Peter Mangione: Bringing Knowledge from Research to Practice
By Pat Blakeslee

What does it take to ensure success for every child? How can we better support parents and other caregivers in their efforts to provide safe and developmentally enriching environments for infants and toddlers? How do we assess the programs in place to foster early childhood development?

These are the kinds of big questions that Peter Mangione ’79W (Mas), ’80W (PhD) grapples with in his role as co-director of WestEd’s Center for Child and Family Studies (CCFS). A specialist in early childhood development, Mangione has devoted more than two decades to developing and evaluating programs designed to help infants, toddlers, and preschoolers get a healthy start in life. The CCFS Web site notes that the quality of American infant/toddler care is so low that 40 percent of it actually endangers the development of our youngest children. Combating this trend by improving access to quality child care for all infants and toddlers is central to the Center’s mission.

This is the kind of goal—one that brings the knowledge gained from research to practitioners in the field—that attracted Mangione to WestEd (then called FarWest) in the first place. WestEd is a nonprofit agency dedicated to improving education at all stages of life through research, development, and service. A consulting job with the agency led to a permanent research position and an ongoing collaboration with Ron Lally, with whom Mangione now codirects CCFS. In keeping with the Center’s primary goal, he and Lally have led the development of the Program for Infant/Toddler Caregivers (PITC), one of the nation’s most important training curricula.

“Research shows that an educated and trained caregiver does a better job,” says Mangione. “There’s a lot more to school readiness than knowing a few colors and a few sounds,” he adds. “All infants need responsive relationships with people who really understand who they are, recognize their individual needs, and facilitate learning by encouraging them to participate.” Developing trusting relationships takes time and continuity of care, both of which are lacking in many child care situations, he says. High turnover of staff and too-large child care groups are limiting factors for many organizations.

The PITC training system, being used statewide in 11 states, includes 16 training videos (with a new one in the works), seven curriculum guides, four manuals, and instructor training institutes. Mangione has been involved at every level of the program’s development, including creating content, writing scripts, editing guides, overseeing production, and teaching at training institutes. He also is overseeing a comprehensive study of program implementation in California to assess its impact on the quality of infant/toddler care.

This is one of several initiatives he juggles, with help from a staff of 60, while sharing management responsibilities at the Center with Lally. He is currently collaborating with the University of California at Berkeley to develop an assessment tool for infant/toddler care programs for the State of California. He also serves as board chair for the Child Care Law Center in San Francisco and is a consulting editor for the Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Mangione says he enjoys being at the intersection between theory and practice, engaging theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners in the process of developing and implementing programs that have the potential for a big system impact. “Our goal is to improve practice by bringing the knowledge gained through research to practitioners in the field,” he says. Finding a language that makes concepts accessible without compromising their integrity can be challenging, he admits. But, then, what job worth doing isn’t?