Written for practitioners who must supervise early childhood staff from a wide variety of educational and cultural backgrounds, this book provides guidelines and practical suggestions for staff training and development in early childhood settings. Part 1 challenges myths regarding supervision to ease the burden under which supervisors carry out their work, and describes various types of early childhood programs and their personnel. Part 2 explores the development of supervisors and supervisees, their relationship to each other, and implications for planning supervisory approaches. Part 3 offers basic information and suggestions for observing, holding conferences, and evaluating staff within the context of a clinical supervision approach. Part 4 examines significant issues that affect staff morale and effectiveness, presents suggestions for designing various types of staff development and training, and includes some specific tools for putting these plans into practice. Each chapter includes exercises for applying the concepts covered in that chapter. Three appendices list recommendations for responding to linguistic and cultural diversity, organizational resources, and CDA competency goals and functional areas. (Contains approximately 180 references and an index.) (KB)