will be responsive to my interest, you will be responsive to my need. You’ve done that consistently for me.”
So one of those life learnings that we don’t get everything every moment we need, I think children can learn that. The other thing we need to keep in mind is those infants and toddlers have very active brains, and they’re set about learning. And if they feel secure in the situation, and they feel like you are there for them emotionally and physically when they need you, then they’re going to do their exploration because they have so much learning and skill building to do, and they delight in it when they feel secure.
Elizabeth Crocker:
Well, thank you for that, Peter. I’ve learned so much today. And at this point in time, we’re gonna hear from Danny Torres.
Danny Torres:
Thank you, Elizabeth. For those of you interested in our upcoming PITC offerings, we have four opportunities from August, 2025, to May, 2026, both in English and in Spanish. And these include the PITC Curriculum Implementation Cohort, the PITC Group Care Course, the PITC Program Assessment and Reflection System, and the 2025-2026 PITC Virtual Training Institute. You can learn more and register online at pitc.org. And feel free to reach out to Amber and Peter via email if you have questions about the work we discussed today. You can reach Peter at P-M-A-N-G-I-O @wested.org and you can reach Amber at A-M-O-R-A-B-I @wested.org. There’s still time to register for WestEd’s 2025 Summer Professional Learning. We have a range of offerings, including the PITC offerings I just mentioned. We share insights and research-based practices to improve teaching, leading, and learning. For more information about our summer professional learning opportunities, visit us online at wested.org/summer-2025-professional-learning. And finally, you can sign up for WestEd’s email newsletter to receive updates, subscribe online at wested.org/subscribe, or you can scan the QR code displayed on the screen here. You can also follow us on LinkedIn and Bluesky. With that, thank you all very much. We’ll see you.